Category Archives: Search Engine Optimization

5 Research Strategies that Create Awesome Blog Posts

5 research strategies behind awesome blog posts

As a freelance content marketing writer, I’ve been tasked with writing about a lot of different industries over the years. But even though I’ve never worked as a cybersecurity specialist or a customer service agent, I’ve managed to write blog posts about those subjects (and many others) that speak to an audience of experts. 

How is it possible for a freelance writer to learn enough on a new topic to write knowledgeably?

The short answer is research.

But that word covers a lot of territory. Doing effective research can take a number of forms. 

First Things First: Onboarding Research

For each new client, this starts with onboarding research.

I ask clients to provide me with internal resources that help me get up to speed on their brand and industry, such as a style guide and buyer personas. I have an onboarding questionnaire I send that asks for information like target audience details, their top competitors, industry publications they like and trust, and examples of pieces they like the style of. I spend time reviewing their website to understand how they talk about the brand and product. And I read a number of their blog posts to get a feel for the typical writing style and the kinds of subjects they cover.

All of that happens before I start on research for the first blog post. Some writers have a minimum work requirement for new clients to account for how much time goes into onboarding research. (I don’t personally, but 100% understand why other writers do. The time commitment is a lot).

5 Smart Research Strategies for Better Blog Posts 

Once I have a strong bearing on the brand, product, and industry, I can get into the research needed for the first blog post itself. In my experience, there are five main research strategies that lead to high-quality blog posts. 

Strategy 1: Use a mix of online research and internal resources.

This is probably the most obvious research strategy available, and it’s the one I personally use the most often. But that doesn’t mean it’s always the easiest. 

You have to know how to find good resources in your research and avoid being taken in by bad ones that are either outdated, written by biased sources, or straight up inaccurate. For example, bad statistics are extremely easy to find online and, as such, get repeated over and over again in new blog posts. Writers that care about using accurate, trustworthy statistics in their work have to do a lot of work to find them. 

You also have to understand how to take what you learn from existing sources and turn it into something original. You can’t just repeat what other writers have said and call it your own work. That’s called plagiarism and is a surefire way to lose clients, tarnish your reputation, and potentially get sued. Instead, you want to take what you learn from existing sources, identify the most important points that are relevant for your audience, and rework the information into something new.

One benefit to this strategy is that you can handle the work independently—that’s why it’s the most common method I use. It means work doesn’t get held up while I’m waiting on others for information, at least not as much as with some other research strategies. But for some specialized topics, you may have a hard time finding good information to work from. And you have to be careful that you don’t end up just regurgitating the same content already out there. That just adds to the glut of low-quality content in the world. 

Some tips for using this strategy effectively:

  • Start with internal resources from your client.

See what blog posts, case studies, and other resources your client already has that are relevant to the topic. Seeing what they’ve already written on the subject helps you situate all the other information you learn within their particular brand story and tie it into their audience’s concerns. If the client provides a writing brief for each piece, advise them to include this information so you have it from the start. 

This step is especially important for any pieces where search engine optimization (SEO) is a priority. Seeing what pieces rank at the top of Google now for relevant keywords tells you what kind of information Google’s algorithm (and by extension, its users) like seeing on the topic. SERP research can help you determine important sections to include, how long the blog post should likely be, and any notable factors the top results have in common.

Reading over the information covered in those pieces will also provide some of the information you’ll need to write a knowledgeable blog post. But be careful not to assume that just because a piece of content is on page one of Google, all its information will be accurate or relevant to your audience. Be discerning as you review the information out there now, and look for ways to improve upon what you found in your own blog post.

  • Go beyond blog posts in your research.

Reading other blog posts on the subject is part of a good research process, but it’s not always enough. You also want to look for original research that backs up the points you make, examples that illustrate what you’re talking about, and any customer stories relevant to the topic. You may not need to include all of those in every post—a lot depends on the topic and blog post format. But going beyond what’s easy to find with surface-level research is how you elevate a blog post into something useful for the reader. 

  • Don’t be afraid to ask your client questions. 

Part of being a good researcher is knowing how to recognize what you don’t know. Cover as much territory in your own research as you can, but if you know there’s information you still lack or nuances you’re not sure you understand: ask. 

Your client will know the ins and outs of the industry better than you, and have easier access to internal experts. For any client worth having, admitting you want help understanding a topic will be a sign of your professionalism, especially if it’s obvious that you did the work to learn as much as you could on your own first. 

Strategy 2: Collect source quotes from experts.

