UK Based - Link Building Ideas for home improvement market? Brainstorming
-
Hi
I am looking for some advice / lists of recommended local search directories / citations that I can add our double glazing window site - as part of our strategy to improve local search rankings and increase our visibility on the web through SEO for phrases such as 'pvc windows' 'pvc doors' 'double glazing' and 'conservatories'
For example I have added the business to the likes of
Yelp
Qype
Tipped
Ufindus
Hotfrog
Freeindex
BrownbookBut are there any specific home improvement sites that I should add the business to also.
I would also be interested in sharing recommended strategy for this market in relation to link building, for example I have thought about offering staff in local goverment / universities / hospitals a genuine discount on our products as part of their staff discount schemes
Many Thanks
-
Hey,
No worries
I meant you could also ask for those companies that you've provided windows for to link back to you.
Re competitions - I mean actually frame your competition around link building.
For example you could run a competition with bloggers to give something away - to enter bloggers simply need to write a post and link back to you with the winner drawn from the hat.
See - http://bit.ly/znm31w for an example of what I mean.
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
Hi Hannah
Great response - many thanks. I am just looking for some clarification on some points you made - hope thats ok
What do you mean by
"Something similar could also be applied if you were providing services for companies with websites"
If we ran competitions how would that help a local audience - we are not a national provider just in a certain region of the UK. Also I thought this appraoch would only lead to temporary links as once the competition is over the likes of loquax, prizefinder etc would remove the competition entry
Thanks
-
Hello there,
I'd definitely encourage you to think about how you might go about getting some higher quality links to add in to the mix.
Guest posting (as Donnie suggested) would definitely be something that I'd encourage you to engage in, plus I really like your ideas for getting links from government / universities etc.
Something similar could also be applied if you were providing services for companies with websites.
Other opportunities might include:
Press release opportunities (either local or national).
- Do you have an interesting story to tell about a particular project you are working on? Are people in your company doing something for charity? Obviously it will need to be a genuinely good story in order to get coverage - but local press are often easier to engage with than national.
'Linkbait' Content
- Can you create some content to garner links? Perhaps something environment-related around window recycling or decreased heating bills? Or something around home improvement?
Competitions
- Could you run a competition to give something away? Doesn't necessarily have to be a full set of windows
Sponsorship
- Are there any local events that you could sponsor? This sort of thing can often result in both links from event websites, plus links from local press / other sites which cover the event.
Speaking at local events
- Similar benefits to sponsorship (see above).
I hope this helps,
Hannah
-
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/nonintuitive-search-queries-resources-for-link-building
Read #4 it will help you find blogs and forums in your area.. I also use omgili.com to find blogs and forums.
I would also recommend guest blogging. Check out myblogguest.com make sure you read the guidelines before making friends to exchange link building strategies with.
BTW IMO no follow links can be just as good. It shows the engine that people are naturally linking to you. In your quest to build links I would highly suggest using different variations of your keywords. This will help mask your site from appearing optimized to the search engines.
-
Any other ideas for the UK market?
Outreach is easier when you have a product to give away to bloggers, review sites etc to review the product etc
But for builders, plumbers and in our space pvc windows, doors and conservatories this is more difficult as we cant use the above approach.
So to summarise am I just looking at
1.) local directories
2.) web based directories that are primarily used for seo purposes
3.) Participating in DIY forums and posting comments on DIY blogs?
What is the best what to find DIY forums/ DIY blogs in the UK
The only popular DIY blog for the UK market is
diynot.com and some of these blogs have nofollow for links
-
I would recommend finding home improvement forums and making connections there. I have a good amount of success on a construction site from doing this.
People on forums are discussing everything you just have to look for them and engage them in a way that they cant turn down. My approach is usually humor.
you can introduce yourself like this: You guys want to know what the owner of the best pvc windows company eats for Breakfast... pause .... well today for breakfast I had some fruit and granola. Giving value + helping others = relationships
Relationships + Link Building = SEO results
First you make friends on forums/blogs/google+/facebook/linkedin then you can guest blog or ask them to mention some of your articles.
Since you are based in the UK I would suggest looking for sites there... Here is a great post Rand Fishkin released not too long ago, it should help you find good sites. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/nonintuitive-search-queries-resources-for-link-building
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Have any suggestions for next steps in link building campaign?
