SEM Blog: Website Marketing Blog

I was reading Debra Mastaler’s post on quality link marketing vs. cheap link building and I couldn’t agree more with her thoughts. This got me to thinking though…
What other channels could a low budget web developer take to save money, perhaps in an attempt to have more to spend on a quality link marketing plan?
Then it came to me - $20 banners. For those of you who are not familiar, 20 dollar banners has been creating quality banners at extremely affordable prices for years. They do banners for sites such as Vbulletin and other big name sites, as well as smaller online businesses.
If you have an artistic touch there is also a place to create a banner for free but I really recommend going with one of the affordable custom banners as the free ones use pre-made templates.  Of course after the banner is made the site owner will still need an advertising spot to place the banner but they have probably saved a lot of money by using such an affordable banner creation service.  So there is one way for a startup site without a lot of cash on hand to save money without trying to implement a cheap reciprocal link building plan.

Directory List 

We are compiling a list of SEO friendly directories.  Each entry on our list will include the name of the directory, URL, cost (paid/free) and year the directory was established.
Examples:
Sezza Directory Paid $14.95 Established 2004
Browser Cat Free Established 2008

We will not be adding directories that are promoting even link exchanges.  If you would like to submit a directory to our list please use the contact form or reply to this thread.

SEO Tests 

We are also currently running several tests related to links and other SEO related topics. I will post the results of each test in this category of the blog for others to see.

If you have something in mind that you would like tested feel free to post it here or email me. I created the SEO tests category of this blog in hopes of uncovering some valuable unknown information relating to how algorithms work. So, keep checking back.