Product sites and linkbuilding

Limited by imagination or niche?

[sirkevon]

I'm think I have come to a point where obtaining backlinks for a product site in a particular niche is proving to be more and more difficult. Let's say for example a site sells home furniture. They don't actually make any of it, they're just a supplier. And all of their targeted keywords are competitively broad based such as furniture, coffee tables, dining room tables, and so on and so forth. So I started optimizing on-page, asked for links, created a blog used to write features that link back to the site as well as other informative tips, comment on popular forums, writing articles and press releases, created and used social media sites like Twitter, and submitted base feeds to product listing sites. I send out e-mail newsletters, and once in while I'll do a giveaway that hopefully nets the site some links. All this and the site has accumulated thousands of backlinks with a link profile that includes low, middle, and high quality links, and for most of these broad based keywords (as well as some pretty good longtail ones) the site is ranked at the least within the first or second pages of Google. Some are in the top five even. Not bad, right? But when you're working for a client, sometimes they just don't think that's good enough unless you're in the top 3.

At this point, I feel like I'm maintaining my rankings in terms of the link building I've been doing. I'm having a hard time finding what it takes to put you over the top. When it happened before on a couple keywords that hit #1, I felt like I hit the jackpot. As if it was blind luck that it happened. Of course, I'm not going to tell my boss that. :) But getting back to my point, would it just be to keep doing what I'm doing and pray at this point, or is there something more I can do?

[ken_b]

I felt like I hit the jackpot.

What does hitting the jackpot mean?

Getting a ton of sales?

[wheel]

At this point I would turn to slightly offtopic linkbait. Create some, put it on your site, then go link begging to the new content.

Not too offtopic - just move from say 'direct sales of furniture products' to something very directly furniture related. Another way of looking at it is the old adage 'make your site an authority'. So maybe some information on building furniture? Pics of horrible handmade furniture? Stains and finishes and techniques. Furniture from around the world? Gotta have an article on how to build dovetail joints as an example :).

I've got similiar 'issues' with my primary site. Link availability for the product sales are tapped out. So I'm moving to adding information that is useful to my competitors, or of interest to other authorities in my industry. And I'll be seeking links to that content - which I believe then enhances my direct sales part of the site.

[sirkevon]

ken_b, jackpot I meant ranking first. On a side note, I won't get into details, but even that didn't drive sales at all. For example, one particular keyword a year and a half ago was around middle of the first page and sales were frequent. Now, the same keyword ranked first for over six months and now it's at third, better than it ranked a year and a half ago and sales have been dismal. We're lucky if we get one sale for the month. Of course, my client's prices aren't what you'd call competitive at all but that's out of my hands and a different story. :)

wheel, thank you for the suggestion! I never thought of doing information stuff about furniture, but I see the point. I'll definitely try that next. If anything, I'm also trying to keep things fresh. Because link availability is so tapped out like you said, the problem of redundancy rears its ugly head and you find that you're repeating yourself when you're writing "new" content especially in the field of selling furniture. And who in their right mind would ever link to an over-priced furniture retailer? But again, that's a whole different story. :)

[wheel]

It works. I got a link from our industry's gov't appointed credential granting body. They don't link to commercial sites, and my site is a crappy little same-as-everyone-else's site. But I put on some research content (took some time and a bit of money) that was unique. Then I made the case that linking to my site was important to them, because researchers came to their site to find information, and these researchers couldn't find me if they didn't link. The webmaster still declined. But I went back and made the same case to the president, and he had the webmaster add the link.

Which I think illustrates a couple of things. Not sure what :).