How can I find relevant links?

[tomlivi]

Im in need of building some real quality relevant links. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this?

[Pjman]

A good way is to look at your competitors links and then approach those sites for links. There tons of tools to find their strongest links.

Contact them with an email of value. I nice paragraph can easily get it done for you. You might get a 10-15% success rate.

[piatkow]

This is a matter of subject matter expertise to identify the relevance and value of other sites. If you know your subject then you shouldn't need to ask the question. If you are building a site for somebody else then you need to work with an SME in the organisation to identify the key authority sites.

[Planet13]

Im in need of building some real quality relevant links. Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this?

There are a couple of software-based SEO packages out there which will help you to find out who is linking to your competitors. You might try asking if they will link to you, too.

There are many good tips by people in the Library section of this forum.

[BenFox]

You can do what Planet13 recommends yourself if you've got the right tools.

In this case the right tools are an itemised list of domains linking to your major competitors and a pivot table.

Use the pivot table to find which sites link to more than 3 of your top 20 competitors and voila - an instant list of potential leads.

[Planet13]

In this case the right tools are an itemised list of domains linking to your major competitors and a pivot table.

Great. Now I am going to have to learn what a pivot table is and how to use it.

Right now, I just contact EVERY one.

[tangor]

In data processing, a pivot table is a data summarization tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets (for example, in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc and Lotus 1-2-3) or business intelligence software. Among other functions, pivot-table tools can automatically sort, count, total or give the average of the data stored in one table or spreadsheet. It displays the results in a second table (called a "pivot table") showing the summarized data. Pivot tables are also useful for quickly creating unweighted cross tabulations. The user sets up and changes the summary's structure by dragging and dropping fields graphically. This "rotation" or pivoting of the summary table gives the concept its name. The term pivot table is a generic phrase used by multiple vendors. However, Microsoft Corporation has trademarked the specific form PivotTable.[1][2]

Pivot tables can be seen as a simplification of the more complete and complex OLAP concepts.

From Wikipedia

In short it is what has been suggested... look at the competitors, look at their links, then find the "pivot" where links to links cross (sum or average). Go for those first.

Which means you'll send an email requesting a link. But make sure that each request is UNIQUE and HEARTFELT (ie. not CANNED) and provides sufficient reason and readability to the recipient to expend their time to look at your website and decide if they want to link to your site. THAT is the hard part. Also pick and chose who you send those requests...make sure you are not entering a bad neighborhood.

[martinibuster]

Reviewing competitors is just a start. Many competitors can be just as lost as you are or worse. It's best if you can pick up an idea or direction.

Once you cherry picked what can be duplicated you are back where you started. So best to step up your game and ask yourself, what are alternative search queries, niches, and approaches? Think of DMOZ topic taxonomy, how topics are ordered. Click through websites, see who they think are resources. The idea is to find alternative niches that haven't been mined. I have rarely found a niche, either for clients or myself, that didn't have more.

[CainIV]

Assess resources and assets of the website you are building to. What does it offer inherently that is high quality and worth talking about? What can be built up, or on, to enhance perceived value?