Link building plan

[echo1]

If you have only one SEO guy doing link building for you, 6-8 hours a day,with a budget of $1000 -$2000 what would be the best 5 things to concentrate on?
Based on personal experience, could anybody suggest a daily/weekly plan?

[RyanKent]

About half of your plan is great, and the other half...not so much.

If your plan is to create one article a month, it should produce a world-class article. Take a look at some of the SEOmoz articles produced by Rand, Cyrus and DrPete. Very clear information, well thought out which provide actionable and relevant information. You can't fit these articles into any of the measurements you proposed such as "300-500 words", "8-10 word headlines", "2-3 links", etc. These are not thoughts which you should have when writing the article. Those thoughts will box you or your writer in and lower the quality of the content.

With respect to your suggestion of looking for hot topics in your niche, yes that is a great idea.

It may be hard to actively participate in 10-20 blogs unless you have a very narrow niche and you are scanning the blogs, not reading them. For example if your site focuses weight loss, maybe you will read blogs on health, fitness, etc. and then only respond to the weight loss articles in which case I can see you being actively involved in 10+ blogs. If you take this approach be sure to remember your focus is to become a sincerely helpful member of the community. Most of your comments should focus the author, the topic, the community and not involve a link back to your site. When it is really relevant, share a link.

[echo1]

I agree. "Not too bad" is absolutely horrible. Your goal should be to build a world-class site.  I know it is not easy to create great content because we cannot be great at every single thing we do. In real life, sometimes we have to pick and choose. In the beginning, I did not have enough time to spend on the website but I needed to start somewhere.
-We have no broken links, the site is W3C compliant, we do not have e mobile version (mainly due to the fact that we did not have time to look into it and GA shows only a couple of people accessed our website through mobile devices). It will flow much smoother than before once we are done with the re-design. I know my website is not great but we are getting there.
The niche that I’m in (limo service) does not require too much content; what it does require is great pictures of our cars, competitive prices and an easy to use booking system. That is where I concentrate my efforts. I do need great content to gain links and now that I reach the point where I can spend around 6 hours a day in front of the computer I need to know where to focus more, what would be a good plan to get the word out.
I recently watched Rand talking about how evil low quality article marketing has become and I agree with him, we need to create great content for our customers although having a couple of great articles published it doesn’t mean the job is done. There is so much more than that.
 In a few words, this is what I gathered so far about article publishing:

Create great content, have it published on:

_- Your website (90% of the time)

• Other websites (10% of the time), good, solid, reputable PR sites_ Submit to sites like Reddit, Digg...
  Get the word out via Twitter, Facebook...

My site has a PR3, DA 45 and PA 34 (Homepage), I did not write any article or press release yet and I want to do it the wright way. I do not have any spammy links (not added by me anyway). I think I have submitted to enough directories and made useless blog comments and it is time to build some quality links.

Time permitting, this would be my plan:

1. Create one great article every month; by “create” I mean find a content writer in my niche/city, verify his work, integrate keywords to create an SEO friendly article; keep the headline between 8 to 10 word, body count 300-500 words, 2-3 links; Incorporate your keyword into the headline, subhead and first paragraph and the anchor text links to the most relevant page/s on my website, not just the homepage. We have some unique pictures and very informative videos that I believe will attract visitors. The question is: should I post just a fragment on sites like the ones Egol was mentioning (Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon...) and have the rest on my site or use somebody like PRWeb? Now, I have done some research about that and I found some of my competitors ‘articles on PRWeb but the links they have there didn’t pass much juice, the page where the article was published on has PA1; I mean I know their domain is very strong but is it worth it? There is no way of telling how much PA the page will have before they publish the article.  If I publish all articles on my site, does it hurt to have them published on other well-known websites as well? Any issues with content duplication? I mean, if you publish an article or press release on a huge PR site eventually they will appear across the web on lower quality websites anyway. On the other hand, there is a big chance that if you publish your kick-ass article on those reputable PR websites, you will probably gain more links than by having them on yours. What is your take on it?
2. Search Quora, Linkedin and other sites like it and create blogs around hot topic in my niche
3. Find 10-20 blogs and by being an active participant,  I might get a someone’s attention and eventually a direct link
4. Mix in some small to mid-size blogs. They have fewer comments (more link-juice per comment). I know blog posts get archived and fall off the link-graph (or at least get reduced in value). By focusing my commenting hopefully I will keep the links fresh, to some extent. A mix of home-page and deep links while keeping the anchor text looking natural.

This is where I am at this point. I guess I need reassurance from somebody that spends more than 30 minutes on SEO per day that, what I am about to do is wright.

[RyanKent]

Dan has offered a great reply. I would like to support and further what Keri shared.

