Fist the back-story: I own and operate http://www.TheShrimpFarm.com. This website is dedicated to small freshwater aquarium shrimp. I sell aquarium shrimp, but the main goal of the site is to promote the hobby by providing high quality information, that is very hard to find on the Internet. I have had the site up now for about 6 years. This market is not very competitive, only about 2 other websites out there that are doing the same thing. Now the goal! I would like to have a number 1 spot in Google for the following 2 keywords: Cherry Shrimp (#4 now) and Dwarf Shrimp (#9 now). I am currently getting about 40-55 visitors a day from Google (for this market that is a fair amount, but I am guessing if I were number 1 in both keywords the traffic would double). The only other reputable sites in this market are direct competitors, so they are not willing to link to me. I have read the sticky, and have submitted to directories and have also written articles. Is there anything I am missing? What would you guys suggest?
So, I have gone over much of the link building forum, and really it seams the best trick it to get authoritative site to link to you. Well, I am the authoritative site, yet I don't rank number 1. Are there other alternatives?
Do this...since you're the expert on the subject, write a few articles on Cherry shrimp and dwarf shrimp, using those keywords as links to your site. Post the articles on some free article sites like ww.ezinearticles.com. Write a few articles and maybe also create a free blog at blogger and post some articles on your Aquarium Shrimp blog. Do these, and keep getting backlinks where you can, using your keywords as your link anchor text, and you should boost up to the top. Just my 2 cents.
christian, So after I post the articles, will they just sit on the article site? Or is the point to get people to put the articles on their website? The reason I ask is there are not many sites that are VERY relevent to the subject that would put articles on their site that I have not personally submitted an article or 2 to. Another question, of I am just posting articles to the article distribution websites that nobody places on their websites, does that give me a solid back link? And since I am some what new with the blog thing, are there sites I should submit my blog to that would publish it, or even review it since it is such a narrow focus?
The point of doing the article thing is more for getting quality backlinks in a relevant context. If you write a good article on Dwarf Shrimp and put your links in it, the search engines are going to recognize this and (hopefully) increase your sites ranking for those keywords that you used as your linking text. These articles will just sit there on the site, but they will get views, and you may get some clicks from it as well...but it's not the main point of the articles. As for the blog thing..if you create your own blog and put some articles in it, you'll want to submit it to some of the social bookmarking sites...like Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, NewsVine, etc. This will get you some links to your blog and it will get you listed in the Search Engines quicker. You really just want to get your blog indexed in google, so you can write your articles with your linking anchor text, so Google and the SE's see your links as relevant back links. When I'm doing this...I could care less if anyone reads or sees my blogs, but I do want the search engines to see them, and recognize that I have good links to my main site on the blog which is of the same subject.
Article submissions and get your site on as many blogs as possible with all unique content in the blogs.
Okay, thanks for the article suggestion... I have a blog that is on my site already! Should I have a blog that is not on my site as well? I have a hard time coming up with unique content for the blog as is, but if it will help I will do it. Should I start an offsite blog? And if so, where should I go to do that?