When link building is returning little success, what is a good plan b?
-
I know that in an ideal world you would be able to create an amazing site with great content that every one would link to. But what if you're not able to so this, what if you the market you're in is very competitive and you're struggling to find good link partners. I know I can submit to directories and article/press sites but surely this isn't enough to get me any where near my desired goal!
I guess I'm asking: is gaining reciprocal links the be and end all of Serps, am I missing any other SEO techniques to get my site higher up the rankings?
-
Hello James It is getting harder. Certainly, speed isn't easy in a competitive market If your site is local there are many options If national or global it is harder. Try finding a few related blogs and offer a guest post that has a single relevant link to your site. Also do one press release each week, about something you are doing. Try to write something groundbreaking on your blog and then write a press release about it, then go to twitter and Facebook and other bookmarking sites and do a good post there. Find related blogs that allow comments, with a related post and comment on the story. Find strong related blogs that you can find contact details for, and email or (gasp)phone them to see if they are interested in collaborating and might link to your great story. Also ask them what floats their boat, so you can write other stories they will link to. That's a little bit more than being stuck with reciprocal links This should work for any site, if you have great content
-
Who are the target audience of the translating services? I'd start by looking at blogs that spoke to this target market. For example are they students, small businesses, people in the legal profession?
Who needs the services your client offers, and where do they congregate. If you can get a blog post in front of these eye-balls then not only do you get a link... but you're also talking to potential customers. You might get some referrals traffic too.
-
Thanks for the help.
I've looked at their competitors, links etc and I was shocked to see that one in particular had a article on Mashable, thats impressive! The majority of rest just had links in high paid directories,articles and press releases.
I've havent' really done much guest blogging or reviews, do you normally search for keyword related blogs or..?
The niche my client is in is translating services
Thanks again!
-
What are your competitors doing? A good first step is to take a look at what your competitors are doing, how they're building links, what content are they creating and who are they targeting (customers/market).
Using open site explorer you can reverse engineer their links. (If sites link to your competitors they may link to you - although I would suggest you dig deep and understand why they are linking to you competition. You may need to provide better content or a unique opinion. You can look at their top pages and see what other people are linking to.
Reciprocal links aren't the be all and end all. Ideally you want to get inbound links for reasons other than offering them a link back. Google are well aware of the practice and excessive reciprocal links are going to look a little unnatural. Can you think of ways you can earn links from authoritative sites in your niche?
What do your customers need? How well do your understand the customers of the site? Can you provide some great content that satisfies their needs/problems?
What about guest blogging? Give-aways, reviews?
What's the niche the site is operating in? If you can provide more details then maybe you can get some more specific advice.
Hope this helps.
-
Build some industry specific info graphics or jump on a meme that you could tailor to your industry.
A good post on creating info graphics
A great post on utilising memes
Have you considered Social networks as a way to get your content out there and build links, whilst also engaging your target audience?
Share links to your great content on twitter with relevant hashtags, check out http://hashtags.org and build a following. Though its not enough to simply blast out links to your followers, you'll need to engage them too.
Check out the white board friday video on building links with twitter
Also, theres facebook which you could use to grab your audience and potentially build links
Linked in if your industry isn't facebook prone.
Flickr and deviantart if your idustry is so inclined.
Create a tumblr blog to highlight your content (one of my favourites)
Pinterest,oh what did I do without it? yes pin some relevant, cool images of stuff you may sell or relevant to your industry and if its good enough people will share it.
There are other ways too but, I could literally go on all day.
Check this out http://www.seomoz.org/article/social-media-marketing-tactics
Theres a lot to digest, but its not rocket science.
Best of luck and if you get stuck, come back and ask some more
Regards
Aran
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
LInk Building Ideas for Large Site
Hi, I have a very large sized website of about 5 Million Pages. Earlier i used to rank very well with many naturally occurred links, But now, i lost my rankings with numerous Google updates. My content is user generated content and it wont be pure original as my users will post the same on other forums too. I all of my pages rank on #1 page for their keywords. Can anyone suggest me good link building strategy for larger websites as each url will have different keyword, i want all of my urls to be ranked well. Waiting for your replies.
Link Building | | Vegitss0 -
Winning Link Building Strategies for 2013
I was just looking at a forum post written on SEOmoz back in Jan 2012 about the best strategies for 2012 and the first recommendation I saw was blog networks - OUCH! What are your thoughts on which link building strategies you think will work well in 2013 in order of effectiveness?
Link Building | | Clicksjim0 -
How many good links does it take to improve the rank
Just wondering how many good links (PR 3-5) it generally takes to improve the site in a competitive space. That is assuming the links will be procured (earned) from the sites in the same domain.
Link Building | | EricMoore0 -
Link Building - Where to start and how long to see results
Been working a lot on on-page seo and it mistifies me to observe that when i get A's constantly for search terms for on page but im not on the first 10 pages of Google compared to a competitor on page 1 with on page reports of C, D and even E! So, a lot of hard work "on page" does not equal to a lot of hard work which is obviously link building. my domain and page authority is only 18 and 27 whereas the main competitors are 50's and 60's. Is "link building" or lack of it my main issue? Here is the site http://www.govisitthelakes.com Very new to link building 😞 Anyone know a good place to start? Ive been working through open site explorer and starting to get some of my competitors links. How long to see results from link building to improve domain and page authority? or is it just "how long is a piece of string" and be patient. Thanks Ouji
Link Building | | oujipickle0 -
Please give me some ideas on my link building campaign
Hello everyone, My website is on Pharmacy schools. I just sell leads to universities. Well, I am unable to find sites which are related to my niche. Can i get links from Unrelated sites like Health? and other educational sites (other than pharmacy)? I can see all .edu and gov sites when i type in Google. Ofcourse, they wont sell any links to my low quality sites. Help me out in finding those sites which sells advertising spots and 100% related to my niche 🙂 thanks.
Link Building | | artemmin0 -
Link building for ecommerce site
What are your recommendations for the best link building strategy for a B2C ecommerce site?
Link Building | | DenverKelly0 -
Do you consider it risky to hire outside firms to build links?
Based on what happened to JC Penny do you think there is a significant risk of penalties if you have an outside firm build links for your site? For example they could buy some links and get caught or engage in black hat tactics without our knowledge. Is there anything that can be done to minimize any such risk?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Link building
Hello all ! I would love some opinions about one Link Building technical aspect from SEOs, link builders ... How important is the number of outgoing links on the page you have the opportunity to place a link ? (from a scale of 1-10 / what about where dose this factor fits overall with your check list , as important to consider as far as link building) Would you place a link on a page with 200+ outgoing external links if the page is ok (not involved in selling links, all links are related with the subject, target page, anchor text etc) or you would go with a link on a 10-15 links per page but not that 'powerful' and not that related (not spammy but more general on the subject that can contain links to some other non related resources). Eg: Option 1: www.whatever-name.com/links.html the entire domain is about x. It has 250 links in that page (in the links.html) all links on the links.html pages are somehow related / resources with x. Your link can be placed with an anchor text related with x that will target a page on your site related with x. Domain page rank : 6 (as a general indicator), Page PR, the links.html one, PR: 2 Option 2: www.some-other-name.com/x-is-so-great the entire domain is NOT about x, just the page. It has 5..10 links in that page (external links more or less related with x - but not spammy) Your link can be placed with an anchor text related with x that will target a page on your site related with x. Domain page rank : 3 (as a general indicator), Page PR, the links.html one, PR: 1 What's your best option ? Thanks !
Link Building | | eyepaq1