Link-pushing, link-wheels, backlinks, link-pyramids, Edu/Gov links, Social Bookmarking, Forum Profiles, Blog commenting, Forum posting, etc. etc. the list goes on forever. And after looking at all these threads on various website marketing forums, I’m pretty much lost. Hoping someone can steer me in the right direction.

Business Site #1
Listed in DMOZ
Backlinks: 180
Domain age: 11 years
Keyword #1: On first page, #4
Keyword #2: On first page, #5

Search results: 2 Million
Searches a month: 3K

Business Site #2
Domain age: 2 years
Backlinks: 105
Keyword #1: On first page, #2
Keyword #2: On first page, #3
Search results: 2 Million
Searches a month: 4K

What service should I buy, my competitors all have 200-300 backlinks tops, nothing really stands out that would make them rank higher. All site pages are 100% optimized, new content, nearly perfect.., however I need a little more push.. Trying to be Google-Safe as well, but not sure what’s the next step? I want to buy a small SEO service off Warriorforum, etc but not sure which to choose.

Any help highly appreciated, as I’m afraid of picking some back-hat service that will get me banned, or de-rank my two sites fast.

99% of the SEO services on IM forums are shit. But I’m sure you know this already.

Everyone on the internet is an SEO consultant. "Guaranteed #1 in Google – 3 days – $75 dollars!"

Number of backlinks isn’t as important as everyone thinks. I regularly outrank websites with way more backlinks. You can get 5,000 blog spam/forum sig/etc. XRumer type links for like $50 if you’re concerned about number. Plus keep in mind not every page will show up in a backlink search, either.

Link wheels and all that shit is pretty worthless, too; especially the way most IM forum SEO service providers do them.

Basically, if the service is cheap "(LINKWHEELZ FOR $15!!!") or if the person offering it cannot quantify why his is better than the rest, it’s probably not worth your money. Oh, and if anyone tells you they have a secret contact at Google who is feeding them insider algorithm info, they are lying

But it looks like you’re in #2 position for one of your keywords… the higher you move up in the SERPs the harder it becomes to continue moving up. Going from page 10 to 5 is easy. Going from page 2 to 1 is harder. Going from position #2 to position #1 is hardest.

IMO, you should ask them for a trial period or atleast provide them keyword and ask them to improve its ranking and backlinks. If the results are effective then you can opt their services.

I disagree… sort of.

Say the client’s keyword is "forex." The time and cost required to improve the ranking for that word for a "trial" would be excessive for the SEO consultant. I don’t think anyone would agree to those terms.

You can verify backlinks to verify that the SEO guy actually does the work, and to verify the quality of the work/content, but asking for trial movement isn’t likely to provide you with any takers.

Upon verification, some SEOs might remove the links and/or redirect them to your competitors if you don’t follow up with payment. One thing good SEO guys have to deal with is people wanting to "pick their brains" for free or get work done for free, often disguised as a "sample."

At the same time, it’s probably frustrating for potential clients trying to find a *legit* SEO guy since there is so much bullshit and lies and salesy crap out there from people who suck but are trying to cash in on the "me too" SEO industry where everyone can make a buck 99% of the "for sale" forums on WickedFire, bhw, Warriorforum, etc. are perfect examples of this. "385.523% more effective linkwheel/pyramid/donut/whatever only $20!!!!"

I always lol @ those threads and the fools who fall for them. As if the person actually has the data to quantify that his technique is "385.523% more effective" More effective than what? What actually happened is he probably read some shitty rewritten eBook that he bought from a WSO and now thinks he’s an SEO expert

I can’t wait until Internet Marketing is a regulated industry

Falconer what tools do you use? I’ve used senukex which is good enough but keep hearing about scrapebox and xrumer.

None.

2-300 backlinks really aren’t that many. Do you have an EMD? Does your competitor that outranks you have an EMD? Neither of these are critical in ranking #1, but certainly help.

spin articles and create a 50+ link linkwheel out of the articles. I’ve never done this but logically it sounds like it would work. (I usually stick to normal handmade linkwheels) You’d essentially be combining the power of article marketing and the power of linkwheels into one.

services are shit, their links are shit, the sites they post on are shit. you’re better off harvesting your own high PR dofollow blogs. I’ve been using scrapebox with moderate success.

i do internet marketing, not affiliate.

