link building campaign question

Hi

I would like to compare my way of working with more experienced SEO's on this forum especially
the part of link building.

I have an access database with about 200 free for inclusion directories and about 70 sites which are
publishing articles.

Usually I ask from them to write few articles from their area and I submit these articles on sites from my database.

If the customer keywords are competitive, then I advice them to get listed on directories
like business.com msn small business directory, yahoo directory and in bunch of smaller directories where
you pay once for a life time.

Since my customers are small business owners, until now I did not use press release sites to get some links, they
simply have no news to be worth to be presented. Am I wrong about this?

If these techniques are not good enough to get high ranking for desired keywords, what should I do?

Recommend them to buy text links from different link brokers?

What about reciprocal links? Are they worth the effort?

Any advice & recommendation is welcomed.

My advice would be to first check the PR of the article directory and then submit the articles.

Also add the articles on your site before submitting them . Doing other way round would invite duplicate panelty from Google.

Reciprocal links from quality theme based side would definitely help. But the best can be achieved with one-way links for your site.

It is always better to use Press Release. Write anything.. may be research snippets on the industry they are in ....just write.

Yes, press releases can be slapped together easily with little information. Take the latest information in the company... say a new hiriing or something and make a PR out of it.

Can anyone explain please what is regarded as "duplicate content"? If I publish on my site an article previously submitted to an article directory, is this duplicate content?

Thanks

Your approach lacks QUALITY.

Ever go fishing? What lake/stream did you pick and why?

You expect to catch fish?

Well then you need to go where the fish are located.

Just posting to the places you post is like casting a line into a lake with now fish. Doesn't matter how good your bait is, if there are not fish then you don't catch anything.

If you are going to do what you are doing you might as well buy specific automated tools for each application. Directory Submission, Article Submission, etc. Tools that track and report.

Nothing wrong with having these kinds of links in your overall approach.

But if you want to rank you have to find QUALITY and that means getting your site and offer presented on places where your customers actually visit.

Your natural response to MarketingIQ's fantastic post is going to be "well, where do I get quality links?". That's the fun part.

Do your research. Find out who is trusted in the industry. Identify where you would place links to your website if you owned the entire internet and you could place links wherever you wanted. Then figure out a creative way to actual get (some of) those links.

The good news is, there are plenty of sources of inspiration to be had:
Link Building Strategies (Wiep.net)
The Internet Marketing Handbook (SEOMoz.org)
Link Building Notes of a SEO Kindergartner (SEOMoz.org
Link Types (StundDubl.com)

And that's just a small, small portion of what's out there. Read, read, read!