Having difficulty in knowing how to target for links

Our audience is very niche

[ReturningSEO]

Hi All,

I'm have a troublesome website in terms of generating links in. My audience is very local and therefore the content is only relevant to this local audience. Widening my scope isn't an option.

In difficult situations like this, how would you find out where to target?

SEO<-

[piatkow]

OK, I used to maintain a site for a niche regional arts organisation. Where did I go for links?

1. The organisations and venues that we listed in our printed magazine
2. Related local business such as musical instrument repairers. (Not a good source)
3. Local government "community organisation" pages
4. National niche sites (only your subject matter expertise can find these)
5. Niche sections in national media sites.

I maintained directories of local venues, performers and business and always asked these for return links, making it clear that they were not a condition of being listed.

I always viewed links as a way to get visitors from the sites in question and never fussed about PR. Despite 12 months of neglect by the volunteer webmaster who replaced me the site is still coming top on key searches.

Your approach will vary according to the demands of your niche but I would expect a lot of things to be common.

[ReturningSEO]

Thanks Piatkow. That gives me an excellent starting point.

SEO<-

[CainIV]

In difficult situations like this, how would you find out where to target?

Every topic in the known Universe has supporting topics. There must be service, information or another that supports this website in some way. Without a relation, it wouldn't be a topic, since topics are classified by relationships to some <other> thing.