VanZantMedia - Profile

Nothing wrong with Guest blogging in my opinion, it is a natural way to build links (obviously keep your anchor text varied). Ive seen a lot of good results with guest blogging, not just in SERP movement but in referral traffic. As far as article marketing goes I still use the big sites like Ezine but refrain from blasting hundreds out, unless you can filter them through a 3rd party.

I don't want to jump into an argument but I use Google Analytics for all my sites and every client site I manage and find the data they serve up to be far more accurate than awstats, just my opinion after running split tests.

KISSmetrics is pretty new but looks very good though it isn't free, it does give some excellent stats.

It's a tough one to answer briefly because there are hundreds of signals in the Google algorithm that will effect your rankings. First and foremost you want to make sure that your on-site SEO is taken care of, try to concentrate on a maximum of 2/3 keyword phrases per page rather than trying to rank for everything with your homepage. Make sure your Title Tags, Heading Tags and page content are well optimised for keywords, but don't overdo it, keep them readable.

Off-Page, get some good quality backlinks pointing to your site, keep the anchor text varied and try not to go for the "quick fix" of buying thousands of directory links or forum profiles. I recommend a regular schedule of guest posting on blogs within your niche as a good way to build links but also to build traffic to your site and strengthen your brand.

As mentioned by someone else, not a lot has changed, you just need to be a bit more careful with what you are doing to avoid penalties.