a little out of the loop - modern day seo tips?

[unwashed potato!]

i've been out of the seo loop for a couple years now. i've been called by a few indian companies that offer to do my seo for £150 per month for 6 months blah blah blah but i think i'd be more than capable of doing this on my own with a bit of advice on what the current day seo techniques are.

i used to be told to write articles and submit them to article sites with a link back to my website which i hated as it felt so fake and for seo only.

i'm aware of the need for backlinks but the industry i'm in it's very hard to get relevant ones from other sites so link swapping isn't really an option.

i try to find blogs in the related field but again same issue, plus any blogs i'm finding are either facebook style comments, or nofollow any way.

i have a blog on my site which will now be updated at least once a week. i also am trying to use twitter/facebook/g+ etc to promote the site, but finding ways to promote it online that isn't just a link to our latest article is hard.

i think the seo on the site is good, though if anyone is willing to have a peek i'd be open to ideas.

any other things i could do to help improve seo? my competition don't do much seo so i think with a bit of regular work i'd be able to climb the ranks and remain there, however a lot of the high ranking sites use this one company to make their site which automatically links swaps between each other so they have a ton of backlinks instantly from very relevant sites.

 

[unwashed potato!]

almost everything if not every on our site is unique content. we've shared a few interesting articles but nothing is copied, just linked to them.

i'll look to having an addthis button. i am skeptical to how much users would actually use this, though no harm in finding out.

the blogging is at least once a week, more likely 2/3 times a week. any more and i think the content we add wont be any good for readers as we will have to stretch our imagination a bit too far and i think content will be no good at that point.

just done a speed check and it seems to be getting good speeds