The Short Answer is There are No “Tricks”
For years people have been looking for the quick fix to achieve top search engine results, some worked for a while, some worked, most very briefly but if the technique in question was leaning heavily towards the dark side, the benefits have almost certainly been wiped out by the hundreds of Google updates rolled out over the last couple of years.
I remember when I first learnt about SEO, my employer was paying a company for hosting, updates and optimisation, it was costing £750 per month and that was almost 10 years ago. I called them in for a meeting to discuss what we were getting for our money and what could be achieved, the answer was very little. So I got to work adding our website to every directory I could find, I started with the regional and industry specific ones, then quickly moved on to the rest, watching lists of new directories weekly and submitting our site, within 6 months we were receiving a steady stream of sales leads and within a year 90% of our enquiries were coming in through the website. The company was later sold and I still look after that site as one of my SEO clients now and it still has very good ranks.
The reason for that story is not just to blow my own trumpet (although I was extremely pleased with myself at the time), but to emphasise how the quick easy fixes are being eliminated one by one and will each successive Google update it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to apply a “trick of the trade” to get good results. If I were to do for a new website what I did for that one, it would most likely make no difference at all, or could even have a negative impact.
There have already been a couple of updates this year and the associated site owners complaining that their website has lost ranks, well that seems to be the way things are now, apply a dirty trick and at some point it will catch up with you and bite you on the bum.