When you’re not an expert in an industry or topic yourself, one of the best ways to ensure your post reflects real-world experience is to learn from people who are. One form this can take is reaching out to a number of different experts in the topic area you’re writing about to ask for their input. Then you can base sections of your blog post on what you learn, and weave their quotes in to add authority. 

You can employ a few different strategies to find relevant experts. To start, pay attention to the network you already have and work on building it up over time. Any time you interact with industry experts—at networking events, conferences, or even on social media platforms—make a note of it. If you keep a list of experts and influencers in the spaces you write about, you’ll always have people to turn to for a quote. 

If you’re active on social media, you may not even need to reach out to individuals directly. “I see a lot of success by putting call-outs for quotes/expertise on Twitter,” says freelance writer, Ashley Cummings. “The niche I write for is very active on Twitter, so it’s a great place to source quotes. I’d tell any writer to find where their experts live and spend time building relationships.” 

That, along with a list she’s developed of go-to experts in the spaces she writes about, helps her craft pieces packed with expert insights, like this one on product detail pages. 

If you haven’t built up much of a professional network or social media following yet, don’t worry. You can use websites designed specifically to match sources with writers, such as Help a Reporter Out (HARO). Some topic areas will net you more responses than others, and you’ll need to sift through the responses you get to weed out any that aren’t relevant or useful. But I’ve had good luck using HARO to craft posts full of actionable tips, like this one on promoting your content. 

Speaking of content promotion, featuring experts is a smart way to expand the reach of your pieces. When you mention someone in a blog post, they’re usually quick to share the post with their own networks. That can help your blog post reach an audience that wouldn’t have found it otherwise. 

This strategy also doubles as a good way to grow your network, and strengthen your connection with people already in it. Getting a mention (and ideally, a link) in a blog post benefits them too. And mutually beneficial relationships is what good networking is all about.

Strategy 3: Perform subject matter expert (SME) interviews.

When you want to feature several experts in one piece, getting quotes over email or social media makes sense. But you can go deeper with a particular SME or two by conducting interviews over the phone. This strategy is a great way to learn about a topic in detail from someone who knows the subject in and out. And it gives you the ability to ask followup questions that come up in the moment based on what they tell you. 

Performing interviews is a common research strategy for ghostwritten pieces. The goal of ghostwriting is generally to combine a writer’s skill with an expert’s thoughts and knowledge.  You can better ensure a ghostwritten post accurately reflects what an expert thinks and the way they talk about it when you’ve had a discussion with them. 

But blog posts based on source interviews are useful in other contexts as well. A conversation with an expert ensures you can approach a complicated topic with greater accuracy. And by weaving quotes from an expert into your piece, you give it more legitimacy. When I wrote about data privacy laws for a client, talking to a lawyer gave me confidence I wouldn’t get a complex legal topic wrong, while also giving readers confidence that the advice is legitimate. And when I covered accounting for freelancers for another client, talking to my personal CPA (who also happens to be my mom) meant all the advice included was backed by someone with decades of experience in the field. 

Some tips for getting the most out of an interview:

  • Do preliminary research.

While the interview may cover a lot of the information you need for the piece, preliminary research ensures you know enough to write smart questions. 

  • Write questions in advance.

Go into the interview with a list of questions in mind, so you’re prepared. While your preliminary research will ensure you have some topic knowledge going in, I still find it valuable to ask beginner-level questions in order to hear how a source covers basic information in their own words. And don’t be afraid to deviate from the list and ask followup questions based on what your source says during the conversation.  

  • Record the call.

Even if you’re great at taking notes, it’s easy to miss things in the moment. A recording enables you to revisit what the SME said as you write. And if you’ll be quoting the SME in your piece, a recording is crucial for making sure you get the quotes right. I use Otter to record calls. It creates a transcription for you, which I find much easier to work from than an audio recording.

  • As your last question, ask “is there anything we haven’t covered you feel would be useful for readers to know?”

This gives the SME a chance to elaborate on anything about the topic they think is important. In my experience, sometimes you’ll get the best insights or quotes from what they say in response to this question. 

Strategy 4: Use the content from webinars, events, or podcasts.

Savvy content marketers understand the value of repurposing content. Creating content from scratch every single time is hard, time consuming, and wasteful. But using content you’ve already created as the basis for new content? That’s just smart. 

The webinars, in-person talks, and podcasts a business participates in are packed full of valuable information. A good freelance content marketing writer can use the insights your experts shared in these formats and turn them into awesome blog posts.

