Sunday, September 26, 2010

How to Build Traffic and Backlinks with Content Marketing

If you have been anywhere near the Internet marketing space for any length of time, you have most certainly heard the old adage “content is king.”
Never has that been more true than today. No longer can you just slap up a couple links on low PR article and blog sites and call it a day if you plan on ranking in Google.

This new era of SEO and link building requires you to build compelling content that people will naturally link to, link building as it is meant to be.
But creating compelling content that will bring in loads of links is much easier said than done. That begs the question: how can you use content strategy as a focal point of your link building efforts?

That’s one of the main points Vertical Measures President Arnie Kuenn answered in Thursday’s VM webinar entitled “How to Build Traffic & Backlinks with Content Marketing,” which you can view in its entirety on our free SEO webinars page.
Companies are just now starting to understand that information is one of their most important offerings. In this Internet Age, the world is no longer just about products and services.

It’s important for companies to provide relevant content that solves tough problems faced by customers and to position themselves as a trusted solutions provider in their industry, as customers rely on companies to be a trusted source of information.
In the webinar, Arnie explained that storytelling gains an advantage being that if you can tell a story in a meaningful way then people will listen, read and ultimately link. This could involve hiring journalists to tell the story of your company or your product in a way that will resonate with the reader.

The crux of a content strategy boils down to this: you must create great content. Earth shattering, right? That involves building content around your keywords that adds real value to the reader by being unique, informative and entertaining.
For example, an REO/foreclosures corporate blog recently posted a piece of content on 13 homes that can’t foreclose, in which they picked out ridiculous “housing” choices such as a Monopoly house and a Gingerbread house. A piece like this incorporates the keyword (foreclosed homes) around a creative theme that can naturally attract links.

Such linkworthy content, as we like to call it here at VM, can come in a number of different forms. Arnie listed 13 popular ones:

1. A Blog
2. White Paper Series
3. eBooks
4. Case Studies
5. Interviews
6. Infographics
7. Online Quizzes
8. Contests
9. eNewsletters
10. Community Forums
11. Podcasts
12. Videos
13. Webcasts/Webinars

Finally, one of the biggest keys in creating interesting content that people will link to is to make it relevant. If you write the most interesting piece of content in the world on something people don’t care about, nobody will link to it. It’s the sad truth of the matter.
However, if you research what’s trending, you can tailor that hot topic/event to one of your keywords. For example, you could do a post on the 10 most expensive car crashes in history, with the last one being Tiger Woods’ crash, as one company in this space recently did. This example takes a national story and relates it to a client’s industry, although it’s an industry that usually doesn’t mesh with Tiger Woods and golf.
When looking for what’s current and hot when brainstorming for content, you should:
- Check Google Trends & Google Insights for Search
- Check trending topics on Twitter, Yahoo and MSN
- Look at answer sites like Yahoo Answers to figure out what people are asking about in your industry
- Check sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Tipd and Mixx.
Finally, Arnie discussed five steps in the content development process, which are as follows:
1. Brainstorm Concepts
2. Choose Most Powerful Idea
3. Wireframe Content
4. Create CSS/HTML/Code
5. Prepare Seeding and Launch Plan

1 comment:

  1. Great advice.All the backlink building techniques you mention above are possibly the best methods of having the job done.Some online marketers spend money investing in backlink building tools and iam opposed to such an idea.This usually puts you in hot water with the search engines.Even link exchanging is not a great idea neither.It is best for one to stick to these legitimate ways than invest in marketing tools.Maybe if one is a pro in a certain field one can then write an ebook and then put backlinks in it.



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