If you contribute feedback to this thread, please keep your input on topic. I'm already aware of the importance of (from the top): Titles: Use content related keywords Other Meta Tags (keywords, description etc.): Use content related keywords Content: Should use most popular keywords within content Internal links: Should use keyword text links to other related pages on site, and quality external content related to the content Inbound links: From link partners and published posts on highly ranked blogs, zines etc. We should all be agreed on the value of links from link partners. Getting them is worthwhile, but they rank significantly lower than links within content, which even the more valuable links from published posts does not provide. The problem with all of this is that everybody we compete with does it. My current problem is that most of the sites with which I compete are not likely to be bumped from their position in the search engine rankings (realtor.com, mysanantonio.com, trulia.com and a few others), and the other real estate agency sites have professional SEO people managing their site promo and thousands of inbound links from link partners. Some also have inbound links from mysanantonio.com, because they made the news. Part of the reason for the rank of sites like realtor.com and trulia.com are due to the content grabbed by and links from the agency sites on pages not disallowed by the robots.txt or a robots meta tag. In doing so, they shaved room off of the top of the first page of the search engine hits for everyone. A little strategy I developed can help overcome the drawbacks inherent in getting more inbound links than the competition and the difficulty we may have getting links to our sites from top rated blog and zine posts. The strategy is even better that the last of these. Before I get into it, I have to rant a bit about the democratic nature of the internet. It would likely be difficult to devise algorithms that could subjectively rank content (until AI), but the very idea that inbound links will point to the best content is absurd. Links from link partners aside, too many Webmasters don't link to competitor sites and too many more either never heard of the site with the most relevant content. That said, there are two significant hurdles for anyone who uses my strategy. If your competitors are national or global in nature, you will have the most difficulty implementing the strategy. Getting anyone to take link exchanges seriously is difficult, especially if it involves working at it. The strategy is outside the box, and requires a bit more work, because it cannot effectively automated, like a link exchange--but it is a link exchange. That's where the similarity ends though: Optimizing Your Link Exchange One important aspect of this strategy is that the link pages not look like link pages to the googlebot and others. As simple as this is, almost no one seems to understand this. The search engine bots recognize links on link pages as links on link pages, because of the structure of most (all?) link pages, and the link does not score as highly as a link from a content page. To make a link page look like a content page in the algorithms: The page name and title need to be something other that "links" or "resources" It needs keyword and description meta tags And the links need to be structured like content, ie: Doonz Magazine is a [a href="URL1"]literary non-profit publisher[/a] of [a href="URL2"]traditional poetry and prose[/a]. In the example above, the brackets ([]) should of course be angle brackets (<>), and URL1 would point to the link partner's URL, and URL2 would point to a top ranked site where you will find an explanation of "traditional literary prose." The next important part of this strategy is to create a "special" links page in addition to your current page for link partners, say literary_publishers.html, where you would list those link partners who cooperate with you in implementing this strategy. On this page, you would dedicate an entire paragraph or two to describing the content of each link partner's site--with links to several of the features on the link partner's site. Ideally, your link partner should provide this for you, and you should likewise provide a content rich description of your site for the partner. Better yet, use two or more pages, and split the paragraphs between them. Each paragraph should of course have different context and use keywords and content related to the page title and meta tags. Doing this has the advantage of allowing for a short, context related list of keywords--which theoretically boosts the relevance of the content. Your link partner(s) would of course do the same for you--and benefit from it himself/herself. Only the search engine operators know this for sure, but a lot of the experts speculate that content with outbound links earns points itself. If this strategy is used by someone who does not use a script to automate their link exchange, the listing on the regular links page could also include a link to this page and the link partner's "special" link page(s). Doing so has only the value of pointing the search engines to your "special" links page(s), and may even have the effect of reducing the impact of your "special" links page. I don't do this. Whether you use a script to automate your link exchange or not, you need to point the search engines to your "special" links page(s). The preferred method would be to use keywords to embed contextual text links in your content pages--and a back-link to that page from the "special" links page. The links themselves should be within a paragraph with two or more sentences, and would look something like the following: Doonz Magazine, a [a href="URL1"]literary non-profit publisher[/a] publishes [a href="URL2"]traditional poetry and prose[/a]. The