My website has no links to it at all :(

[Stoz]

I paid good money for a company to build me a website, I just put my domain into open site explorer and I have no links at all, how do I get links to other domains etc ?

Thanks for any help

-James

[SVmedia]

Hi James, don't worry everyone's gotta start somewhere.  This is normal if you 've just had a brand new site built.  You want links from other domains, and the best kind of links aren't the kind that you have any control over (someone links to you naturally because the content is useful). This stuff takes time

You may want to start by submitting to some reputable directories related to your niche.  Check out SEOmoz's directory list.

...oh and btw, open site explorer gives some great insight, but it's not as accurate as your own Google webmaster tools.

[Stoz]

Hi Colin and ty

I can't find any for Car body repairs etc, can I search ?

[xarax]

This post is deleted!

[sprynewmedia]

Hey James.  Further to Colin's message, with a fresh site launch it's time to outline an ongoing content and marketing strategy. It isn't about some magic number of links but a methodical way you can earn those links on an ongoing basics.

Another easy start is asking partner businesses to give you a bit of link love. You could also consider a press release announcing the new site particularly if it has something special for customers.

Your local phone directory may have a plan that gets you a back link worth your time.

Head over to getlisted.org (now owned by seomoz) and make sure your local profile is as strong as it can be. A car repair shop will really benefit from a strong local showing. Keep on top  of any reviews.

After that,  Youmoz is full of link building strategies. Select a few and give them a daily or weekly time allowance.

[Stoz]

ty for the response, what about if im testing and trying to help my friends website etc Can i help other peoples using semoz any tips on how about doing this ?

[sprynewmedia]

SEOmoz has a number of public tools they can use. After that, a basic membership allows for up to 5 campaigns so you and your friends could share a membership and get all the benefits of Pro.

A word of caution,  don't interlink with your friends sites unless they are of direct benefit to your customers.  Even then,  use sparingly. The absolutely last thing you want to do is anything that feels like cheating. Link exchanges/purchases are frowned upon.

[SVmedia]

Yea, you can search around and find little niche sites and blog listing sites that relate to cars.  But the general directories will all have categories for auto body repair or something similar.  So for any local services business I'd grab listings like places, yahoo, hotfrog, manta, kudzu, mojopages...the list is never-ending really so you can kind of use your own discretion in determining what directories are more relevant.  Did you see the local directories? Pretty much all of these will have categories for your type of business.

Another tool I've had success with is the Local Citation Finder by Whitespark.  It finds relevant citations based local search terms and does other nifty stuff.

[Stoz]

Hi Colin,

This is what i dont get, i click on Local Directories, one of those is Yell.com

I have my website linked to my advert there already but not coming up as a link

[KeriMorgret]

Open Site Explorer isn't able to crawl the entire web, we only crawl about the top 25% of it. We also have a bit of a delay between when you get a link and when it shows up in the main OSE crawl.

I'd suggest also verifying your site in Google Webmaster Tools and Bing's Webmaster Center. Both of those sites will show you additional links that are coming into your site that OSE hasn't caught yet.