Good article, I wanted to write something about it too(web developer with strong interest in SEO here). I'd say in the end it's more an introduction to SEO than it is advice for programmers about SEO. I'll detail 2 things she overlooked in my opinion.
For example, web developers have a fantastic opportunity to build links by getting involved in open source communities. These are extremely link-rich environments and by posting tutorials or creating small packages, you can find yourself with a lot of links pointing to your site. They will maybe not be relevant to your target keywords but will still be links from high-authority sources.
And I'd say the traditional way of garnering links still applies to web developers: get to know fellow developers, get interviewed on their blogs, exchange resources etc. So hang out where your community lives, whether it's on Reddit, StackOverflow, Hacker News etc. Get to know people, the SEO will follow.
This only works if your site has something to do with development.
Or are you suggesting posting development related topics to a non development related site purely to get those juicy backlinks (and thus good pagerank)?
Even though I'd say that he could have done a better job at integrating it on his website (it looks too much like an isolated page in my opinion - there should be a "Tips for developers" section), it does the job at attracting links and boosting SEO for his main site (also with A/Bingo, a software package he developed: http://www.bingocardcreator.com/abingo).
That's sort of what I mean.
For my work I build and run a number of websites which are almost completely unrelated to tech. These are service industry websites so there is no "product" to speak of.
I am looking for ways to improve pagerank, so let's say I was to write a few pages about how I built some of the trickier parts of these websites and hosted these on the websites themselves but perhaps did not link these through from the main pages (but did link back to the main pages from my new pages).
If I got links to my articles on reddit , HN etc then perhaps this would improve pagerank even though the pages are unrelated to the sites main content. So this would improve the search rankings for the websites on their main keywords as well?
Yeah, that's the idea. However personnally I would link from the home page ("Inside the business" chronicles). It doesn't have to be a big link, could be in the footer for example. I don't have metrics for that but I think pages that are not linked from anywhere on your website might look a bit shady in Google's eyes.
By getting links to your articles you'd improve overall authority of your site (also important to link back to your homepage and other important pages in order to drive PR back, as you point out).
By improving your website's authority you'll rank better for your main keywords as well.
For example, web developers have a fantastic opportunity to build links by getting involved in open source communities. These are extremely link-rich environments and by posting tutorials or creating small packages, you can find yourself with a lot of links pointing to your site. They will maybe not be relevant to your target keywords but will still be links from high-authority sources.
And I'd say the traditional way of garnering links still applies to web developers: get to know fellow developers, get interviewed on their blogs, exchange resources etc. So hang out where your community lives, whether it's on Reddit, StackOverflow, Hacker News etc. Get to know people, the SEO will follow.