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Content because that is link bait as well as future proof through being the most likely thing for search engines not to discount in the future and pick up on more as their algorithms improve (content already goes hand in hand with genuine social likes and bookmarks of human approval).

I have 2 new sites with 7-8 grade A for onpage for generally equally competative keywords and the one in directories doesn't do as well and did not appear in top 50 until I did things other than directories (Galaxy, JoeAnt and Gimpsy) although that might have something to do with how initially it was solely directories and nothing else.

I woudn't use that place it can't be possible for them to vet standards.  If you click on any of those big company names it seems to take you to media coverage about freelancers not that those companies use that site.

I found your site from its name within your profile,  you have no page descriptions and all your page titles are the same which is keyword cannibilization.  http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-solve-keyword-cannibalization

You need to get onsite as best as you can before you do offsite (e.g. link building).  I would suggest that SEO moz is a good source of information to learn to be able to do it yourself if that's an option for you.

"Open Site Explorer" tool on SEOmoz finds links. The starter guide PDF is a good place to start, I got to about chapter 7 then most of what I learnt is from the search box on here for the relevant terms like "exact match domain" or "meta tags" etc.

I don't know but I had a look at your website and I think the background is begging for a seamless Ice cube background like this one...

http://www.commentnation.com/background.php?MyFile=seamless_ice_cubes.php&ID=C113.php

Like your site is a fresh catch of tasty Salmon adorned by Ice cubes in a freezer keeping it fresh and ready to consume....well, maybe, but seriously I think it would look pretty cool.

Nobody answered in a couple of days but since then I have had a look around and gathered from other places and threads on here that I should try submitting my site to Bing because they don't index as many pages. Best answers are always from variety of sources and work out the average.  I'll look around a bit more for the " / " issue if it make any difference, it doesn't seem to have.

Yes you're free to delete.  I'm at 50 points which entitled me to a hug from Roger which I have now had, so....if you delete the thread and I get to 50 points again later on does this mean I get 2 hugs?  it may look like I've gamed the hug system, it wasn't deliberate.

How do I take this off?

SEOmoz is good I've learned a lot from it.  I'm on my 3rd month and now have 8 keywords in top 50 for one site and 1 keyword in top 50 for another.  This is for Google US.

For Bing and Yahoo! US however I am still not in the top 50 for anything.  I have read elsewhere that meta-tag page words can be regarded by these engines as a spam signal.  In my meta I have used competative keywords that are relevant to my content, some of which are in the body, but are not my actual targeted keywords as a red-herring to potential competitors.  Also might be usefull for other smaller places that still use meta-tags.

Could not appearing in BingHoo! have something to do with their alogrithms and the meta-tags? or is it an SEOmoz issue?

I have another question also.  The " / " after a domain name doesn't appear in my Firefox address bar (I think I did a 301 redirect), but when I copy and paste it into an entry box (e.g. for a link submission) it puts the " / " there at the end which I take off.  Does this make any difference?

Amazon have "astore" which you can incorporate (embed) into your own website.  I think you need seperate affiliate accounts for US and UK.

http://astore.amazon.com/

I keep mine short and sweet using passive language that talks in their perspective.  I would never title an Email "Link Suggestion" (unless that is the language on solicitation) that is too aggressive as though I am on the same level as them, I use "Link query" which is passive.

I say something like "I was wondering if you might find my website useful to link to on you webpage?" because that is talking in their perspective with the word "useful" and correlates to the thoughts of who is making the critical decision (them).

"Wondering" = passive   useful = "benificial (potentially)"    Aggressive + beneficial = worse than aggressive on its own

Onsite SEO is also offsite SEO in that a good / pretty site will be more likely to get links. Link "self momentum" would be nice, giving away free useful stuff helps, I'm doing this.  I think Justin Sanderco guitar lesson website many of his 590 root domain links are without him asking, I hate him lol.

Don't like that place.  It's also full of people offering to post fake customer reviews, which unfortunately has no large interests against in the way Search engines do against spammy SEO.

I have 2 free eBooks which got me to 9 on Google US for a secondary and 20 - 30 for my main primary keywords.  I'm new to SEO joined SEO moz abour 2 months ago.

scribd dot com for example is Page and Domain Authority over 90, I've a link on there but I don't know if they give juice.  Free ebooks dot net have over 70 P and D authority.