We are conducting SEO and white-hat link building campaign for a client that is in the national (US) fertility/infertility niche. So far we've done outreach to potential websites that we found to be a good fit for the campaign, although the conversion rate for getting Guest Posts, even Sponsored Posts is quite low. Furthermore, the number of these potential websites is close to running out and it's getting harder to find other websites with relevant metrics that are outreach-worthy. Besides Guest Post/Sponsored Post outreach, we've done Link Reclamation, Resource Links and Broken Link Building. Also, we tried expanding the list of keywords to try and come up with some new leads (in sub-niches) but haven't had much success. One peculiar thing that is happening when we do start a communication with the blog/website owners is that they get interested in the topic at first, up to the point of asking us to send them a Guest Post article and then.. silence, no response from them. We do a couple of follow-ups, but in most cases we don't hear back from them. We realize that there could be some editorial changes that they might want to be done, which we would be willing to do, but they just simply do not respond at all. When talking to other people in the SEO business we get different opinions on how to proceed, ranging from creation of web 2.0 properties and linking them up with video content and the client website, to even creating SEO link wheels. We are quite committed to our client and would love to get their site ranking, but we're reluctant to use tactics that might yield only short term results and might end up hurting the rankings on the long run. Other part of our strategy is creating quality content on our client's blog (within their website) and doing outreach to bloggers to get them interested in the topics that we are covering. So far these efforts have also not been very successful. Basically, my question is when you are doing a link building campaign for a client, what is your next strategy when the link opportunities run out?
Link Building | | Ullamalm0 -
Link Building for relaunched & newly designed site
Hey all, Next week we are relaunching our brand spankin' new site. It's a major overhaul of our existing site from both a brand, design, and identity point of view. As part of the relaunch we will be reaching out to journalists in our niche with PR, and also doing a series of guest posts. But I'm wondering about other link building opportunities around newly redesigned websites. I have a list of about 2 dozen design + CSS galleries to submit to. Can you recommend other sources? I'm especially interested in sites that review web design, etc... Thanks. C.
Link Building | | cmoylan1 -
Link building for rankings VS Link building for relationships
A Big Shout To Everyone -- Good Morning and What's Up 🙂 As I read today through seomoz professional guide to link building and the section why link building matters and in addition to this a newsletter I received today that changed my whole thinking towards link building for rankings vs for relationships. It is already happening on social networks if you are active there, but what about on your website. What are your thoughts on the following ? Google's job is provide the most relevant results to surfers online, and looking the link profile of a site & the page itself is the key to determining which page to serve on plate to the surfers link query ! Webmasters Site Objective:
Link Building | | helpwanted
I think that we as webmasters have to ask ourselves what do we want to achieve with link building. To get quick traffic or build slow authority links, high rankings, lead generation, sales & other things here I may be missing etcccc Other Objective Networking & Relationship Building Alliances : What I discovered today is that building links for 1st page rankings are great and will provide me with steady traffic, but not all of it is targeted traffic, but what else can I do to bring targeted traffic and at the same time try to build alliances with other related non competing business owners online. The idea... is to apply old school networking / relationship building alliances to get targeted traffic to my site that can actually benefit from my services. How Do We Achieve This I become a editor for approving resource links for me site, only the best will be placed on my site as a resource. Build a valuable tightly themed categorized resource section with related non competing resources that can help my sites visitors find what they are looking for, send visitors to non competing resources that may purchase their services which helps me build a relationship with them, and may can with rankings as well, provided I am selective with my qualification process. Questions & Concerns Below : What should I be thinking about when creating a resource categorized links page How many outgoing do follow links should I allow from this links partner page How will this links resource page affect my own SE 1st Page Rankings and is it worth it based on getting targeted traffic Any pros / cons I may be missing here0 -
Building Links
Hi everyone, I am new to SEO and in the process of building links the clean way. Any suggestions on how exactly I can find websites that are linking out to quality websites already? I went thru most of my competitors link building strategy - and 90% of their links are done either thru link exchange or paid links. So looking at my competitors strategy does not really help. So I need to find websites/blogs/forums that are ready to link to me if I can show them some useful content. How do I find these websites first? Please help! Cheers! Arjun
Link Building | | ArjunRajkumar0 -
Should I optimize/link build all my pages at once?
I'm currently starting to optimize about 30 area specific pages for a property maintenance company and was wondering, what's the best way to link build multiple pages at once? Should I link build for all of the 30 the pages at once, or maybe focus on 5 individual pages - get them ranking well, then focus on the next 5 and so on?
Link Building | | guy_andrews0 -
Demand Media & Link Building - OMG?
When the last linkscape update happened, I saw a new incoming link from USA Today Travel. SeoMoz rates the link as a 9.5 for DA and PA is 24. The article was written by someone from Demand Media. I tried contacting the author to work out a deal. Since I did not receive a response, I investigated Demand Media myself. They are a large group of content writers. I have finished building the site and now I'm in the link building process for highly competitive keywords. My 2 Questions: I can write articles all freakin day about what I do. I NEED to build links. Should I become a freelancer for Demand Media? I don't care about the pay because I am well paid. Is there anything to be concerned about with the Panda Update? All responses are appreciated. Please give me a thumbs up if you found this question interesting (because apparently some other post says nobody gives thumbs up)
Link Building | | Francisco_Meza1 -
Link building companies for a short term campaign?
Hi! I am not specially good at super fast link building campaign in the UK. My company has launched a website for a special event which is going to be held in a month and I have to boost it super fast. Luckily,the 2-3 keywords we are trying to rank for are not super competitive. Would you recommend any agency which would do this? Thanks!
Link Building | | jorgediaz0