Earlier quoted context omitted.
As always with SEO it is dangerous to make broad sweeping statements. What works for a small local website, doesn't have to work for a big casino/travel website and vice versa. The advice I gave was sincere though. In practice I see many businesses aiming for links, when their content just isn't up to par. Quality content alone (without links) is enough to rank in many niches. If you get to the hyper-competative SERP…
At risk of sounding acerbic.... :) (1) Can you provide an example of a business with over 100k in revenues that has been founded in the last 2-3 years in a remotely competitive niche and is at or near the top of the search results for the most likely general search terms? How about a bootstrapped business? (2) And can you honestly say that the mass of blogspam that regularly hits HN disguised as business advice is re…
With some time, I could easily find better examples.
What you'll notice with these is that they are succeeding not by trying to rank for a handful of keywords, but hundreds or thousands of keywords. Organize and curate a collection of useful content of interest to your customers, and you will get Google to rank it. Most large aggregations of fill-in-the-blank are not well SEO optimized.
If I were building something, I'd look at a niche outside of travel, real estate, and employment, and create an aggregation around that.
Look at dogvacay.com -- launched in March 2012 ranked #1 for "dog boarding" in many markets.