A free eBook you can use forever with no duplicate content issues becasue it's either downloaded or linked to your page to download (I might be wrong as the book description is the same).  Either way it gets me access to many places I would otherwise not get.  I've already been contacted by a charity (for children's literature) to use / link to one of them.

While I was writing it I would never have dreamed to give it away for free so I put a lot of effort in at the time, it is 132 pages long (the guitar one).  If you're writing an eBook that you know will be free you have to make it good, like 50 pages, and good enough content that your link is merely informative.   Because I write books this suits me but if there's an area you are knowledgable about then it could be something to consider.

My experience with directories:  I have 2 sites, one is in 3 directories (Gimpsy, JoeAnt and Galaxy) and it not in top 50.  The other is on no directories at all but has a free eBook which is linked to and distributed in some other places and no less than 2 weeks later got to top 50 in google US for a bout 5 keywords, the highest being 23 (from not being in top 50 at all).  I'm relatively new as are my campaigns.

I'm working on the free eBook thing for the site in the 3 directories, I really hope these directories aren't detrimental and it's just a case they aren't as powerfull!? if anyone knows?

The keyword tracker is giving competetiveness % but no traffic data.  Is it sufficient to rely on the Google keyword tool for traffic?  Can't see if it's exact match.

My sister works for a large marketing company and says twitter is a waste of time. Although as my sister she has her familial responsibilty to poo poo anything I suggest / ask.  I'm pleased Facebook is going well I have yet to get onto that one.

On a tangent if FaceBook and Twitter merged you would have....Twit Book, Face Twit or maybe Twit Face

Interestingly all 3 of these are already taken for the best tld's lol

I can't remember buying anything I found on page 1 of google. Search engines are usually part of the "investigative process" when making a decision.  I'm not really a "shopper" most things I already know what I want, are for business and it's at least a month before I first heard of it before actually buying.  The first point of interest for me is often not one source but something I have absorbed over time from various sources like how I noticed SEOmoz mentioned on Webhostingtalk by it's users.

Perhaps for some kind of business I am a worthwhile "consumer profile" but for something which requires less thought and it being more "what you see it what you get" (such as T-shirt designs?) search engines are more worthwhile.  So I think it can depend on the market and therefore type of customer.

In similar vein to long tail keyword, 3rd party sites, particularly established ones in their fields can offer a closer distance to purchase intention so to me are certainly a worthwhile part of my strategy.

To add to Rebekah's usefull suggestions.  Recently I have published a free eBook.  Searching for "Free eBooks" and similar returns plenty of sites that solicit submissions, many of which will include your link be that to your site or to the page on your site the free eBook can be downloaded.  Some of them say they are "authority sites" and according to Open Site Explorer  have Page rank of 70 and above such as free-ebooks dot net

Although writing a decent eBook is time consuming and takes work, it seems easier to get accepted so long as its a subject area you are competant in an it doesn't look spammy.  Judging by your subject area this looks like an approach you could take.

If not working at all due to being popular and therefore sometimes overloaded with requests, then if it gives the same results for the same queries among different users, common keyword queries could be aggregated into a database (updated as often as the keywords themselves (monthly?) ), for the keyword tool to bypass to for those particular queries, freeing it up for other less regular queries.

Sometimes it doesn't work for me either.

Do the exact same keyword queries generate the same results for different users?  For example if the result for Yahoo US on "Mountain Bike" is the same for one SEOmoz user as it is for another.  Could a system that detects keywords used over a certain amount put them in automatically at the next update then store on database that the actual keyword tracker tool bypasses to for those words, while actually working only on other less common words.

Although I do keep a record of relevant ones, I admit occasionally if I have a list of 100 or so I can forget or not find one I may or may not have done earlier and do it twice.  For shame!

Thanks for the link to GWMT have book marked it for later.  I might not do the Exat match domain afterall, the domain for the site is simple and catchy.

Thanks for your reply.  Sorry if I didn't explain very clearly, The 301 redirect on cPanel is to make it have the www. in there in front of the domain  I don't know what GWMT means.  There is nothing in SEO moz site crawl that says there's a loop it just mentions 301 as a "notice".

The name of the company / brand isn't very good for SEO so I have bought a domain with keyword and want to redirect the original domain to that.