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What's your best hidden SEO secret?
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Work hard play hard and stay away from grey or black areas

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Hah hah. I agree with Richard. The mo community. And I'm also sympatico with Gianluca. Llong walks outside in the fresh air does wonders for my creativity. Ideas come easier.
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To make rest a project after a while. That pause will benefit your creativity, because your brain will work on it in the background without stress. When you return to the project, it will seems new somehow and those ideas your mind was breeding will come out with force.
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I have not been here long enough to have any 'hidden' secrets except SEOmoz

However, I do find that backlinks with great anchors really, really works well.
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That blackhat is a really poor long term strategy

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That one single hour in each day when I get in the "zone" and do week's worth of work in a single shot. Still figuring out how to extend that for the full 8 hours

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