These techniques are very effective at making a site rank very high very quickly, pushing the more deserving sites out of their positions.  Fortunately for the rest of us, Google is continually updating their algorithms to counter theses techniques and it is effective.  These poor quality sites are dropped from the index and are banned just as quickly as they appeared.  Good news for the entire internet community.  The garbage is being cleared from search engines world wide and opening up new avenues for those of us who have quality relevant sites, deserving of Google’s attention.

If you pay someone for their SEO expertise, make sure they do not use any of the outdated black hat techniques.  Here are some examples.

• Stuffing keywords – placing your target phrase an unnatural amount of times in your content.  Even having your keywords placed on the screen but change the text color to match the background.
• Comment spamming – leaving comments on other peoples posts that actually provides no relevant quality information.  I have seen comments that were just “great post” with a link back to their own content.  This has become such a problem that websites now have the ability to do a “no follow” option killing the links from spammers.
• Reciprocal linking – this refers to intentionally linking to site A if they link back to you at site B.  This is not the natural flow of linking in the eyes of Google.  What naturally occurs is that you will link to sites, sites will link to you, but not every site will interlink.  This also includes purchasing links for your site.
• Meta tags – these were used to inform search engines what your site was about.  They included a description of your site and keyword information to help search engines place you in the results.  This was abused to the point where Google has gone on record as saying “the new algorithms ignore meta tag information”.  A prime example of abuse is when you search for “umbrellas” and get sites in the results that sale chocolate chip cookies.  Google is eliminating these garbage sites by using relevance to the content in order to list search results.

Now some “gurus” will tell you that links don’t help your seo efforts, but only the technicians at Google can say for sure and they aren’t sharing that information.  Even if it is true, the traffic generated from those links is absolutely guaranteed to improve your efforts, so either way nothing has really changed.  Continue with good quality links, comment on other sites blogs that are related to your keywords and for the love of the internet, DO NOT SPAM those sites.  Leave real comments about your thoughts.  I block 47 spam comments a day on this site alone, and I own a dozen sites.  The more comments are abused, the more chances blog sites will shut down commenting all together.

These QR codes come to us from Japan where they are commonly used to transfer contact information.  Chances are you have seen the codes in magazines, on billboards, a web page, a t-shirt or even on someones business card.  Imagine looking for a home and driving up to a house with a for sale sign.  Unfortunately the box with the realtors pamphlet is empty.  How do you know who to contact?  If there were one of these codes on the side of the box or on the sign itself, you could quickly scan it with your phone and have the realtors name, address and contact information in seconds.  I know it sort of resembles a bar code.  The reason why they are more useful than a standard barcode is that they can store (and digitally present) much more data, including url links, geo coordinates, and text. The other key feature of QR Codes is that instead of requiring a chunky hand-held scanner to scan them, many modern cell phones can scan them.  This new technology will become more and more used as the mobile trend grows.

1. Web Directories

This is one of the oldest and most widely used ways of building links.  There are hundreds of directories out there that you can submit your site to.  Some are free and some charge.  They usually carry a lot of PR and can greatly help your ranking.  The drawback is that they take a long time to actually review your site and give you an answer.

2. Article Directories

Write and submit as many articles as you can to as many directories as you can.  It will be well worth your efforts.  In my experience the best results come from submitting to EzineArticles first, then to my site and other directories.

3. Link Bait Content

This refers to content that a reader finds so compelling that they will almost always link to it and share it around their own social network.  Requires very little effort on your part and can lead to huge volumes of traffic and links.

4. Forums

Most every forum allows you to put a link in your profile and signature.  As long as you actually contribute to the discussions and do not spam, they will allow your comments to link back to your site.

5. Blog Comments

I have the suspicion that links from blogs don’t hold much weight with Google, but I never pass the opportunity to comment on the blogs of other designers and marketers.  As long as you don’t spam and actually leave a thought provoking or informative comment, they will allow you to insert a link.

6. RSS Submission

There are RSS directories where you can post the link to your blogs rss feed.  With these links I focus more on quality than on quantity.  But on the other hand, it only takes a few minutes to post to hundreds of directories and you can include those links into your automated ping utility in your wordpress site.

7. Social Bookmarking

Search engines have been know to put a lot of value on some of the larger social sites such as Digg and Stumble Upon.  I manually submit my links to several of these directories and have seen great results.  By allowing others to bookmark your material and share it, you will see an automated system establish itself for creating links to your site.

8. Yahoo Answers

It has been increasingly difficult to get links to stick from Yahoo because of the spammers.  But if you give helpful information and are sincere with your efforts to help out others, Yahoo will allow you a link back to your site.  Yahoo links carry a lot of weight with all the major search engines.

9. Classifieds

Most classifieds don’t allow follow links in their posts, but it is a way to advertise your goods or services and can increase traffic.  There are plenty of free sites out their and most are area specific, so you can geo target a specific group if you needed.

Remember to try and obtain links from quality sites and in return your site will be ranked as higher quality.  Keep track of who you link to and who links to you to make sure they stay good quality links down the road.