10 Things You Can Learn About Content Marketing from Backlinko_(2)

Backlinko is one of the world’s top websites for SEO tips, advice, and training.

 And the man behind it, Brian Dean, is among the very best in the business.

This is despite being a relative latecomer to the party – he “discovered” the industry in 2010, while trying to promote a nutrition site, and only launched Backlinko in December 2012.

Since then, Brian has taught himself – and the rest of us in the industry – a lot about SEO, and more specifically, content marketing and link building.

He’s the kind of man that doesn’t sit back and take Google’s word as gospel, or blindly follow the lessons taught by others. He goes all out to find out what actually works.

Intrigued?

You should be.

Stick with me and we’ll take a look at 10 things you can learn about content marketing from Brian Dean, the man behind Backlinko.

1. Forget everything you learned in English classes – short sentences win the web

Brian Dean is the master of short sentences.

But he doesn’t write this way just for fun.

He writes in such short sentences because they boost readability – especially on the web.

 But this technique existed long before the internet came along.

Ernest Hemingway was (and is) held in high regard for his clear and concise style of writing.

There’s even an app named after him that’s designed to help writers identify long and complex sentences: The Hemingway App.

The fact is that short sentences work. They help to illustrate a point, and they make it easier for an audience to read and understand it.

Try it.

You’ll see what I mean..

2. We crave original research

If you want to create content that’s going to grab people’s attention, get them talking about you, and have them referencing you, performing your own research is key. 

3. Old content can be revived with an update

 

This is because Backlinko understands how much value lies in old content. It knows that if you’ve created something that’s resonated with your audience, the last thing you should do is forget about it.

As of 2011, freshness has played a part in Google’s algorithm, but you shouldn’t take this to mean new content is the only content that matters. Old content can rank well too, and drive significant traffic to the sites it lives on.

New content becomes old content, and old content is perfect for SEO. Over time, it gets shared, linked to, and clicked on, boosting its search engine rankings and thus continuing to generate traffic long after it was originally published. 

And, whaddya know? Digging deeper into that 76% of traffic, I realized that search is exactly where the traffic to our old posts is coming from.” – Pamela Vaughan, principal marketing manager of optimization at HubSpot

4. Epic content isn’t enough

We’ve all heard that if we want to succeed in Google we need to be creating “great content.” Most of us will have heard this many, many times. That’s because, despite being downright obvious, it does, on paper, sound like good advice.

But what does “great content” really mean? And is “great content” really enough?

Backlinko’s approach to content creation is to find content that’s performed well in their niche (which primarily means it’s attracted lots of links and shares) and to create something that goes one better. 

They’ve even given this aproach a name: The Skyscraper Technique.

So what’s the problem? Isn’t “the skyscraper” technique just the “create great content” technique in fancier clothing?

Not exactly…

The issue with the term “great content” is that it doesn’t give us anything tangible to work with.

Why?

Because “great content” means different things to different people. It also changes as the web evolves and particular techniques gain traction (once upon a time, a simple infographic was probably considered “great content” but today, an infographic has to be something really special to stand out).

What is tangible is finding the best possible piece of content on a particular topic and going one better.

5. Appealing to influencers in your niche is more important than appealing to your target market

Now, before I get into this lesson, let’s get one thing clear…

There is nothing wrong with creating content for your target market.

Content designed to sell, and long-form content created to capture search traffic, is very valuable.

However… if you’re creating content in the hopes that it will be shared and linked to, it needs to do more than appeal to your target market. It needs to appeal to influencers.

Take this example from Brian Dean himself.

Before Backlinko, Brian ran a nutrition site targeted at people who wanted to lose weight.

That was fine, except for one small problem…

No one was sharing his content, and consequently, traffic to the site was stagnant.

Can you guess what he was doing wrong?

Brian was creating content that his target audience loved. He published regularly, and followed a set schedule. And he was promoting the heck out of it.

Unfortunately, while his target market was lapping the content up, the people with the power to make it go viral – influencers in his niche – were less responsive.

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This led Brian to look at what the leaders in the health, diet, and fitness industries were doing that he wasn’t. One blogger that really stood out was Steve Kamb, the man behind Nerd Fitness.

Steve’s content was attracting links from influential names in his niche and bagging thousands of shares.

 

So what was it about Steve’s content that Brian’s lacked?

Steve was writing long-form articles that explored topics influencers in his niche were talking about, rather than simply pandering to the interests of his target audience.

In other words: Steve was publishing in-depth content that pushed past the status quo and captured the interest not only of people who wanted to read about it, but of people who were likely to share it and write about it too.

#joydee

#contentstrategy