As a marketer time and again you have to think of link building, as we’re always looking to acquire high-authority backlinks. But have you ever thought that creating quality content should be the priority of your link-building efforts?
“One of the things that I’ve noticed is that a lot of people think their link-building campaigns are failing because of their outreach — in reality, it’s because of their content that they’re not able to earn backlinks.”
Michael Johnson
Planning on perfecting your link-building techniques? Then you need to keep in mind the people you’re reaching out to. Think of their audience and the value you can be able to offer them.
This is according to Michael Johnson, partnerships development manager at Page One Power in his session at SMX Next.
As a marketer, always keep in mind the fact that for you to create linkable assets, know topics and content formats are relevant to their audience.
Read Types of content and appropriate time of use.
Essential linkable content types
“One of the main purposes of linkable content is to expand your audience, it’s not about doubling down on the core audience that you’re already in touch with — it’s about connecting your brand with new, relevant audiences on the web.”
said Johnson.
For your content to be of relevance to your audience, you have to format it in an appealing way to draw in a wider audience. This way, you’d have made it easy for readers to see its value and search engines to analyze its information.
Informational/education articles and resource guides are the types of content that encourage linking. This is according to Johnson.
Educational articles
Designed to give readers the information they need in a straightforward manner. They often use “How-to” or “FAQ” structures to make the content as easy to read as possible.
“think about the piece and how it connects your website with relevant audiences and topics that are being discussed.”
Johnson
Resource guide content
It’s a long-form piece of content, marketers who take the time to flesh out specific, relevant details on their given topic will have an easier time gaining backlinks.
Johnson also shared a resource guide his content team put together for a client that supported STEM education for students with disabilities. The article’s structure and highly relevant content helped them generate promising results.
“So with this piece of information, not only are we able to help an audience that can use the help and give them valuable information, but we’re also connecting our site with a lot of great resource pages on the web. We were able to earn some amazing .edu links, like one that we got from pitt.edu, but also links from public schools websites.”
Johnson
If you get to focus too much on high authority sites, you may end up missing relevant low authority assets as not every relevant linking property has a high domain authority.
How does building linkable content grow traffic?
“The point of linkable content is to connect you with relevant sites across the web to expand your audience, so it needs to be a useful, valuable asset,”
Johnson
The most important aspect that determines your content’s linkability is how well it connects with your audience — everything else is secondary.
“We’re solving problems and we’re helping business owners. This [content] is something that people are passionate about, that they care about.”
“If your content can solve problems for people, that’s going to make them want to link to it,” Johnson concluded.
Watch the full SMX Next presentation here (free registration required).
