SEO Help - My brain hurts..!

Sounds like you have the hardwork already done. With you having that much content, I'd probably recommend hiring somebody in the warriors for hire section, or at SEOclerks.com. SEO has a strong learning curve, plus it's always rapidly changing. My two cents, find somebody who knows what they're doing.


Cheers,
Mark

Content is great to have, but make sure you are following the correct onpage guidelines for SEO. Try to write out longer pages of content, google seems to love pages that provide a complete resource of information. Keep your keyword density pretty low and don't overoptimize.

As far as building backlinks, I wouldn't bother with any software unless your are using it to build massive links to your tier 2 and tier 3 links. For tier 1 links, you should build them manually or create a PBN. Web 2.0s with tiered link building are a good start if you don't have a budget. Otherwise, a good PBN is going to be most effective.

You need to decide If your website is long term (quality links) or short term (any link you can get). Blasting links is short term & can get a domain Google slapped or deindexed.

Ah yes, there are a lot of them. Reality is, it is little more than wishful thinking. Content alone will not rank a site.

I'm not against automation. The problem with automated backlink tools is they are only capable of building low quality links. Spammy links can have uses in some markets, but you need to know what you are doing.

The number of results in the Google index has NOTHING to do with the level of competition. The top 3 are your competition. Number 5,763,299 does not matter.

Jamesi, you've already had a lot of great advice, but I thought I'd add something. I've been talking about ranking new sites on a few other threads, as I am finding it really difficult to rank *new* sites, even when the competition for specific keywords is low/medium. I have established sites from years ago, using methods which are simply not working for new sites.

Some may have said that content is king, but no-one has ever defined what 'good' content is. After all, none of us know how Google defines good content. In some cases, dreadful content has slipped through Google's net and appeared in top positions for great keywords.

What I *have* found for new websites is that no (or reduced) backlinking has worked really well. As mentioned in another thread, I launched a few sites recently which have started to rank for long tail keywords really quickly (within weeks) and Google Webmaster has shown a massive improvement for search terms associated with my site. Submitting a sitemap in Google Webmaster is the only way I've alerted Google to these sites. Now, I don't know what effect this will have long term, but for the time being it seems to work for me and I'm making some money. Others may have different stories to tell.

Thanks for all your help. My aims are to build it into a high quality service website, so @yukon that would fall into the long term category.

That means I should concentrate on high quality back links and avoid those services, right?

@MWatson - I think I probably will end up hiring someone. Budget's low at this point though, and I'd imagine to get top of a competitive keyword would take thousands of dollars.