Give me a 10-step link building strategy for my t-shirt site!

[Shirtfight]

Ok i've been reading these forums like a madman.

I'm reading about getting links from content relevant sites, high PR sites, writing and submitting articles, blogs, smoke signals, airplanes with a huge banner behind it...

Here's my issue with it all. Most of you guys have a content-rich topic you are trying to market. It's either mortgages or credit reports or search engine optimizations...it makes sense that you write a really good authoritative article about a topic, then try to upsell a product,service, or advertising to the reader.

...I sell t-shirts. Funny ones. Shirt Fight (http://www.shirtfight.com/) is the site so you can check it out.

I have no content to speak of...i'm your typical e-commerce store! I got t-shirts, MAYBE a little funny description to go along with it...but that's it. My site (just like most e-commerce sites), is designed to showcase my product, make it clean and appealing to the customer, and give them an easy way to buy it.

That being said, what steps do I take to start building links? Articles...what kind of articles can i write, i sell T-SHIRTS lol!

So give me tips on building links to an e-commerce store please! Give me your world famous "10-step link building strategy" :D

Thanks in advance!

[GuyFromChicago]

Go check your e-mail;)

[whiteshark]

I'll give you some ideas.

Find out who your competitors are first.

Analyze their backlinks and see who is linking to them.

Send out reciprocal link requests with automated software.

Trade with good quality sites that are relevant.

Pay attention to page rank, although you'll have to be flexible in the beginning.

Pay attention to how many outbound links are on pages that list you (negotiate).

Consider PPC marketing, but be careful and carefully monitor ROI.

As far as article topics, I'll get back to you on that one... not sure!

Make your site so good that anyone will want to link to it, and users will come back.

Engage in 3-way links as they are potent.

Vary your anchor text slightly, keeping the words synonymous and relevant.

Deeplink to your site.

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I like your site. Can I have a shirt? Actually, it's a custom shirt I want made. PM me!

[pcoptimized]

Very nice info whiteshark. What is 3-way linking?

[Arunan]

I'll give you some ideas.

Find out who your competitors are first.

Analyze their backlinks and see who is linking to them.

Send out reciprocal link requests with automated software.

Trade with good quality sites that are relevant.

Pay attention to page rank, although you'll have to be flexible in the beginning.

Pay attention to how many outbound links are on pages that list you (negotiate).

Consider PPC marketing, but be careful and carefully monitor ROI.

As far as article topics, I'll get back to you on that one... not sure!

Make your site so good that anyone will want to link to it, and users will come back.

Engage in 3-way links as they are potent.

Vary your anchor text slightly, keeping the words synonymous and relevant.

Deeplink to your site.

--------------
I like your site. Can I have a shirt? Actually, it's a custom shirt I want made. PM me!

The problem with my site (www.zunepoint.com) it is a farely new website for a niche which is the Microsoft Zune player. This is the vital growing stage so it is hard to find relevant sites that are small to link with.

[whiteshark]

What the heck is a zune player? I'm sure you can find something relevant to link to!

3-way links are when there are three sites involved between two people ..

site A links to site B ... and in return, site B links to site A .. this creates two "one way links" between sites. and everyone knows that one-way links are more potent ..

It is my opinion that this method is STILL currently one step ahead of most search engines but might someday be more easily detectable in the future as a way to dupe the system.

[whiteshark]

I looked up a zune player ..

That's easy stuff .. just link up with technology sites or any site that deals with electronics, music, or technology.. there are thousands of sites you can easily find to link with.

[saky]

3-way links are when there are three sites involved between two people ..
site A links to site B ... and in return, site B links to site A ...
Site A links to site B and A gets a link from another site C (and not B) to avoid excessive link exchange pattern.

[MrFusion]

I looked up a zune player ..

That's easy stuff .. just link up with technology sites or any site that deals with electronics, music, or technology.. there are thousands of sites you can easily find to link with.
Oh I was saying linking to other Zune sites. I will most likely look into linking to technology sites.

[GuyFromChicago]

It is my opinion that this method is STILL currently one step ahead of most search engines but might someday be more easily detectable in the future as a way to dupe the system.

It's easy to detect now.

[Carlito]

How would a 3-way link be detected?

I can see how if I link to you and you link to me, those links might be discounted in some way.

But I can't link to ANY site that links to you or else your link to me is discounted?

Or is there some other way to detect a 3-way link exchange that I'm not thinking of? It seems future proof to me.

[GuyFromChicago]

I never said anything about discounting, just said it's detectable.

[Carlito]

Obviously Google has enough data to detect when a three way link exchange has occurred.

Determining if it is by chance or by 3-way link exchange is pretty much impossible... isn't it??

[pcoptimized]

Thanks for the explanation.

[whiteshark]

If they are trying to detect 3-way links, then they are going to end up with a lot of random, coincidental links ... Probably 99% unintentional. therefore, without better evidence of "duping the system", they probably won't do anything about it.

They'll eventually come up with an algorithm to see who is doing this frequent enough to suggest that it was not a coincidence and apply a little penalty, who knows.