Running out of sites to link with

Need link building help for better SE rankings

[spikedo55]

I have a few niche sites. Basically, I have been manually e-mailing other sites with the same niche and with high PR values on their link pages. This is a very slow and tiresome process. And my PR and traffic still remain low. Basically, I'm running out of sites to link with

I looked at my competitors sites (with higher PRs) and they have hundreds of links from sites that aren't even distantly related. Any many of these sites have no, repeat, no PR at all. Many are in fact gray bars.

What am I doing wrong? Am I behind the times, here? Should I expand my list of sites to ones that are closely related, or should I link to everybody and anybody? The bottomline is, I need better overall placement in search engine rankings.

[coconutz]

Not sure if you've read some of the discussions in the Link Development Library [webmasterworld.com], but here are a few that you might find helpful:

Prompting sites to reciprocate links [webmasterworld.com]
Linking Campaign Research [webmasterworld.com]
One-Way Linking [webmasterworld.com]
What is the best way to succeed in getting links [webmasterworld.com]

With the changes in updating PR and backlinks it seems that it's just a little bit harder finding sites that are willing to reciprocate or provide one way links to pages that have low or no PR.

I've found that .edu .org and .gov sites usually could care less about PR. It's all about the content. We've recently acquired links from the US Food and Drug Administration, US and foreign libraries, reference, tutorial and educational sites. Most of these pages have a name and email address of the person(s) responsible for maintaining the resource. Makes it easy to send a personalized message and suggest the addition of your page(s). ;)

Being in a niche market you may want to consider creating content or resources that your competitors do not provide that will attract the one way links:

Widget History
Widget Terminology
Widget Care and Maintenance
Widget Repair
Consumer Information/Buying Guide

Link development is time consuming, but worth it in the long run. Sending personal messages and developing relationships can't hurt when you're looking for links again in the future.

>>should I link to everybody and anybody?

I'd like to think more in terms of getting everybody and anybody linking to you. :)

[Marketing Guy]

I agree with Coco - academic and gov sites are great to get links from, but whereas other sites look at your PR, they look at your content, which makes life more difficult (but more within your control).

I know some UK gov sites have strict guidelines about sites they will look to in terms of accessibility and WC3 compliance, which is another factor to consider (one department I looked at had a fairly lengthy .pdf link request form!).

Personally, I would work on expanding your niche if it looks like you are covering it well.

Open up a new section - populate it with new content and features, then target more broad ranged related sites for links (and other niche sites that relate to your new content).

On top of that, there are also many, many directories out there you can add your link to.

In terms of your traffic, you may be better off looking at the keywords you are targetting - are you in the top 5? Can you improve? Are they bringing in any traffic? Possibly target new keywords?

Another option is media articles - a lot of sites accept contributions (including your link and bio) - and if you can get some mass market media press coverage, you're laughing! ;)

Scott