Can a e - commerce site have many natural inbound links?

Site content is mostly product descriptions.

[Rani]

Hi,

Hobby,news,blogs and informational websites can acquire a great deal of natural inbound links.This is because they offer services and information that are attractive and beneficial to link to.

On the other hand,e-commerce sites,which mostly contain short product descriptions,are less attractive and beneficial to link to.It seems that these websites rely mostly on link - exchange programs to acquire inbound links.(IMHO)

In my niche,the top ten rankers are informational websites (wikipedia,encyclopedias.etc..). My website is an e-commerce one ,selling some home made widgets.I would have to add a great deal of informational content (400 pages min.) in order to compete successfully with the top ten.

I have seen some e-commerce sites try to do this.The homepage is about widgets.Some widgets are displayed with links to internal pages and then one link that reads "widget articles".This link takes you to a page with a dozen outdated,low quality articles downloaded from an article directory.You can actually sneeze from the dust.

Would it seem natural to have a little e - commerce site with a backdoor to a gigantic library? Or is there
a better way to integrate information into product descriptions? I am not sure where to begin...

I would appreciate any comments.Thanks.

[sugarrae]

I link to commercial sites all the time - anytime I describe a product I've bought. I do it on regular sites, but I do it a lot when blogging (and a lot of other bloggers do too). Maybe you can try and see who is writing about the specific products you carry and them send them an email asking them if they could link the product name to the page on your site that features it. This way their users can *see* what they are talking about and it would help you out as well. Of course, a little money probably never hurt this type of process either.

You can also try to get creative with your marketing tactics. There is *always* a different way to make yourself standout, you just need to find it (and it doesn't neccessarily require hundreds of pages of content either). My two cents... I'm sure you'll get lots of ideas from other members here.

[Valleycommando]

Ebay has quite a few inbounds!

[lovealbatross]

Hi Rani,

What sugarrae means by 'creative' is linkbait. Sure, some folks might link to interesting products. But why not give them a real reason to link to you by creating a unique, (your) industry related tool or article? Product reviews? A tricky bit of Google maps API integration?

What would you want to link to if you were them?

Cheers
L

[Rani]

>> Ebay has quite a few inbounds! <<

Right.And they also have 29,400,000 pages on their website,according to Google.

>>What would you want to link to if you were them?<<

A 5 minuit video clip of the manufacturing process of the product.Sounds good?

[martinibuster]

Rather than low quality articles, or a five minute video, why not a description of the product below the fold? You can do a history of the product, how it fits in with whatever culture, a unique anecdote, etc.

One thing I don't understand is why e-commerce sites don't do this. Ever watch Seinfeld and note how Elaine's boss has the safari clothes catalog and how he has romantic descriptions about the cloth or material and the travails they went to get it, and the history of the product?

Well that was copied from a real company formed by a husband and wife who used to travel around the world and pick up clothing from odd places and bring them back to sell in their tiny little store in downtown San Francisco. I bought a French naval pea coat from them in the eighties. Their catalog featured a hand drawn image of the product with an engaging description of it.

I don't know why more e-commerce sites don't do interesting things like that with their websites. Such a waste of opportunity.

[Swebbie]

If you're averse to adding a lot of informational content pages, why not try either writing or paying to have written some interesting articles for dissemination to related sites. Make them truly of value and offer them to some of the top sites in your niche in exchange for a link back. It works, and it takes far less of your time than adding new content to your site regularly. Again, doing both is the best one-two punch, but if time is the biggest concern, try this strategy.

[Rani]

>>One thing I don't understand is why e-commerce sites don't do this.<<

Well,i think it depends very much on who is the person who is in charge of this website.What are his intentions,background and relationship to the products that he is trying to sell.

-Respect-

[Teshka]

Do you sell any cool products? Something really handy? Something gadget freaks will dig? Something with straight out wow factor? If so, go to related blogs that accept tips and point out your products.

I have a blog that covers the latest trends and products in my industry, and I'm always linking to e-commerce or manufacturer sites if they have something cool my audience would appreciate.

[martinibuster]

>>>Well,i think it depends very much on who is the person who is in charge of this website.

Obviously. ;)

And I still don't understand why who doesn't do it.