Will respond to all the replies shortly, wanted to give an update. Have been adding a few backlinks and submitting to a few directories. Did even more page optimization, and the results have been promising. Didn’t buy anything either, or do anything other than three simple small things.

Should clarify before hand, I had the numbers wrong on in the first post. Here’s the correct BEFORE:

Business Site #2
Keyword #1: On first page, #4
Keyword #2: On first page, #5

AFTER:

Business Site #2
Keyword #1: On first page, #2
Keyword #2: On first page, #2

Now to figure out how to outrank the #1 spot, been spying on their site and seo for awhile now. But they only thing that makes them rank higher is they have 375+ backlinks over my site (400 total). My site only has 125+.

But I don’t get it.. We have better on page optimization, way more quailty & lengthy original content, more indexed pages, etc. All their pages are bare-bone too, we’re talking a small paragraph at MOST. Our pages (have more) are lengthy in content, 15x the amount of text. Same domain age, same everything, nothing that stands out. Time to work some magic, somehow..

If you went from 5 to 2 by adding a few backlinks and directory submissions, then continue doing that! It sounds like you may just need a few high PR backlinks from quality sites, and a little time.

How long have you been working at getting this site to #1? Are you inner linking pages? Just keep building links and you’ll make the jump. Continue optimizing your content. There is always something to improve upon or build. Upload some videos to YouTube with your link in the description.

Update:

I guess the tool I was using was wrong. Had to check multiple sites to confirm. Won’t be using SEO Power Suite anymore, it’s pretty sketchy on numbers. Finally got some right information.

The domain age of my site is 5 years old, theirs is 13 years old. , better news on the backlinks though.. We have 108, they have 228. Need 120+ to match them. Will update when we move to the #1 spot if it happens.

I think it would be easier if you told us what your site was so we could all take a look. I would highly advise against buying ANYTHING from warriorforum. If you want a top tier SEO community(with tools), then I highly recommend SEO Book. It’s a bit steep at 300/month, but the information you pick up from there(not just SEO) will more than pay for itself.

As for your domain age, it’s not a HUGE advantage based on testing and reading I’ve done. Don’t worry so much as to the quantity of backlinks versus QUALITY. Take a look at what some of your competitors are doing(use Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO) and then see if you reproduce some of the links they have – but don’t make this a huge priority.

Forget about going after the low quality links from Scrapebox/Xrumer, you’ll have an easier time(and feel better) doing shit like guest blog posts, running contests(niche dependent), infographics, and more. If you’re low on budget, one thing you can do is do a search for a target keyword and look for a site that has an outdated page and make it better. So let’s say I wanted to rank for ‘soccer tips’ and I found an outdated resource on page 1 of the SERPs, I can then use Open Site Explorer to see what links are coming to that page, and then create a better resource than that. Then I’ll go out and do outreach for people that have linked to this page. I’ll also go out and look for other people that have ranked to soccer resource pages and ask them to take a look at it and link to it. You’ll find that if you tailor your e-mails with a personal touch, you’ll get a lot more responses.

This is just one of many things you can do – I’m not saying don’t go with automation, but if you overdo it you WILL get filtered by Google. If this is a thin affiliate site, then by all means – blast it away. But if you want more long term results, I’d go with maybe 70% of legit stuff and 30% automation.

I prefer 70% automated, 30% legit. IMO, building manual links for competitive keywords requires to much time… It’s probably best to start out with manual links in the beginning to build a foundation but after that, I blast away. I don’t get much traffic though, maybe 500,000 page views/Week .. so take my advise for what its worth.

I think that all depends on what you’re trying to do. If I want to quickly pump out an affiliate site, then I agree with going 70% automated 30% legit. It actually doesn’t take me much time to pump out guest blog posts with the anchor texts that I want to target – it’s just a matter of doing it and refining the process.

But if you want a site that can last a long ass time and bring big money every year, take a look at two examples right here: or . Their focus is on creating remarkable content that people will naturally link to. You can then supplement this by blasting those links with automated links to boost their power.

That’s why I don’t use tools.

Get better tools.