Working with a new site that's targeting a novel niche and I can't find any relevant outside resources to link to as there really aren't any.

Problem or not?

It can be viewed as a dead end site but that is not always a problem. It really depends on niche. I have seen some sites do just fine as far as search visibility and traffic goes that did not point to any outside web sites while others have needed to be more resourceful to compete in their industry.

I have one such client right now who did very well a few years ago but now that they have more competition, we are trying to make the site more resourceful by linking to relevant (but not competing) industry sites.

gg tough question without knowing the industry. I would think that you may run into some problems in building inbound links if you can't think of anyone to OBL to. Think 6 degrees of separation, and you are more likely to come up with something relevant.

Of course there is always the power of internal links...for example this #1 result (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-33,GGLJ:en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=seo+pricing&spell=1) only has 13 IBL's (from other domains) and no OBL's.

It was the "dead end site" thing that has me somewhat worried, as I mentioned it's a fairly novel development, so acquiring IBLs will not be the major problem IMO.

I'm stiil nervous of not having any OBLs though :-)

The only problem that I can think might occur is that the site may not get all of its pages into the regular index. I'm thinking about the overall links evaluation that was brought in with Big Daddy.

But, even though the site's topic may be unique, there must surely be sites on related topics that you could link to as "related".

OK, I've put a link to the government data protection site in the privacy page , and one to a related Useit article on the home page so hopefully that'll appease the "dead end" Gods ;-)

I'm surprised at how little relevant stuff I could find, the two word combo returns 47,400,000 results on G, but only 3570 using quotes with nothing relevant in the first few pages; I think I've found a niche ;-)

As long as it's a niche that some people look for, it sounds good :)

Hey Phil did you see that piece on link bait on the Beeb?
I put it in the link building forum...

Hey Phil did you see that piece on link bait on the Beeb?
I put it in the link building forum...Good article, here's the link:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=13611