Link Building in the Niche

Link building, done “properly,” is a function of some thoughtful strategies that draw people and businesses in your niche to your web site because of what it offers – the value it has for them.

Think about ways you can attract niche participants, search engines, and other niche authority sites to your niche web site. Here are a few objectives:

1. Provide niche content that people want to consume and share.  The idea is to leverage what you provide so that it is both valuable to participants in the niche and also something that is easy for them to pass along to others.

2. Learn about and implement (on your site) the “best practices” for search engine “love” or juice or whatever you want to call it.  You don’t have to go overboard in doing SEO, but there are some fairly simple and rudimentary things you can do to make your site search engine friendly.  This strategy doesn’t necessarily bring you links directly; however, being listed in the search engines and becoming “findable” is preferable to the alternative and over time should add to your linkability.

3. Authority sites in your niche and related niches will want to link to your site when it is to their own advantage.  Here are some ways to make your site something special in the niche:

• Provide valuable unique content – things that aren’t found on other sites in the niche.  Of course, content takes many forms like articles, blog posts, videos, audios (pod casts), graphic images, etc.
• Provide news, coverage of events, interviews with niche authorities, best practices, cases studies, etc in the niche.  These are all ways that you can keep your site “fresh” and current.  Many sites in the niche won’t go to this effort – but they will link to other sites that do!
• Provide tips or original thoughts in some type of ongoing dialogue.  Such recurring value can set your site apart from others that don’t do this.  It could be a newsletter, blog posts, or even just emails to subscribers.  Yes, this is “work” and not something most sites do – hence it’s a valuable asset to your business.  Non-competing sites in the niche will often refer their followers to such a valuable service off their own site.

4. Make sure your site is listed in all the niche directory sites or similar places where “niche resource” lists are found – these are termed “sites of authority.”  The key to getting listed, of course, is to make your site unique and valuable to others.

5. Always keep “distribution + branding” at the forefront of everything you produce.  You can’t afford to just put great content on your site and sit back hoping others will find you.  Brand everything you do and develop a distribution plan or strategy that “pushes” all your content, advice, products, etc. out into the niche – especially to the authority and high traffic sites where possible.

6. Don’t be afraid to ask others to give you a link.  I know this may be an unpleasant task for some . . . but when you think about it . . . if your site is unique with fresh content and of great value, you have nothing to fear or be ashamed of – you are doing that other person a favor and helping them to make your value available to their audience.

How you implement these objectives will depend upon your niche, what business model you’ve chosen, etc.  But you will find links from other sites come naturally as you focus on making your own site a valuable resource in the niche.  Trying to “game” your way to lots of great links can do your site more harm than good – don’t get caught up trying to shortcut your way to some large quantity of links over quality links in the niche.

To your online business success,

Steve Browne

www.SteveBrowneDirect.com