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I don't know how to make the standard methods work...

by TrickyRMA
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello Everybody,

I would really welcome some advice from the experts on the Warrior Forum.

I have started to build a niche website, around 2.5 months old now.Without going into a lot of detail, it contains long reviews of luxury items.

I keep reading the many, many articles online about how to do SEO for my niche website, and I am really struggling to make the methods described 'fit' what I am doing with my site. In particular, I am struggling with the suggestions for backlink building. With Google constantly updating and changing, it seems a lot of the advice I've been reading is out of date:

- Buying links: Apparently not advisable.

- Link-exchanges: ditto.

- Buying links on Fiverr: ditto.

- Submit to directories: Most seem to be defunct, or never get round to approving (or rejecting) your submission, and are mostly no-follow anyway. I've never actually used a directory to find anything I need, anyway: I use Google directly.

- Systematically posting comments on known do-follow blogs, regardless of the relevance of the content of the blog to the website being linked to: Apparently not advisable as is considered spamming, but I can see several rival websites doing exactly that and their ranking is pretty good.

- Posting comments of value on relevant forums/blogs: I've never clicked through to a commenter's website, even if I thought that what they wrote was really good. And for a review website, I don't think this works too well.

- Guest blogging: I've read at least a few articles that aren't in favour of this.

- Posting articles on e.g. Stumbleupon: SEO advice websites always recommend posting 'link-bait' on these article/bookmarking websites, but that is because their own SEO advice pages are always link-bait by nature, it seems to me ('843 ways to improve your Google ranking' etc.). I review stuff, so it doesn't lend itself too well to link-bait style articles. If I had a 'how to' website, it might be a different story, I suppose.

- Create Google+, Facebook, YouTube etc. profiles with a link to the website: Done this, but strongly doubt it has had any impact.

- Fixing broken links: This one always comes up, as if there are a ton of links on the net that are broken (ok, I do believe that) and that you will always be able to replace them with a link to something on your own website (very rare for the two things to coincide, seems to me).

At 2.5 months old, I realise I haven't exactly been working on this for a very long time (the site is very small, maybe only 20 pages at this stage), and I am prepared to put the work in, but I feel like the standard methods don't apply in this case somehow.

I am not going to say my content is 'awesome' and all that, but I did write it myself so it's not just a cut and paste job (i.e. it will be 'original' in that sense); and the text is mostly quite long in terms of wordcount.

So after all that long-winded preamble (apologies), what can a person do to create backlinks if the website in question is basically a review/information website? Let's assume the content is interesting/entertaining, but doesn't lend itself to snappy, link-bait-style headlines. How can I put the content in front of people who might be interested in it?
#backlink building #backlinks #make #methods #seo #standard #work
  • Profile picture of the author jimbean
    It sounds like you are dismissing your efforts of feeling and based on how you would act. Just because you have never clicked a link in a blog comment it doesn't mean than nobody does. You will only know if your efforts are working if you can measure them. Get google analytics setup on your website. Monitor your traffic and see where it is coming from, is it from forums you have posted a signature on, does it come from blogs you have commented on, is it direct, what search terms are people finding you on etc.

    Once you have analytics installed and you have an idea how to see why your traffic has come from then pick a method for generating traffic and stick to it for a month, put everything into it and measure the effect in your analytics, then you will know if it is working or not.


    Every method will have pros and cons, as long as it is not black hat then give it a go and measure it. Don't let w few articles against something like guest blogging put you off, try it, measure it make up your own mind.


    Try to be creative and come up with some link bait, if you are reviewing a product then what are the benefits of the product? create link bait based on what the product does e.g. People are saving £100's on their electricity bill with this simple to install gadget...


    Just creating profiles on Google+, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube is not enough, they need to be active, you need to post, engage with other people, find people looking for your product, post comments on pages in your niche, upload relevant videos and update the seo for them, and measure your efforts in analytics.


    I think you miss understand "fix broken links", you cannot fix other people's broken links and point them at your site. You just need to make sure your website doesn't have any broken links. Search for a broken link checker in Google and enter your URL, fix any broken links on your website.


    I hope this helps.


    I wish you all the best.
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    Internet Marketing Blogger for Jim's Affiliate Marketing offering how to articles, reviews, recommendations and personal experiences.

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    • Profile picture of the author TrickyRMA
      Many thanks jimbean! I appreciate it. Am new here so cannot click the 'thank' button (I think that's how it works: must post 6 times or something?).

      On the broken link thing, I just meant that I read in several places that a way of getting backlinks is to:

      - Find links on a relevant site that are broken;
      - Let the Webmaster of that site know that their link is broken or leads to a website that is closed;
      - Let the Webmaster know that you just so happen to have a relevant bit of content on your own website that might be of interest to them that could act as a substitute;
      - Suggest to them that they replace the dead link with the link to your website.

      They say yes, and Bingo: you have a new backlink to your site.

      In practice, I cannot see any easy way of making this work for my site... but will have a think anyway!
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  • Profile picture of the author himanuzo
    About link building, think about quality over quantity.

    Have you tried pyramid model? For the tier #1, you treat it like your money site. And tier #2, you may use the automation bot.

    Have you build a list? Once you get traffic from Google, you capture leads.

    Once Google updates its algorithm, you have the list and maybe your website shaken and you fix it. So your online business and cashflow not shaken because of your list.
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