We are in the process of re-designing the website to make it more user friendly but as it is right now, I think is not to bad. As far as the content goes, we need to make improvements as well.

You both mentioned EGOL so I'll share what I am pretty sure his response would be. "Not to bad" is absolutely horrible. Your goal should be to build a world-class site.

World-class does not have to mean you spent enormous amounts of money on the site itself. It means you have a professional look and feel to your site. The site itself should have no broken links, it should be W3C compliant mainly to ensure the pages look the same in all browsers, have a mobile version, have a crisp and clean look to it and flow smoothly.

Before you spend any money on link building put 100% of the focus on your site. Keep at it until you have reviewed the site over and over again with intense scrutiny on all aspects of quality. I know people who will look at a site and if the copyright date in the footer shows 2010 they will bounce. That's extreme, but often when working with a website you have very little information about how the company really operates. If you find any mistakes or errors on their home page then it is not unreasonable to conclude the site has sloppy business practices.

I start to think that there is no right or wrong in SEO just some general rules and lots of testing.

That is certainly true in some areas of SEO. There is a science of SEO which deals with rankings but there is an art to SEO which involves interactions with people. How SEOs choose to approach others and ask for links is artistic. At this point the scientific SEO says "no, it's still science! You try various methods, measure the results and work with the most effective solution". My response is there are both scientific and artistic components to solid SEO and the science is not hard-science like physics but a softer science like medicine (compared to physics).

[echo1]

The $1000-$2000 was the budget for link building per month and I am the link builder. We are in the process of re-designing the website to make it more user friendly but as it is right now, I think is not to bad. As far as the content goes, we need to make improvements as well. The content was written mainly for SEO purposes and it needs to go. We are adding some widgets, better pictures, better content...better everything. I want to start fresh.

Link profile: I have started link building about a year and a half ago, mainly with directory submission, some blog commenting and forums post (just a few). I did not know much about SEO but after I start using the information on this website I have seen positive results in a matter of months. I pulled my competitors backlinks profile using OSE, tried to get their links, sometimes it worked sometimes it did not. I spend some money on some big paid directories recommended by SEOMOZ, found other ones on my own.

I had to work and do SEO for my company ((echolimousinedotcom)) in the same time. It was very hard but I thought that, in the long run, it will be better if I learn from the best in the SEO industry and apply that knowledge rather than using an SEO company that I did not know what they were doing; I needed it to understand the process.

I have seen the backlink profiles of my competitors and I knew I could beat them and, in some case I did, quite easily. Majority of them has exact match domains and it is very difficult to outrank them without a very solid link profile. Now, I have spent many hours reading blogs on Seomoz and I am ready to take the next step and invest some money any time into real link building. The goal is to rank for a few very competitive keywords; all I need from you guys is some direction, where to start. I think part of my problem is that different people here on Seomoz give different kind of advice on the same matter; I do not know anymore who is wright. Maybe nobody, maybe everybody …I start to think that there is no right or wrong in SEO just some general rules and lots of testing.

I know who Egol is, I followed his posts and I think he gives great advice every time. If I could hire him I would but I know I can’t. So I study more. There is a lot of information floating around and I know content is still king but if my website does not rank well to be found by others, would not be better to have an article/press release published on a larger, more trusted website where it could gain more links than having it on my website? I am talking short/medium term until I get my website to rank higher then I will put all articles on my website. What is the benefit of investing $1000 in a press release/article publishing if you get 1 or 2 very good links from high ranking websites but in a matter of weeks your article/PR gets archived and loses the ability to pass link juice? Is this all about the money? The more money you have the better results you get? I mean, you have the knowledge but can you really make it to the top without investing a considerable amount of money?
Now I have time to study, give me something to do.

[KeriMorgret]

Some would say cough EGOL cough to spend all that money on killer content for your own site, and that the links would come naturally. Can you tell us anything about the site, and if you have good content in place, good site structure, etc?

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

I hate to use the "it depends on your situation" answer, but it really does. It depends what your link profile already looks like (an off-site audit would tell you), it depends what industry you're in and how the competition is, and it depends on your goals.

Maybe you've got a good idea of your existing backlink portfolio? And the competition?

I would highly suggest having a look at this resource on seomoz.  Eric Enge gives a fantastic overview of the entire linkbuilding process.

If you can give us some more info, perhaps we can give you a more customized answer.

-Dan

PS - At your hours vs pay, is this $1,000-2,000 per MONTH?  At 140 hours a month (35 hours a week), for $1,500 that's about $11 an hour.  I would highly suggest thinking about paying more per hour but finding someone who can do a quality job in less time. Unless I've assumed the math wrong