You Can’t Pull a Salvador Dali on Google

The following is a playful interview with imaginary and unscrupulous link builders.

Please welcome our special guest! _____(your company here)______ Now let’s let the folks at home know exactly what your line is:

For the sake of having an example, lets say your line is Childrens Clothing. Now lets begin evaluating your link profile so we can guess your vertical!

Q: Is your product related to cruise lines?

A: Yes. Kids need bathing suits for those eight pools, right?

Q: Does your service connect in any abstract way to Don Cheadle’s filmography?

A: Does Don Cheadle have kids? He has to have nieces and nephews, right? We’re so good at this.

Q: Would you say that dark chocolate bar consumers and your customers share many common interests?

A: And carob bars, duh. Candy is like crack to kids, especially that pixie stuff that gets on your KIDS CLOTHING. Bam.

Q: Could an academic paper on the amygdala hosted on an .edu (oh snap) possibly have some tangential reference to your line whatsoever?

A: Kids … have brains!

The master of ceremonies, also known as Google, will have to intervene for falsifying your relevance. You want to be “winning!” at Google’s game? Don’t be outraged when they say “not so fast” and pull the rulebook out on you when you stray too far.

The moral of the story is this: if you can’t guess what your site is about from the nature of your backlinks, how can you expect Google to?

Instead of making every authoritative site you come across that might be willing to host a link about you and force the dots to connect themselves, you should think about putting yourself back inside the box. You’ve been thinking outside of the box for a little too long. Have a little solo brainstorm to find the herd again.

1. Go back to those high-authority blogs directly related to your vertical.
2. Write down all of the categories listed on each blog. They won’t be 100% relevant every time, but do keep in mind: these people know what they’re doing. They probably know some, or a lot of, things about your vertical that you don’t.
3. Infuse these words into your discovery on search engines you don’t usually use: blekko, DuckDuckGo, IceRocket, and Dogpile.
4. Naturally, this list of categories will consolidate into new markets and niches for you. Once you have a consolidated list…
5. Go to educational and informational sites such as Wolfram Alpha and Quora. Follow some of the topics and sub-topics that are popular in those niches.

It can take a lot of time and effort to get your groove back, Stella, so be ready to get your brow sweaty.