Finding Links for those Niche Blogs

Posted by Grizzly on Sep 7th, 2008 | 43 comments

Let’s face facts. Most of my long time readers have been churning out blogs full of useful content, filled with optimized keywords and overflowing with hope that the big G is going to discover the sites and quickly rank them on top of the serp’s.

I get dozens of emails a week asking me for help from folks who have done everything right with their niches and are still not ranking worth a darn on Google. The reason is simple enough – they just don’t have the quality or quantity of backlinks necessary to elevate themselves to Google’s front page.

This is a common dilemma and lies with the fact that it is very hard to get keyword optimized backlinks in specialized niches. In a recent article I mentioned that the reason social media was so popular is because it allows people to interact with one another. The thing is that most sites using social media are MMO or make money blogging niches. I mentioned that it is hard to find a group of people who are aficionados of “Oil Filters”. Lots of folks will read your “10 tips for using stumbleupon” article and even send you some backlinks but nobody reads posts about “10 safe methods of disposing used oil filters” and the chance of getting a backlink is nil.

The thing is, the “real” money is in the niches and not in the blogging about blogging field. The end result is that there are two camps when it comes to internet marketing. The largest camp which has developed over the past year and a half is made up of MMO and Blogging sites. The smaller camp has been around a lot longer and predates the invent of web 2.0 or social media networking. This camp consists of the niche marketers who have found a way to rank well on Google for “Oil Filters”and other less than sexy niches.

The second camp has had things easy for some time now. Thanks to the social media boom very few would be marketers have any understanding of SEO and the result has been almost no competition in the search engines for a lot of highly searched terms. I know first hand that ranking for a keyword these days is actually easier than it was two years ago. Thanks to a couple of major Google slaps the serp’s have been cleaned of a lot of the spam sites that were so prevalent not so long ago – sites that while garbage did occupy prime serp real estate. These sites were the competition. With them mostly eliminated and a lack of new SEO marketers the serp’s have been wide open for those skilled enough to ascend them.

So what’s the trick?

The trick involves optimized backlinks. Yes this isn’t something I haven’t said a hundred times before. I have. But… saying you need backlinks is a lot easier than getting them. So how can you get backlinks to niche sites?

In fact I have had numerous emails from readers who mentioned that my “Friendz of Griz” concept is fine but what about people who don’t have a MMO blog? How can they get links from friends for their “Oil Filter” blog?

So I have given this some thought. The biggest hurdle to getting links to small niche sites is that you really don’t want to advertise your niche. You need links but you don’t want people to know that there is money to be made selling Air Force One shoes online. Unfortunately if you want links then you will have to disclose your niche sites to some people. To this end I am going to add another page to this blog which will hopefully help in this quest.

I will provide a list of general niche topics like Art, Auto, Business, etc. If you have a niche then select the General niche that is closest to yours (or give me a General niche I may have missed) and send me an email indicating that you are looking for links in the Auto niche for example and that you will leave an email address for others to contact you that may have a suitable site to trade links with you. This way you won’t have to give up your particular keywords to the wider audience.

Think of this as a bulletin board – post your email and indicate what kind of links you are looking for. You can use anonymous emails to keep your identity quiet if you wish. Those of you with similar niches can simply email each other and work out the details away from prying eyes.

Keep this in mind. Many of the niches you are working are not that competitive and you will be surprised at how few quality links you will need to make some headway. Remember that this is for real links contained in a related post or a site wide sidebar. You do not want a crappy link stuck on a PR N/A page full of links. If you want to help each other out then send quality links.

Don’t worry if your niches are not exact matches. I may have an oil filter blog and you have a auto body blog. Close enough. I have an oil filter blog and you have a cosmetics blog. Not close enough. Don’t just get links for the sake of getting links – just concentrate on getting the right ones. Getting too many wrong links could end up penalizing both you and the site linking to you so use common sense.

Don’t get hung up on who has more PR. Doesn’t matter. I have said this repeatedly – a keyword optimized link is worth a lot even on a PR0 blog. Most of your competition can’t get links with their keyword in the link. Your rank in the serp’s is based on keyword authority more than any other factor. The blog with the most links using their keyword wins. Period.

A word of caution – do not exchange links with a bad neighborhood site. You will suffer if you do so make sure the other site is legit. No p*rn, drugs, s*x etc.

I will be including a number of my niche sites on the list as well. Don’t be dick’s – help each other – don’t compete unless you already are and then maybe look at dominating the niche together.

If you need an example of how quickly keyword optimized links work just look at the competitive niche “make money blogging”. Both Bloggernoob and Blogging Zombie (friends of our little group) vaulted to page one for the term shortly after they received a handful of optimized links from Vic, Frank, Elliot and I as well as a few others. Granted these were some high authority links but they were competing in a very competitive niche – home to Problogger, Dosh Dosh, Steve Pavlina and a few other heavy weights.  Justin’s Blogging Zombie doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of links that Problogger has and yet he sits right along side Darren Rowse on page 1 of the serp’s. Not bad for a site not yet a year old. The difference is all in the quality of his backlinks and the fact that the links use the keyword “make money blogging“.

This is all about trust. Give it a try. If anyone runs into a “dick” just let me know and I will tarnish them publicly on this blog or at least warn you to stay away.

Just email me with your General Niches and an email address others can contact you with and I will add you to the Niche Support page.

Cheers,

Griz

Update Oct 2008 I have now added a page entitled “Link Resources” which lists a fair number of sites you can use for getting backlinks.