Link Building Ideas?

[TampaSEO]

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on a site where people can buy mail-order bagels, i.e. the bagels are shipped via postal mail. It's a good alternative for places that have no good bagel stores nearby, especially in small, rural towns.

I am about to launch a link-building campaign for the website, but am a little stuck as to where to begin. My first thought was guest posting, but it seems like the vast majority of food blog owners are very protective of their blogs and rarely, if ever, allow guest posts. I also thought about doing sponsored reviews (i.e. sending mommy bloggers free samples in exchange for a review), but that's essentially a paid link, i.e. a no-no. There are of course generic web directories, but those only get you so far, and article marketing is out of the question (too spammy).

Was hoping I might be able to bounce off some ideas off of you all. Any thoughts?

Thank you in advance for whatever tips/ideas you might be able to share

• Lukas

[MondovoCEO]

I think sponsored reviews the way you suggesting to do them, getting a review by sending samples, is a good idea and is alright. Guest posting also should be possible on different food related blogs, some quick examples of blogs I found from a search in Google [they may not be directly relevant to your line of business but I believe you still can write something for them and get a reasonably relevant link in return]:

http://www.farmtotableonline.org/write-for-us/

http://www.eatwithme.com/about-us/

http://eatdrinkbetter.com/write-for-us/

Apart from that, I believe you should also have a blog section on your site and create interesting "link worthy" content that when properly promoted could draw you a few good links. Link building is not only about "building" links but also about "attracting" enough links. So you have to work on that as well.

I personally believe submitting to directories whether they're the free general directories, the paid directories or relevant food industry specific directories, they all would offer you some amount of value in the link that you get from them. Just make sure you don't target a single term when building links with the directories, you want to target a large set of seemingly "natural" terms so that you don't suffer from any possible "over-optimization" penalty in having too many links with one or two anchor text.

[kbloemendaal]

I don't know that I would consider sponsored reviews from mom bloggers a bad tactic. Not that it matters, but I have a few clients in the home improvement niche that regularly do reviews when they get free product. As long as you aren't asking for a favorable review in exchange for samples... who cares?

Also, don't forget social... FB, Twitter, Plus, Pinterest, etc.. all has good affects on any online marketing plan.

Finally, some directories as well as blog commenting still is helpful as long as you are doing it for the right reasons... don't purposely search out do-follow blogs only for commenting. Search out the best places to leave comments and build relationships with those bloggers, I promise you if you leave some butt kickin' comments on a food bloggers' site, you will have a better chance of getting a guest post with them.