ha ha... thanks for the laugh.

Competition for that phrase is really really low.  If you have any kind of power in your site you should be able to rank for it.  Plus, if you are located in Virginia and your searcher is there too, that will make it even easier to rank for these terms.

So, it's not worth sounding like a hillbilly to every person who visits your site, just to contrive sentences that put these words in the order of a query that might be used once in a blue moon.

I agree.. The marketer's methods are ineffective... and the OP's methods are ineffective.  And, they are at odds with one another.

However, he says that he prefers the school of hard knocks.

In my opinion they are wasting client money until they come to an agreement and develop a genuine plan for marketing and SEO..

What can you do for the dealers that will make this a situation where you, the dealer and the customer all win?

How about fantastic product support PDFs that they can post on their website which contain a link to the manufacturer.

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I think that you have a good opportunity here.  Putting myself in the position of your dealers... do you sell retail and compete against them?  If the answer is yes then your request for all of them to link to you might not be appreciated.

I am a dealer and none of my suppliers ask me to link to them.  Instead they are linking to me to support my efforts - even when I also sell their competitor's products.  They link to the page on my site that features their product.

You say that you are a beginner at SEO.  That's honest.

However, you are jumping in with keyword research, registering domains, building landing pages, giving sites a diverse appearance.

I don't agree with a lot of your strategy.

In my opinion, it would be a good idea to put on the brakes.

Before you sink more of your time into things that are probably not going to work well it would be a good idea to increase your knowledge or hire someone who can get you moving with a solid plan.  Your team  might also need a referee.

When I am up against the heavy hitters I go to wordtracker or adwords keyword research tool and type in my primary keyword "plastic bins".

That would return terms such as.... large pb..... stackable pb.... clear pb..... colored pb.....  p trash b..... p toy b.....corrugated pb

There is a treasure trove of traffic out there of people who are one step closer to a buy decision than the people who are simply searching for "pb".   When I would wake up in the morning the fight bell would ding and I would be hammering to get massive amounts of good quality demonstration content, video, etc up on the site for all of those terms.  There is enough keyword depth there to keep me busy for months and months.

I am not talking about yada yada yada yada pb yada yada yada pb yada yada content. I am talking about substantive idea-generating content that would inspire people to buy a plastic toy bin even if they didn't plan to buy one when they arrived.  I would be trying to sell 'em a bin for their cat and pet raccoon.

When I looked at the keywords for plastic bins I was surprised to see that they are very very deep and very very rich.  I would be after top rankings for all of those terms.

I understand how it is to see this type of site at the top  

I don't worry about them.  I am old enough that it doesn't get my temper pumping and have been watching the web long enough to see lots of these sites disappear completely overnight.

If I was in this SERP I would be hammering at the secondary keywords and the longtail to the point of keyword cannibalization.  I think I would be making good money at it.

I'd be getting my YouTube stuff out to the front and center.  If you have that kind of asset you want to show it off instead of putting it in the footer.

There are some heavy hitters in those SERPs.

walmart, usplastic, uline, target, grainger, officemax, rubbermaid, homedepot

These big brands are hard to beat.  Those kinds of domains just have so much authority that you need a huge load of links to beat them.  You're site is all about bins....  Keep hammering for links.

If this was my site I would be saturating the secondary keywords and the long tail.

Good luck!

(I see a small display problem using firefox on a PC.    I see a "we're live should you need assistance" and a "x" box.  It might be a box that is supposed to be displayed above your design that is breaking".)