If you’re already offering webinars for your audience that feature internal experts, capture that knowledge in blog posts. The presentations employees and executives give at industry events and conferences are also blog opportunities. Even if a freelance writer isn’t present for the talk itself, a recording or the PowerPoint and notes the speaker used may provide enough information to work from. And if your brand has launched a podcast, or your experts have been guests on one, that’s yet another good source for new blog posts. 

This research strategy for blog posts has some notable benefits. 

For one thing, it gives you the chance to make the work you already did creating the original piece of content go further. But it also serves as a great opportunity to do further promotion for the original content. A blog post that summarizes the top points covered in a podcast can encourage readers to listen and subscribe to the podcast itself.  A blog post that recaps a webinar can include a call to action (CTA) at the end to check out the webinar recording, and thus serve as a lead generation tool.  

For in-person events that already occurred, it’s too late to use the blog post to encourage attendance. But you can use it to draw more attention to the knowledge of the speaker, helping to further build up their thought leadership profile. And the blog post can become a tool to promote your future events by showing how valuable a previous one was. 

After Andi Robinson gave a talk at the Bay Area Content Marketing Meetup, Rochi Zalani used this tactic to create a blog post that highlighted some of the main takeaways for the Attention Retention blog. The blog post helps promote the meetup, the business that hosts the meetup, and the speaker all at once. And it provides more valuable content for readers of the Attention Retention blog. It’s a win for everyone involved.

5. Write pieces based on original research. 

Blog posts based on original research are a powerful tool for earning links and mentions around the web and building up your brand’s online profile. Performing original research isn’t easy. You have to be willing to launch a survey and promote it to enough people to get a decent sample set, or perform a useful analysis of data (not a skill everyone has). 

Generally speaking, performing the original research itself isn’t something most freelance writers will do for you. It requires a different skill set than writing. But once you’ve done the research, a good freelance writer can help turn the data into a story that makes it compelling for your audience.

Ashley used this strategy on her own website when she launched a survey on what freelance writers charge. By doing the work to compile meaningful data, and then craft that data into an easy-to-understand blog post, she created a powerful marketing tool for her own freelance writing business. 

Orbit Media’s known for creating this kind of content too. Every year they publish an in-depth blog post based on their annual blogging survey that tracks data useful to every freelance blogger and company with a blog alike. They’ve reported that the posts about their blogging surveys have earned backlinks from over 1,600 websites, and over 4,000 shares.

This strategy isn’t quite as common as the others, because it’s harder to do well. But if you can pull it off, blog posts based on original research get some of the best results of any type of content. 

Good Content Marketing Requires Good Research

Writing a strong piece of content marketing isn’t just about finding the right words. You have to understand the topic you’re covering before you can write well about it. To produce an awesome blog post, you have to start with good research. A strong research process is one of the main things that sets skilled freelance writers apart.

SEO Writing 101: Don’t Skip SERP Research

A good 90% of SEO writing is about creating content that’s valuable to the humans you hope will read it. But then there’s that other 10%—the part about understanding search engines and making sure your writing speaks to what the algorithms respond to.

And a key step in getting that 10% right (and helping with the 90% while you’re at it) is performing SERP research.

What is SERP Research?

SERP stands for search engine results page. Anytime you do a Google search, the page your search produces is the SERP for that keyword.

SERP research is performing an analysis of the SERP for a keyword you want to rank for. 

Digging into the SERP for a keyword yields useful insights about how people use the keyword, what Google deems good content on the topic, and what you need to do to effectively compete in the rankings.

How to Perform a SERP Analysis

The idea of SERP research may seem straightforward enough: perform a search, see what shows up. But to do an effective SERP analysis, you want to include a few key steps in your process.

1. Google your primary keyword.

Do a search for the primary keyword you have in mind. If you have a list of a few keywords you’re targeting, or are still trying to decide between a few, go ahead and do this for all of them so you can see how the SERPs compare.

Because Google sometimes provides personalized results based on past search history, this step is best performed in an incognito or private search window. 

2. Analyze the layout of the SERP.

The great aim of Google’s algorithm is to discern what the person searching wants to find, and deliver up the best possible results for their query. And because the company has massive quantities of data on people’s search habits and what they click on for each search, they do a pretty good job at understanding the intentions behind a keyword. 

For marketers, analyzing the layout of a SERP can reveal valuable information on what your target audience is thinking. You want the piece you write to address what they’re looking for, and the SERP helps you better understand what that is.