executive editor has a preference for [a href="URL_to_an_explanation_of_neoformalism.html]Neo Formalist Poetry[/a] and a decidedly negative reaction to the use of archaic language. Their requirements for [a href="URL_to_an_explanation_of_literaryshortstory.html]Literary Short Story[/a] submissions is provided on their [a href="URL_to_submissionspage.html]Prose Submissions page[/a]. The site provides further information about various [a href="URL_to_their_special_link_page_with_the_link_to_your_ literary_publishers_html.html]genre publishers[/a]with an interest in publishing a wide variety of writing styles and genre. The above example uses the keywords: literary, publisher, poetry, prose, Neo Formalist, Literary Short Story, submissions, genre, publishers, publishing and writing styles. That's rich content! Now, all the page needs are an appropriate title, and the keyword and description meta tags that compliment the content. Moreover, the page links to other pages with rich content, some of which links back to the content rich pages on your site. Assuming that you have link partners who have agreed to joining you in implementing this strategy, you will each need to edit the content provided by the other as follows: Include the links back to your content and "special" links pages in the paragraph(s) you provide for your partner, and you will need to add the links to the relevant content pages on your site--but only one link to each content page. Disperse these as well between several different paragraphs. This will help prevent each of the various link partner's "special" links pages from looking like a link farm to the search engines. Each of the various link partners should also provide significantly different input for each of their partners to avoid looking like a link farm. The search engine algorithms ID link farms by comparing content. Using more than one "special" links page further helps reduce the appearance of a link farm. As a suggestion for ways to provide significantly different input to avoid the appearance of a link farm, you could: Write a half dozen 2-3 sentence-long descriptions for your site and each page for which you want visitors. Change a few words within each description you have written. Change the order of the sentences in each paragraph. Change the order of the paragraphs. Write a half dozen 2-3 sentence-long descriptions for your "special" links page(s). Find several highly rated sites with content related to the context for the descriptive matter, and include links to a different one of them within the various different descriptions you are able to write by combining the above to create differentiable "content" for the "special" links pages. Finally, it may be best to also avoid having visitors to your site visit your "special" links pages to the extent possible. The links to them will be in your content pages, so some visits are inevitable, but you can keep visitors who find them in the hits of a Google (etc.) search. There are three primary reasons for doing this: First, you should already have a standard reciprocal arrangement with your links partners, where visitors to the site can find them if they like to browse links pages; second, most visitors would likely go to these pages expecting to find information that they will not find; finally, these pages are intended primarily for the search engines.Insert the following JavaScript into the <head> section of your "special" links pages: <SCRIPT LANGUAGE='javascript'>try { if (top == self) {top.location.href='defaultindex.htm'; } } catch(er) { } </SCRIPT> Change the href to either your default index page or your 404 page. You will also need to set some ground rules: Most importantly, your partners will need to include all of the above aspects when agreeing to participate. Your partners will need to solicit other participants with you You must each agree to cooperate with new participants who are relevant to your site content--but only those who are relevant to your site content. In example, let's take the kind of sites that I should include on my "special" links pages. I'm a real estate agent, so I would only want other real estate agency sites and sites with related content. These could include real estate businesses that specialize in property management, which gives me two separate "special" links pages, organically. I can further split my "special" links pages between things like "buyer's agents", "MLS access", "closing costs", "loan qualifying", "finding financing" and others. In addition to other real estate agencies, this allows me to use additional "special" links pages for mortgage lenders, which I can split into mortgage brokers and mortgage bankers--it's unlikely I will find a bank that does link exchanges. At this point, I'd like to digress a bit, and address any comment on the ethics involved in using this strategy. It is not a link farm, though care needs to be taken to assure that the search engine algorithms do not identify it as such. The reason that it might be mistaken for a link farm is that the participation will be limited, and unvaried without taking measures to differentiate each of the various listings. It is simply a more developed links page that has been designed to take advantage of several criteria needed to optimize a Web site's rank in the search engine hits. Now, all you need to do is to create content pages with rich text-link content throughout your site to be sure that they also show up in the search hits. You need it for your overall SEO strategy, because getting your "link partners" to cooperate in this strategy will be like pushing your car up a 15% grade. If you want it badly enough, it's worth the effort to get enough help to push it over the top though. Anyone out there in the real estate biz? Contact me, pard*. * pard means partner in Texas.