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The short answer would be that ranking is more complex than that.
Also look at:
Have you tried getting links from a gemological institute?
Make a real world comparison on the the three C's of diamonds, with videos of real women trying to tell the difference. Ask bloggers, gemological institutes and other jewelry stores to link to it.
Costume designer?
If you design some of your own rings then you could work with a costume designer to make some simple jewelry. Ask for a link for your efforts. Maybe write a review of their recent play, and ask for a link from them on it.
Wedding Planner?
Not sure how this one would work, but you might!
Photographers?
Offer to use some of your really nice jewelry in some staged pictures. Ask the photographer for credit on the jewelry in the photos.
Florists?
Every woman loves the gift of flowers and jewelry, why not find a way to work together? You could also write an article about choosing the best flowers for the occasion, and ask for links from them.
You could also create a gift widget. Submit the event, preferences, price range and the widget would produce gift ideas. Embed a link to your website from it as the source, and try to get people to put it on their website.
For any of these people you could offer some SEO advice in trade for a link on their website.
As for your actual question, it's all about risk vs reward. Some companies try to go after links in a very natural way, and some companies just try obtain links. The first is going to be very beneficial, but quite expensive. The latter will also be beneficial, but carry more risk. It all depends on what you are looking for.
Ask for an example of a website they've worked on, and do an SEO background check on it.
This was on my Christmas list, but it didn't seem to happen:
I check my rankings three different ways.
By using three different options I'm able to see exactly where I'm linking. In the off chance that I still think its off I will ask a couple of friends to search it.
That being said, location does have an affect on rankings. Google wants to find the most relevant item for you, and location can be a determining point if everything else is equal.
Three websites means:
Three websites do sound tempting until you realize that you will not be able to benefit from each area driving its own links. With a single website you will be able to receive the domain benefit for every link you generate, while having multiple domains you will not.
Another problem with linking to other websites all the time is the drop in link juice. While it may seem beneficial to pass links from your websites, you have to remember that you are giving away some of the value of your internal links each time. With just a couple links its no problem, but with dozens you might face a dilemma.
I would stick to the one website with landing pages for each area of interest. I would then do an intense link building campaign for each, and write a very informative blog (to both drive visitors and links). By having high quality landing pages for each "department" you will be able to achieve all your SERP goals, and be able to build on each "departments" success.
The only reason I wouldn't do this is if I was going to have 1000's of pages of content for each department.
Write the be all end all resource for each of those topics, citing your sources (as long as they have a high authority level). Don't try sell yourself within the article, just write it about the topic. Then, ask other people in your field to review your resource, and see if they would suggest making any changes. After you have made a couple alterations, ask them if they would link to your resource from their website.
Then, do some "inurl:".edu" life coaching" searches to see if there are any universities talking about the subject. Send an email to a professor in that department asking them to link to your resource.
Don't focus too much on exact keyword match, just get them to link to it.
These deep links will help with your overall domain authority, which puts you at an edge to rank overall.
Yes, Google will knock you for it.
Start with your most popular product, and work your way down. Also, make sure you write the content for the consumer, and not for your company.
Another suggestion I would have is personalizing your website. Brand yourself as an expert within the content, and mark the products that you suggest. If you have a favorite hammer, make sure people can quickly identify it.
For references, check out Gun Dog Supply http://www.gundogsupply.com/
Infographic on where the vast majority of tickets are handed out in a city? Hot means the most tickets, etc. Not only are you offering a service to your customers with great insurance rates, but you are also telling them where they need to slow down!
Include this in all your city specific landing pages to try use as link bait. I'd also include local pictures from those cities, using file names that describe them well, in order to seem much more relevant.
For Internal links:
Use footer links for your most important cities, and a chart listing where you do service for all of your cities. By using the chart on enough pages you should be able to imply that they are your most important pages.
From the Matt Cutts video I saw earlier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9vD9KGK7G8&feature=player_embedded
It seems like it would be better to put the Geo specific pages on a subdirectory of your website, and geo target it with Webmaster tools. Then, you can start building local, and relevant, links to that page or directory.
Article submission used to be the bees-knees (is that how the phrase is spelled? Anyway...). However, what you will really generate is a whole bucket load of duplicate content on the web. To make matters worse, it's unlikely your articles will get picked up.
A better use of time is:
3 and 4 all the way. There's a bunch of ways to peel a potato!
I like doing "intitle:"city" directory" searches. such as: intitle:"Boise" local directory
Another search I would use is: intitle:"links" life coaching. You can find some resource pages from people, and try get a link on them.
Thirdly!
Write all your local information in Schema (schema-creator.org). I've only done this with four sites, but I've had good results with it.
Welcome Tani!
As you could probably guess by my name, I work in the auto industry. Which you would assume is pretty competitive. Well, when I do my keyword research in the Google Keyword Tool, I'm greeted with .9's usually. This sounds extremely daunting, but it really isn't that bad. When I hop onto the keyword tool that SeoMoz offers, I get a 34%. Now, that sounds really friendly!
So, my strategy is to generate my keyword list in the Google Keyword Tool, download the CSV and use excel to manipulate the data. Once I discover the keywords I want, I run them through the keyword tool here at SeoMoz. I know there is a way to just automatically do all this in Excel, but I've learned that I really don't know how to code in it. Anyway, I then copy over the stats I get from here to the excel sheet for another column of data. Finally, I look at what might be worth ranking for, in the short time, out of those keywords. From there I will visit the top 10 sites, and see if they are doing things correctly for on page.
Depending on that stat, and my current websites stats, I will decide to go after a keyword or not.
The best incentive you could possibly offer is great content. Something that truly benefits their readers/visitors. But the non-utopian answer would be what Shannon said - free random offline item that isn't really e-traceable and is inexpensive.
On a side note, I may give you a link for the gallon of milk thing... just saying...
My favorite one is creating a PDF of a resource for other people to use on their website. Inside the article I will have my website linked from the keyword phrase I want. They upload the document, because it's helpful, and I get a link.
Truth be told, I just started doing this, but I've had a good response so far.
Another option is trading a SEO white paper in exchange for a link.
Local Search results are just another vertical of Organic; that's why local and traditional verticals occasionally combine.
2. From the perspective of controlling the SERPS, and having multiple listings in each search, Youtube wins. However, as other's have mentioned on this same post, that listing will be to Youtube, and not straight to your company. You then have to contend with that user's urge to continue on Youtube when trying to get them to your website. To me, this is a problem.
Instead, I would use hosting company that allowed you to actually have the video on your website, and not just frame it in like Youtube or the basic Vimeo. This will make the video count for content on your website, as well as allow you to have the video rank in SERPS. Check out Wistia, as previously mentioned, or Vimeo PRO since both of these will allow you to properly place them on your domain. I would also suggest using Schema markup for these videos. Doesn't hurt to swing for the rich snippet fences!
Other options:
Use reviews on your product pages (I'd suggest utilizing Schema markup - http://www.schema-creator.org)
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