Example of a local "boring-niche" site in a relatively high competition area using strictly white hat tactics
-
I'm looking for an example of a site in a very boring service niche locally "let's say elevator doors in chicago" or something like that, that successfully using blogging, content generation, etc to achieve top rankings above its spammy competitors. Anyone care to give out a case study? I'm not talking about companies that submit to 100's of local directories like yelp, or google maps rankings. I'm talking about organic or blended serps.
-
Joe
Thanks so much, your succinct and direct response is very valued, especially because it seems like quite a few replies are self-endorsing.
-
A company I have not worked with, but have been familiar with for years has been dogged in the pursuit of producing content for SEO purposes -- http://www.ctswholesalesunglasses.com/ they have a blog, i know i've seen videos on their site in the past. they rank well but not #1 on the primary competitive term, however explore the keyword space around it and you will see there content mixed into the SERPs consistently
-
To be honest I'm starting to wonder about the presence of these mysterious boring niche sites that everyone purports to be ranking using high level white hat strategies. Every single service niche site I have ever seen, ranks at best with profile links, blatantly paid directory and footer links, and sponsored reviews. I have yet to see a local service site that actually USES this tactic you're talking about - content that actually 'sticks'. I'll re-state the question: show me a site that does this successfully. It doesn't have to be a client...it can be any site. It feels like your answer 'skirts' the question to be honest and instead tries to showcase your strategy (which isn't what I asked for). I didn't ask "what would your strategy be for a boring service niche site". I asked "show me an example of one that does. I don't mean to sound harsh but this is the second question of mine you have weighed in on where you have 'dangled' an answer without actually answering the original question. I'm asking for a URL I can study and examine myself. I'm not looking for an elaborate theoretical answer.
-
Now that's thinking outside the elevator! I like it!
-
We have some clients that would fit into this category. I can't share the URLs due to non-disclosure setups, but I can share the basic strategy we use.
Basic strategy is to brainstorm interesting topics that are at least tangentially related to the topic at hand.
For "elevator doors in chicago" we could use topics like:
- Top 10 Most Epic Movie Scenes That Take Place In An Elevator
- 10 Smartphone Apps To Make Your Visit To Chicago A Breeze
- 7 Videos Of Elevator Pranks, Bloopers, & Accidents
- http://www.prettycoolthings.com/2008/03/27/the-worlds-coolest-elevator-rides/
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
-
Will massive "sculpting" make a difference?
I'm working with a very popular blog that also is associated with related products we manufacture and sell ourselves. The blog is about 99% blog content and about 1% product content. If suddenly some 99% of a 5,000 page blog is changed to have the blog pages no-indexed, will the linkjuice be now more concentrated on the remaining 1%? Also, be aware that this blog has lots of high quality backlinks from everyday recognizable magazines, newspapers and blogs. Of course, this is a highly competitive market place so I'm trying to leave no-stone-unturned here in working out the kinks. In the old days, we sort-of-called this "pagerank sculpting" and the idea was to focus the linkjuce on certain pages and defocus it on other pages. It made sense to block certain pages that were not indexible but Google supposedly dinged that tactic years ago, and today people say this is act also helps as it conserves the crawl budget. Might this make a difference these days?? Keep in mind that the 4,950 remaining pages are still followed, and all backlinks remain in place. Will the site start ranking better for the keywords on the 50 indexed (product) pages?
Link Building | | seo_plus1 -
E-commerce canonicals on other sites
Hi, I have a client with a new e-commerce site which is poorly ranked. Besides his e-commerce, he offers his products in a local site which very similar to Amazon. The description and HTML structure of his products, is the same on both pages. What do you think? Should I add canonical tags to the Amazon-like site? Or do I just need to change both contents to avoid duplication?
Link Building | | guillermoga0 -
Multiple Sites Vs. Single Site
We're a growing law firm looking into expanding into different practices of law. The question we're running into is should we create new sites for our different practice areas or add them to our current site? If we create multiple sites we have to divide our linking building efforts, but if we maintain everything under a single domain will be harder to be considered an "expert" on each section of law and get ranked well in each category? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Link Building | | PewLaw0 -
Fake SEO Site
What do you think of this site? This is the top, number ranking site in Halifax, UK. No authority, no backlinks and high keyword density considering the low amount of content. http://www.maknetic.co.uk/ Search term is SEO Halifax. How is it number 1? There's nothing in it and no user value at all!
Link Building | | littlesthobo0 -
What are the relative values of different PageRanks?
I'm planning a link-building campaign, and I've realised it'd be good to know the relative values of different PageRanks. e.g. does a PageRank 5 site have 10 times as much effect as a PageRank 4 site? Or 100 times? Or 2 times? I'm thinking, rather than spending ages getting 10,000 PageRank 3 links, I should just spend a bit less time trying to get a few PageRank 7+ links! I'm even considering offering incentives to staff for getting links - to do so it would be good to be able to value each PageRank accordingly. Any suggestions / knowledge / experience / stats gratefully received! Alex
Link Building | | reddogmusic0 -
Is there a software to help me check whether the sites that i give link to, also place my link on their site (reciprocal link)?
When i exchange links with others, i usually put their link on my site hoping that they'll do the same. Since it's impossible to check all sites whose link i have placed on my page to see if they have put a link back to me, i was wondering whether there is a kind of software to help me do that!
Link Building | | isidora0 -
Example of a service site using 100% white hat tactics in a competitive niche
Could someone show me an example of a service site that is using 100% content generation/brand building tactics in a boring niche? such as plumbing/electrical/movers, etc. All I see are paid nav/footer links, profile spam, directory submissions etc ranking in every niche. I'm looking for a specific example. Any site will do.
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
How to Earn Links to Boring Pages on Your Site
We do great in earning links to our homepage, articles, linkbait, and resource pages but we get few links to our product pages which are honestly pretty boring. Do you have any advice for increasing links to these important "money" pages? (we are trying to add useful content to make them less boring and unremarkable)
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0