We all fully know the countless different methods available to webmasters to follow in order to rank higher in the search engines. Most of the methods for increasing rankings need a considerable amount of cash and time in order to succeed.
While ebooks on SEO & link building increase the knowledge of users, they are very difficult to follow, as most of them focus on a limited number of techniques and force the user to totally revamp their SEO approach. Therefore, it is not surprising that readers get only minimal ROI from reading SEO books & courses.
In my opinion, the secret to ranking higher is having unique, quality content and high quality incoming links.
There is nothing more inviting to search engines than new, unique content published on your website. If you have a website which provides a unique product or service and publishes unique content consistently on its blog, you can be sure to have the search engines look at you favorably.
It is here that most affiliate websites face a very steep climb. Because their product and information is copied from another source, it is difficult (but not impossible) to rank higher. Affiliate websites normally gain rankings by having to spend a considerable amount on link building.
Unique content is very easy to publish if you tap into a new, profitable niche or if you effectively differentiate your business from your competitors. Because unique content is favored by the search engines, you can find articles, blog posts and free advice ranking much higher than a typical website homepage which provides the usual information.
If you manage to publish good quality content, you have won half the SEO battle.
The second part to attend to is link building. There is no question that links from high PR websites and pages are favored much more than links from low PR websites. Your focus should be to only get links from established websites, either through having a link exchange or paying for them.
High quality links go a long way in winning the SEO battle. I have seen websites with only 200 links rankings higher than websites with 3000 links simply because the 200-link website had a handful of links coming from extremely trust-worthy sources.
It is a good bet to start getting high quality links as soon as your website is up. In order to further support your rankings, starting a blog on your website and posting to it regularly is sure to help.