Over the years I have had many occasions to modify other people’s programs. Sometimes I have been pleasantly surprised, but, most of the time I have been extremely disappointed. Many times people pick up a web programming book and think it makes them a software expert because they finished it in “21 Days”.

There is much more to good programming than knowing how to write a loop. The biggest failing I have found is lack of planning for future success. What I mean is that many programmers program for the present. They ask how do I get this to work, not how hard will it be to update tomorrow. I’ve seen sites with huge navigation menus that were hard coded into all 50 pages of the site. If I need to make an update to the navigation, I now have to edit and change 50 files. If the programmer had taken the time to externalize the navigation an update would only require one file to be updated.

Too many websites have been created by hackers who had no idea what good software design requires. Yes, it takes time to plan and create a project implementation. Yes, more time means more money. But, ask yourself if you would rather pay a few hundred extra dollars today for a site that can be easily updated or a few thousand dollars a year to get someone to fight your site into looking like you want.

Make sure that your programmer has a background in designing sites that can be easily updated. Take the time to talk to some of the referrals. A few well placed questions can save you many future dollars.

Backlinks, or inbound links, are one of the single-most important factors in SEO. And quality is the most important factor in backlinks (not quantity). Here’s what you should look at when determining the value of a backlink.

• Anchor text – does the anchor text include your targeted keywords?
• Relevance – How closely related to your site is the site/page the backlink is on?
• Other Links- How many other outbound links are on the page that links to your site? If there are 59 other links, the link to your site will not be as valuable as if it would be if there were only 2 other outbound links.
• Domain age – Google especially places extra significance on links from older domains.
• Permanence – Your backlink should be static / permanent to offer good SEO value.
• Page Prominence- How prominent on the site is the page that links to your site? A page buried 5 clicks from the homepage will not likely give you a very valuable link.
• Link popularity – How many backlinks does the site / page that links to your site have? The more quality backlinks the site has, the higher quality the link will be.
• Other Links – Are the other links on the page related to your site?
• Site Traffic – How popular is the site that links to your site?

You can use this list when building backlinks to help you find and choose the highest quality links you can.