# This Backlink Pivot Ranked a Startup Above Industry Giants in 2 Months

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Podcast: [The Edward Show](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-edward-show-6568456)
Published: 2026-07-07T13:07:00+00:00
Episode link: https://9342edaa-17ad-4315-a037-ec4dfabd63f7.libsyn.com/this-backlink-pivot-ranked-a-startup-above-industry-giants-in-2-months
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/9342edaa-17ad-4315-a037-ec4dfabd63f7/This_Backlink_Pivot_Ranked_a_Startup_Above_Industry_Giants_in_2_Months.mp3?dest-id=4081527
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Duration seconds: 454

## Resource

E1098: Breaking down a link building case study about what to do when your business is so niche that "perfectly relevant" backlink opportunities barely exist. The example comes from a petrochemical / chemical manufacturing startup trying to rank against much larger competitors. At first, they tried the obvious approach: - Create content around their exact niche - Place links inside that content - Get those links published on relevant websites - Focus on websites in the right country - Prioritize traffic, quality, and metrics The problem was simple: There just were not enough chemical manufacturing blogs or websites to keep building links at scale. So they made a pivot. Instead of only targeting hyper-specific chemical manufacturing sites, they moved broader. They started getting links from engineering, industrial, and manufacturing-adjacent websites. The sites were not perfectly about the client's exact product, but the content still included a relevant section about chemical engineering, with the keyword naturally worked in. After two more months, they ranked for a difficult keyword ahead of major chemical manufacturing competitors. That is the lesson of this episode. Perfect relevance matters, but in extremely niche industries, perfect relevance can become a bottleneck. Sometimes the better link building move is to target broader industry websites while keeping the content angle tight, believable, and relevant enough. In this episode, I cover: - Why ultra-niche businesses struggle to build relevant backlinks - How "perfect relevance" can slow down link building - Why broader industry sites can still work when the content angle makes sense - How a startup used engineering and industrial sites to compete with larger manufacturers - Why link quality is about more than d…

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