Panda Victim - Linkbait / Widget Strategies for a Boring Topic

[darkgreenguy]

Hi everyone,

My wife's site recently got smacked down by what I'm assuming is Panda.  I won't bore you with too many details, but basically, she had great rankings for some fairly competitive terms.   Someone recommended that she do product reviews for some of the brands on her website.  I suggested that she write unique descriptions for everything (200 words or more) based on suggestions I found here and on other SEO sites.  She started dripping out these product descriptions via her blog, and she had some price comparison affiliate links in those posts.  Well, I guess Google didn't like it - site completely disappeared.

In any event, after talking with some SEOmoz staffers, it looks like she needs to go back and get rid of all of that, and then start pushing out some "more valuable content" for her visitors.  That's a fine idea, but her site theme is "comfort shoes" - you know, the mostly-boring shoes that people wear when they don't want their feet to hurt.

Problem is, we're not linkbait experts.  We've read some posts on SEOmoz about linkbait, but we're still having trouble coming up with anything.  We want to do this the right way, but we need some ideas to get us over the hump.  Our competitors really don't do anything in terms of linkbait, and maybe the boring topic is the reason for that.

Can anyone:

• point us to someone who is an expert in linkbait that isn't too expensive, or
• give us some ideas for some blog posts and/or widgets that might help...

Facebook and Twitter are already covered - we're looking more for blogging ideas or ideas for widgets, infographics, etc.

Thank you!

[DanSpeicher]

She could offer fashion advice. How to look good and be comfortable at the same time.

Just look at UGG boots. They don't look any different than other boots. But they feel like slippers.

Leggings is another example of combining comfort and looks.

Tell your wife good luck.

[eTundra]

I feel your pain.  I write content for a company that sells restaurant equipment - not exactly the most exciting topic out there.

But that doesn't mean you can't come up with some awesome articles that still reference your site.

For example, one linkbait that worked really well for me was surveying our customers about Groupon.  I had been reading in industry publications about how many restaurateurs didn't like Groupon - and earlier this year the company was a hot topic among the general public.

I published a press release titled Restaurateurs Think Yelp, Groupon Are Hurting Business citing my survey results and quoting a prominent restaurant marketing consultant.  The only reference to my company was that we had conducted the survey and I worked in some keyword anchor text back to our site.

I would use Google Insights to find some trending keywords related to popular news stories that cover the fashion industry.  Then build some content around those hot topics with some solid in-line anchor text links to your site.  Publish that on your blog, talk about it on social media, and see what happens.

Actually, when you type "comfortable shoes" into Insights you see some really interesting hot topics:

Wear Comfortable Shoes On Your Wedding Day
Why These Hunters Pack Comfortable Shoes
On Path To World Peace, Wear Comfortable Shoes

Some real gems there!

[darkgreenguy]

Thanks you 2.  That will help get us started...  especially like the Google Insights tip!

[KeriMorgret]

This YouMoz post also covers some ideas for "boring" industries. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/3-steps-to-social-seo-for-your-boring-ass-clients.