Panda Victim - Linkbait / Widget Strategies for a Boring Topic
-
Hi everyone,
My wife's site recently got smacked down by what I'm assuming is Panda. I won't bore you with too many details, but basically, she had great rankings for some fairly competitive terms. Someone recommended that she do product reviews for some of the brands on her website. I suggested that she write unique descriptions for everything (200 words or more) based on suggestions I found here and on other SEO sites. She started dripping out these product descriptions via her blog, and she had some price comparison affiliate links in those posts. Well, I guess Google didn't like it - site completely disappeared.
In any event, after talking with some SEOmoz staffers, it looks like she needs to go back and get rid of all of that, and then start pushing out some "more valuable content" for her visitors. That's a fine idea, but her site theme is "comfort shoes" - you know, the mostly-boring shoes that people wear when they don't want their feet to hurt.
Problem is, we're not linkbait experts. We've read some posts on SEOmoz about linkbait, but we're still having trouble coming up with anything. We want to do this the right way, but we need some ideas to get us over the hump. Our competitors really don't do anything in terms of linkbait, and maybe the boring topic is the reason for that.
Can anyone:
- point us to someone who is an expert in linkbait that isn't too expensive, or
- give us some ideas for some blog posts and/or widgets that might help...
Facebook and Twitter are already covered - we're looking more for blogging ideas or ideas for widgets, infographics, etc.
Thank you!
-
This YouMoz post also covers some ideas for "boring" industries. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/3-steps-to-social-seo-for-your-boring-ass-clients.
-
Thanks you 2. That will help get us started... especially like the Google Insights tip!
-
I feel your pain. I write content for a company that sells restaurant equipment - not exactly the most exciting topic out there.
But that doesn't mean you can't come up with some awesome articles that still reference your site.
For example, one linkbait that worked really well for me was surveying our customers about Groupon. I had been reading in industry publications about how many restaurateurs didn't like Groupon - and earlier this year the company was a hot topic among the general public.
I published a press release titled Restaurateurs Think Yelp, Groupon Are Hurting Business citing my survey results and quoting a prominent restaurant marketing consultant. The only reference to my company was that we had conducted the survey and I worked in some keyword anchor text back to our site.
I would use Google Insights to find some trending keywords related to popular news stories that cover the fashion industry. Then build some content around those hot topics with some solid in-line anchor text links to your site. Publish that on your blog, talk about it on social media, and see what happens.
Actually, when you type "comfortable shoes" into Insights you see some really interesting hot topics:
Wear Comfortable Shoes On Your Wedding Day
Why These Hunters Pack Comfortable Shoes
On Path To World Peace, Wear Comfortable ShoesSome real gems there!
-
She could offer fashion advice. How to look good and be comfortable at the same time.
Just look at UGG boots. They don't look any different than other boots. But they feel like slippers.
Leggings is another example of combining comfort and looks.
Tell your wife good luck.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Display Networks Less Expensive Than the Google Display Network/GDN
Hi Everyone, Are there any display networks that are notably less expensive than Google's Display Network? By this, I mean less than $0.01 U.S. CPC's for real people and not bots. On the Google network, I've tried the trick of opening a sister account with a cheaper currency, but in the end, I wasn't able to get much lower than $0.01 U.S. per click after converting back to U.S. dollars. Thanks, Andy
Affiliate Marketing | | AndyRSB0 -
What is your opinion on Alex Becker / Sourcewave?
This is only meant to be a discussion. Is he legit? Is he too blackhat and the next update may make him a lot less relevant? Is he worth paying attention to?
Affiliate Marketing | | Edward_Sturm0 -
Affiliates website, I need webpages linsk to study the topic
Kindly Provide me the best links where I can study about Affiliates websites, How to create them? there SEO? Content etc.
Affiliate Marketing | | bondhoward0 -
Advise about Social Sharing between two loosely affiliated website - (retweets/fb cross sharing)
So basically, I have two websites. One being my Primary website and another which is very Niche/Seasonal. Now the Niche website received a penalty, and was later re-included however google traffic has been extremely limited since being reindexed. (bing never had a problem, still top ranked) I don't directly link back and forth between the two websites because its not worth hurting my primary websites ranking. I'm sure google knows I own both anyway, as they are on the same webmaster tools but the Niche site was kicked for spammy link building & its been an endless process removing them all. Anyway, with that being my concern. Would it be acceptable to cross share facebook posts, retweet and do things like that on occasion? My primary reason for asking is because the Niche website has a very large social following, so I would like to share post/tweets from my Primary site when its relevant and vice versa. Appreciate any suggestions/comments. Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | Southbay_Carnivorous_Plants0 -
Amazon Niche Sites Or Adsense Niche Sites Or CPA Niche Sites for 2000$/month ?
Hello Seo Moz guys, I'm new in SEOMOZ Comunity but I have about 2 years experience in internet marketing. I build 5 websites with google adsense, all of them with about 50 articles, 1k+ backlinks, about 1$-1,5$ cpc, and in average 300 visitors per day. I monetize these sites only with google adsense. ( A LOT OF WORK I can say in manual way, I don't have automate or semi-automate tools for SEO-Link Building ) I didn't make more than 200$ per month and I want to make 2000$/month from online to be really happy. Can anyone suggest me a resource, a course, ANYTHING to improve my earnings? also, I want to change the business model from advertisements to affiliate marketing. I am in clickbank team and amazon asociates from 1 month and I didn't even make more than 30$ yet :)) Please please please, I want a good response, a respectable person to answer me 🙂 Thank you so much!
Affiliate Marketing | | Sebastyan210 -
Documentation to back up strategy for satellite sites
Hi, I am planning on launching satellite sites. From my understanding I should have unique IP addresses and a different template than my main site to avoid duplication and separate from the main site. Any good articles I could use as documentation to back up what I am saying? (or if people think I should be doing things differently feel free to pitch in with that as well)
Affiliate Marketing | | theLotter0 -
URL Tags / Affiliate tracking help
1. If I give a sales rep a unique tag to put at the end of a URL for tracking purposes, will Google index the "www.mysite.com/service.html?unique-tag" version of a page and display it in search results? 2. Would a tool like Xenu be able to find that version of a URL? Reason for questions: If I give my sales people tags with their names in them, I don't want competitors poaching my sales people by search for all URLs on my domain. Follow up: are there any other potential issues that I should think about? Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | pbhatt0 -
Affilate links - Google Panda 2.1
With the recent update from Google Panda would links from affiliate Coupon Sites now have an negative impact in Organic Rankings or site value? A reason for this question is because many Coupon Sites usually have poor content and a poor quality score. Thanks
Affiliate Marketing | | Tonyd230