Questions from an SEO Idiot

[xplosiv]

Hi there guys, I'm very impressed with the Genesis framework and child theme (prose).

The customization is amazing.

SEO, however, is my "achilles heel"... so if anybody can answer these questions i'd be extremely grateful.

1. On the wordpress site, it says that having "pretty links" is not recommend for performance reasons. Why is that?

I am referring to the %postname%postid% format that most people use, rather than the standard date or post # format. Does this have any effect on SEO, or is it just a myth?

2. I outsourced my keyword research, and now have about 5 good keywords that I want to target. I have wrriten an article with one of the keywords and I am seriously considering investing in ScribeSEO to help me create the best optimization.

However, there is a plugin called "SEOPressor" by Daniel Tan which looks like it does something similar (calculating on page SEO and giving a score).

How does ScribeSEO compare?

3. Also, with the keyword I have written the article for... when creating backlinks, do I use my domain (www.mysite.com), or do I link to the article with anchor text?

4. When paying for backlinking services, is it possible to get penalized for having too many in a short period of time?

5. Does anybody have recommendations for content syndication? Perhaps a plugin or software that submits your content to social media websites, or article directories?

6. How do I know what keywords to put in my "tags" section, as well as the custom fields in the Genesis settings when creating/editing a post?


I'm sorry if some questions seem off-topic, but I have a feeling that some experts here will know ;)

Thanks for help on any questions - if you need further clarification I will respond as quickly as possible.

Dean