I use to understand SEO and to do stable and organic optimization for any websites I own. However I must admit I've recently began loosing myself... in the SEO field. I have seen today a lot of very irrelevant and poor of information sites ranked high by Google on some popular web hosting related keywords.

So I'll be glad if we can have a meaningful discussion on the most important tools that improve the SE ranking of any given web page, including the Google page rank (it is not that I care too much of it, but most people do...).

i won't be able to bring much to the table except check out http://builtwith.com/ which, if i'm not mistaken, generates a decent free report.

I think for the most part they are the result of shady SEO methods (blackhat, spamming, etc.). Most of them don't last long because Google catches on and removes them.

If you want to legitimately have a good Google rank, it's just plain hard to do because of the long list of factors involved. You just have to keep optimizing, continually gain quality backlinks and wait... and wait... and... wait...

Whilst you work out your next move, why not start a blog, has seemed to work quite well for me to pull traffic and increase external linkage. So long as you have something decent to blog about anyway :-)

Keep reading http://seomoz.org/ that's where I'm currently learning, it's pretty interesting and very up to date.

A few sites I have bookmarked for reference are:

• http://www.linkvendor.com/
• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/
• http://www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/ranking-reports/

mattcutts.com/blog is one I have bookmarked also, definitely read that one.

Do it again and just follow rules of SEO, what google recommend for it.

Something else to consider when you're trying to get ranked in google and other search engines - don't try! Natural page flow is what you want for your visitors. if you have your text written so that users can read it, google will naturally include you. If you try to spam links within your text, google will pick that up and the entire site is in trouble then.

As stated earlier - try your hand with a blog. The more content you have, the more there is for search engines (and users) to find. This will also naturally generate site links when people reference to your site or particular article.

Matt Cutts is great. I've been reading that for a while now. I'd be really interested to hear what you guys have to say about Google's new site speed thing. Do you think that will make much of a difference ranking-wise? From what I've read it seems like people don't think it will, but I defer to you experts

Well, it only affects 1% of searches in English on Google.com, so there's a 99% chance you won't be penalized. Did I do my math correctly? I think there are other benefits to increasing your site speed though, aside from SERPS - and that is a better surf experience for your visitors, and hopefully more sales.

Indeed a good suggestion, Very useful tools and SEO guiding content!

Google is definitely making good changes to keep those blackhats away from the results. These days, SEO has changed a lot from the old tricks. Keeping yourself up-to-date with the latest change may be the right way to work with.

You are much better off hiring an expert in the SEO field. Then you can focus more of your time on managing your clients.

a small question here, is reciprocal link still important? or just backlinks will do?