Forum Moderators: martinibuster
See, my issues is that I am the webmaster for a local company which sells very specific parts from specific vendors. We do have some competitors, but not so many since we are an independent stocking distributor in the industry. The only people who we could really get relevant links from are our competitors, and obviously that isn't happening. Since this is not possible, what can we do? How do I build links for a specific site which is here for the purpose of selling, not offering information?
Not so. :)
Check who links to your competitors. Some may link to you.
Check who ranks on your keywords. Go back a hundred+ results, some of those ranking may link to you.
Check who ranks on related keywords.
Search on 'widget blogs' to find blogs related to your stuff.
Write down a list of industries that 'touch' yours. Go mining blogs/people that rank/manufacturers for those related industries. i.e. lets say you're selling plumbing parts. Plumbers, tradespeople, sink manufacturers, retailers, etc. (some of my very best links in a competitive and boring field come from related fields - lots of talk about the field on authority sites, none of my competitors have ever delved into that area).
Then there's all the local terms. search for business listings in your town, region, state, country, etc.
Also, are there any online publications that represent your industry sector? They may provide an opportunity.
What about directories?
HTH
As far as relevant blogs, nobody writes about what we sell, it's just simply not interesting.
And as far as looking up relevant keywords, mostly people would just type the part # into google and click the first thing that comes up.
And the local suggestion must be a good one.
How about an Amazon store, or eBay?
If your company's service is outstanding, or you do something different, you may get links from satisfied customers on their blogs.
Have you thought about running a viral campaign of some sort?
HTH
nobody writes about what we sell, it's just simply not interesting.
That might be your opening, then.
Create some linkworthy content and get it online. An old journalism professor of mine used to say there was no such thing as a boring topic, only unimaginative story tellers.
Did you do a search on 'your industry' plus 'blogs'? I'd be surprised if there weren't any blogs that didn't even mention your industry.
Did you write a list of all the industries that are even partly related to yours?
Methinks you're looking for an easy answer. The easy answer is that it's simply a matter of doing some work to get there. There's no sexy or instant answer, just the drudgery of developing links. That's about as much as I can spoon feed you.
FWIW, my industry is at least as boring, dry, and uninteresting as anything you're likely to be in. Nobody writes about this stuff except the industry, consumers don't care about it, it's basically bleh. Yet all the above techniques work fine - if you work at it a bit.
There's no sexy or instant answer
No one wants to believe that. Everyone's afraid they're missing some Marvellous Magic Lucky Secret that will make everything happen easily.
I suppose I'm just not confident that whatever is out there will get me results
Pick one of the techniques mentioned above and work at it until you get one result. ONE result. Don't approach the task in terms of needing zillions of backlinks; simply aim at getting one new link. Then aim at one more.
A friend of mine is a runner who at one point held several Canadian records for his age group in ultrarunning (the kind of runner who thinks the marathon is a training run). He told me once that the way to finish a fifty or hundred mile race is not to think about the miles and hours you have to run, it's to focus on getting from here to the next telephone pole. As long as you're headed in the right direction, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
So it is with link building. Do what it takes to get one new link ... and keep doing it.
