Ok I have been reading up for the last several months about seo. I really do deep down want to do it all by myself, rather than going down the route of paying a company. It would be good for myself to learn. Is there any software out that really does make a difference in helping you do seo, if you pay for it this is fine, but something that really does help and isnt just a fancy looking peice of softare with little or no use. I understand things like how I should post to directories, I have manually posted to around 100 and so far been accepted for around 20 of them, also I plan to submit to paid directories, particulary ones related to my website. (Are these ones more beneficial because I see when you look inside the paid listing ones the page your site would be on has a descent pr, does this mean its regulary indexed by search engines, so its more beneficial being listed in a directory with some pr on the page rather than pr0. I have not yet submitted on any directories that require a link back in exchange, I need to find out a little about this, as I read about thinks like linking to a bad neighburhood and it can be damaging to your site. So I think this is something I need to learn a little more about. I did download IBP, it seems to be ok, its just trial version, so limited with what you can do, is this program adviced, is it helpful, any better ones. Any advice or help would be great...
Start off by getting links and them sumit to google and yahoo this is all that is needed. Add containt to your website once a week. summit to directories. thats about it. This will take a while have fun.
I personally dont use any software to help with SEO but I do use CMS packages for site building which are SEO friendly. As for directories I havent paid for one listing yet for the way I see it there is thousands of free directories out there and for the most part they only help your back links and not really good for driving traffic to your site. As for the link exchanges with directories its something I dont do because whats the point in having a site about apples with a link to a directory? Its not good for SEO because its not relevant. I try to submit to at least 10 directories a week and join forums that are relevant to my topic and contribute to the posts to help boost the back links.