I’m really struggling with a link building strategy for our online gift shop – I have read countless e-books, blog posts, guides & articles – there are so many ways to build links!!! I started off with building some Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages (some were removed) and submitting articles to article directories, like eZineArticles.com

While we have seen a very slight increase in Google traffic, this doesn’t seem working at all. Probably it’s only because we don’t have a clear plan to follow on a daily basis.

Will wait for your answer & suggestions!

Best Regards,
Andy, UK

Hi Andy,

Thanks for your question.

It’s great that you’re at least trying to work on SEO (Search Engine Optimization)! However, I believe that lack of knowledge is what stops you from achieving better results as I believe in gifts niche you could generate enormous amount of traffic via search engines which would of course result in increased sales.

So I’ll tell you what I tell everyone else trying to get into SEO game – LEARN! But do not simply read blogs, articles, e-books etc. – you need some sort of system you can follow, step by step guide to achieve your goals. For this reason, I strongly recommend you checking out STSE2 video course. It costs just $1 and it’s an absolute bargain! For $1 you get, what I would call, SEO Bible you can follow step by step to achieve top rankings in Google and other search engines.

On a side note, I want to share with you one very specific SEO strategy I have tested recently and it works amazingly well! It’s all about natural link building, so what I do is I offer FREE Product samples (with or without Free shipping – depends on the offer) to vloggers (people who create and share videos on YouTube etc.) and bloggers (people who own blogs) in exchange for a video/textual review and back link back to our site.

Now, of course – this can work only if you have some spare money to invest in marketing activities as you’ll have to cover product cost + shipping, if that’s the way you decide to go. That’s why this strategy is perfect for small, cheap items – at least, with products like these you can generate hundreds of valuable links in no time at all!

Great thing about this SEO strategy is that it’s totally White Hat (Google loves that) and it creates real buzz in blogosphere, meaning everyone in that niche is talking about you, everyone wants to get your samples, bloggers comment on other blogs, leave links to your sample page etc. etc. etc. This effectively creates large amount of ONE WAY, valuable links back to your site (home page & inner pages, product pages).

This strategy obviously won’t work if you sell high priced branded items (like mobile phones or something) as you simply couldn’t afford to give away hundreds of products just like that, for free. However, even in niches like these you can effectively exploit bloggers & vloggers by offering them:

• Product Accessories (they’re cheap and still you’ll achieve your goal – getting loads of one way back links to your site)
• DVD guide/manual (you can create a How To DVD or Audio CD, manufacturer it for $1-$2)
• Promotional Items (key rings, mugs, mouse mats etc.)

The main idea here is very simple – give away something valuable for FREE, so that vloggers & bloggers get interested! Once that happens, it will spread like a huge net of links creating social buzz about your company, brand, website & products!

Thanks,
Andrew

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