Let’s talk about link building for a minute. I know, you just rolled your eyes, but it’s truly an essential part of marketing.
Getting more backlinks will increase your overall organic rankings. It’s just a simple trust thing for Google. More websites pointing to your website helps Google understand that your site is a valuable one. It’s kinda like Google’s version of word-of-mouth.
And one of the best ways to get more backlinks is by creating data-driven content. To do that, you have to create your own data.
Admittedly, that’s easier said than done. But Search Engine Journal wrote a great piece to help you out.
First, you gotta pick your topic. Yeah, you have to do research on what you’re going to research. Use Google Trends, BuzzSumo, and all the usual keyword planners to help with this.
Once you’ve figured out your topic, it’s time to gather your data. You can do this by:
- Conducting your own surveys. We recommend treating this survey like any other piece of content — put ad-spend behind it, email it to your list, promote it in all the usual places to get responses.
- Use your own data & reports. There’s a good chance you’re collecting data in some part of your company that would be interesting for your audience. What sort of data does customer service gather? What about Google Analytics, anything useful in there? Or, conduct your own experiments. Think hard about this, there’s interesting data somewhere in your company.
Now, look for interesting angles. What’s different about this data that will make it as newsworthy as possible?
Okay, so you’ve got your topic, data, and angle. That means it’s time to visualize the data. How you present the data matters a ton. Here’s one of the best data visualizations around.
Finally, once you’ve got this thing published, it’s time to promote it! Do things like:
- Manual outreach to industry blogs and news publications
- Partner with other companies to do webinars about the data
- Create a blog series about it
- Recreate the data in infographics, social media content, and more.
Truly just scratched the surface on this one. You really gotta read it:
