SEO Theorist Michael Martinez shares an interesting list of 20 hard core SEO tips.
My favorites?
2. Add 5 new pages of content to your site every week
It's true. The more original content you have, the better. And if your content is growing steadily over time, people will bookmark your site and come back. Content, content, content.
15. Create a 1-page listing of 20 unknown web sites you wish you had created, and post it to your site.
You grow reputation by not only having quality content, but by pointing to other people's quality content. If you link to the same old sites everyone else is linking to (YouTube), it's not that significant to Google. And if you link to bad neighborhoods (like link farms, made for adsense sites, and the like), you'll ruin your own reputation with Google. But if you link to quality content, not only will your visitors be happy, but the big ol' Googlebot will too.
20. Define a metric of three to five factors that does not include Alexa, PageRank, Compete, or any of the common backlink checkers.
This one's hard. Basically, in order to stand out in a crowd you have to be different. You shouldn't do what one million other web sites are doing (comparing themselves to Alexa), you should come up with your own definition of success.
Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.