My competitors all seem to use "junk" pages to rank / backlink, how to compete and not cheat

[WhoWuddaThunk]

I can definitely relate.  I work in the auto realm which is less trusted than the government according to a recent study.

Anyway, rather than just writing good content, go after viral content that people will share.  Maybe pull out an "Office Space" Esq campaign where you get even with office equipment.  Stapler vs hammer?  Monitor vs ground?  Projector vs office chair?  Printer vs a large amount of fireworks?

Then reach out to bloggers and humor sites to link back to your video.

[Jinx14678]

I'm not quite at a "$2500/mo deal" so there has to be something between $2500 and nothing for building links around my content...

So I am in a much more competitive niche, and without giving to much away I do not spend a dime on link building, and compete neck and neck as a local business against national brands... With that said, my point above is you do not necessarily want to "Build Links" in the old school way, you want to create a content strategy that defeats you competitors crappy content strategy.

Copier Leasing

Copier Technical Whitepapers

A Funny MeMe Campaign about funny copier "offfice stories" or using the Office tv show

an infographic about the history of copying but maybe a funny take that goes WAY back to even Egyptian times

These may suck, but I am not in your niche Just be creative as your competition obviously is not

There are of course other white hat tactics you should be doing, that once again you have a plethora of resource material as a pro member that are not associated with content strategies (but many are)

If you cannot write these find a SEO copywriter or agency that can help but with even a 1,500 a month budget you could do wonders (in my opinion against a competitor like that)

and PS if you need a great copywriter I have a name I could pass you privately that she does great work PM me

[einstein9999]

LOVE IT Cody, I actually used a recent image from Office Space for a PPC campaign and it did capture attention. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIRL0p2PSY is what I think you are referring to. I will start the wheels spinning on how to "one up" whats already on the web, and make it better...the whole point of the internet - make it better - they will come!

[Jinx14678]

Please let me stress though if your onpage and social strategy are not there link building is not gonna do it by itself.....

That is why I recommend really delving into SEOMOZ resources, as they give a well rounded idea of the intricacies needed for an "Internet Marketing Strategy"

[einstein9999]

"These may suck, but I am not in your niche Just be creative as your competition obviously is not"

They don't suck, and are what I need to get the wheels of progress moving. I think of links in a convention sense, and whats there vs. what could be there. Linking to a "how to lease a copier" is what everyone does, but NO ONE has done anything creative.

(please do send me the SEO writer you like)

[chsofer]

"What ideas do you all have to get back-links in this market of Copier Leasing that would hold up."

1. First make sure you go through the getlisted.org process for local - this will give you some solid links as well -structured citations even no-followed when connected and verified to your site are boosting your rankings, thats based on my experience.

2. Second go for links to competitors who are NOT ranking for this 'specific' keyword but are contextually in that industry,

3. Get yourself a video on the simple part of leasing and this info, embed it on your page that you want to rank, tag it properly and promote it on youtube, Use 'all' features available for videos on you tube, (captions and stuff)

++if you can add it to your site with a video sitemap and some links (not much)

4. Mark up your site with semantic markups - schema.org - as much as possible

i can go on, but if you will make sure your site, speed and stickiness is there you should get up there quickly.

Ohh and don't be afraid of your competitors, real contextual quality links outrank junk content link farms

[einstein9999]

Great actionable stuff here! I just did the schema.org and did the "business" one, and did see some more favor from Google after just that simple addition.

Ohh and don't be afraid of your competitors, real contextual quality links outrank junk content link farms  - TRUE

[chsofer]

but did you create google +Local Business Page? or just a regular Google +Business Page?

Its important to create a Google +Local Business page as well and connect it with your site

[gmk1567]

Aggressive approach would be reporting domains with non relevant links to Google.

[DorotheaKettler]

Even though you seem to be a little against it,  the first thing I would do is report their nasty link farms. Sooner or later the algorithm will get smart enough to detect link farms by itself. There's nothing wrong with speeding up the process.

As for the rest of what you can do, most tips I had were already listed by others. In spite of all the algorithm changes, content is (still) king. The best thing you can do is create as much content as you can.

[MarieHaynes]

Situations like this are tough.  In a competitive niche the sites that are ranking #1 are still spammers...just smarter spammers than the ones that got caught by Penguin.  I was recently looking at the backlink profile of some sites in the car insurance niche.  Yikes!  These sites have in some cases millions of backlinks but they've been smart and instead of linking back with 100,000 links saying "car insurance" they've got a few saying "insurance for cars", a few saying, "automobile insurance", a few saying, "quotes for truck insurance".  They've spread out their anchor text enough that Penguin hasn't picked it up.

At this point it would be impossible to compete against these sites by using completely white hat measures.  (At least I think it would be...perhaps some incredible white hat SEO superfreak could do it, but not me.)

But, think of this.  What is the point of Penguin?  It really is to combat all effective types of webspam.  And, penguin is just in its infancy right now.  Google figured out how to go after obviously manipulative anchor text and now it's learning.  This is why it has taken so long for new Penguin refreshes to come out - because it is difficult for Google to apply algorithms that effectively eliminate spam but don't take down legitimate sites.

I believe that over the next couple of years, Penguin will get more and more refined.  Eventually these sites that you see ranking at the top using webspam will be gone.  Then, the good sites will rank.

Ultimately the best option in my opinion is to start now at creating awesomeness and eventually you will win.  But the problem is that that could take years.

So, if you are looking to make a quick buck then join the party and spam away.  But otherwise, I wouldn't do it!

[einstein9999]

I agree, and getting outside the box to get legit backlinks that are not just "business focused" like being on a copier company maker website or BBB site often lead to tunnel vision. Many of the listed suggestions I have never tried - but will.

[SteveTheWoodsman]

Have $250-$500?  Good.

Setup a scholarship for that amount and then create a page on your website that lists the requirements:

• Description of the scholarship
• Criteria (who can apply)
• Award amount
• Contest guidelines (if it is a contest)
• How to apply
• Deadline

Then, make sure to place a highlighted reference to the scholarship program on your homepage (so that others will link to you homepage).

Now, find 5+ colleges or high schools that have .edu domains and email their engineering department that you have a scholarship you are giving away in a contest and ask them to link from their website to your website so that their students will be informed.

In your content guidelines, tell them that they have to write an article that describes why they are the best candidate for the scholarship and then upload it to their own blog with a link back to your homepage.

Then just pick the best candidate and announce them after the deadline.

We did this for a client and garnered 4 .edu "do-follow" links, and over 30 .com/.net/etc... but the real plus was the upgrade to PR4 from PR3 and the shift from position 9 to position 4 on the first page of Google for their top keyword as well as several other page one take overs for relevant keywords.

Inevitably you will loose some of the links as people will take down the article... however, we retained about 85%.

Best of luck!

[KeriMorgret]

What did you pay in legal fees to set this up? That's something that needs to be considered as well, to make sure this is viewed by the government as a legitimate scholarship and not a contest.