Sometimes the results you get will reveal people are searching for something entirely different than you thought. For example, if you do a search for “SERP research” the first result is for an organization called The Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute. 

That is…not how I’m using the term in this post. But because the rest of the results on the page have to do with SEO, that suggests that, other than the people searching for that specific organization, most of the people searching for that term are using it the way I’m talking about it. 

Beyond confirming the main meaning people have in mind for a keyword, a SERP analysis can help you better understand what type of results they’re looking for. For example, let’s look at the SERPs for two related keywords: ”how to improve energy” and “supplements for energy.”

The first has three main things on it: 

  • An answer box with information pulled from an article on the subject in a list format
  • A People Also Ask section with related questions 
  • Organic results dominated by articles that list tips

All three of these point to informational search intent. Google is convinced people performing this search want articles that provide actionable tips they can put to use, in list form. 

The latter search term looks different. Some of the organic results are informational articles like those on our first SERP, suggesting that’s what some people are looking for. But above that, we get shopping results.

Lower on the page, we get a local map of nearby stores that sell supplements. And several of the organic results are eCommerce brands. That all points to Google understanding this search term to have purchasing intent, at least some of the time. Some people doing this search want information, but many are ready to buy a product that meets their needs. 

3.  Identify any SERP features.

SERP features are all those extra features that show up on the SERP alongside the organic results. Some common examples include paid ads, the People Also Ask section, the Google local map, answer boxes, and knowledge graphs. 

A Backlinko analysis found that 97.6% of searches produce results with at least one SERP feature. Understanding the SERP features for your keyword is important for a few reasons:

  • They help you understand search intent (as with our supplements example above).
  • If a featured snippet tops the page, it’s something you’ll want to target with your content 
  • They allow you to gauge how valuable an organic result really is

To that last point, SERP features play a key role in how people will react to a SERP, and can impact how likely they are to click on organic results. For example, if you do a search for a movie, the knowledge graph that shows up on the right side of the page packs a lot of information.

You get images, the year the movie was made, its running time, where you can watch it, critics’ ratings, quotes from reviews, and a list of the top actors in the movie. In short, a decent number of the questions a person might have about the movie are answered right there on the SERP.

Even if you rank on page one for a keyword with a thorough knowledge graph like this—your content requires an extra click, and Google’s doesn’t. That might not make the keyword useless to target, but it means it shouldn’t be as high of a priority as a comparable term without a knowledge graph.

On the other hand, if the page is topped with an answer box, you’ll want to create content optimized for claiming that featured snippet. An Ahrefs study found that less than a third of featured snippets came from the top organic result. That means you don’t have to earn the top spot in Google’s organic results to be featured at the top of the page. 

Pay attention to what kind of featured snippet it is. If it’s a list, structure your content in a list format. If it’s a paragraph answer box, include your keyword followed by a brief answer in the content itself, ideally near the top of the page. And of course, aim to make it better than the content currently claiming that spot. 

4. Review your top competitors.

This step is the most straightforward, but also the most time consuming. In order to write content that has a chance of ranking, you want to understand what’s ranking now. Click on the top few results, and spend some time reading what’s on the page. 

This accomplishes a few things at once:

  • It shows you what you need to beat. Unless your website has already built up a lot of authority (e.g. you’re writing for a big player like The New York Times or their equivalent in your space), your content needs to be better than the top results to have any chance of competing with them. You need to understand what you’re up against in order to create something that rivals it. 
  • It shows you what Google considers a good answer for the keyword. The content that ranks now can teach you a lot about what Google sees as the best way to cover the topic you’re writing about. Pay attention to what different sections the ranking content includes, what questions they answer, and what language they use. And also note the length. Has Google determined this a topic that requires a longform piece to cover it adequately? 
  • It helps you learn more about the topic. If you’re already an expert, maybe you won’t learn much you didn’t already know. But if you’re a freelance SEO writer who covers a lot of topics, this is an important step for making sure you understand the topic thoroughly before you start writing. 
  • It gives you the chance to look for what’s missing. As you look over these pages, is there a piece of information you feel is important that none of them address? That’s your angle for creating something different and better. You have to know what’s there to find what’s missing. 

This step takes time, but by the end of it you’ll not only be better prepared to create content that can rank, but you’ll find that creating your outline and doing the writing itself becomes much easier. 

SERP Research Enables Better SEO Writing

If professional writers have one secret for making writing easier, it’s to hold off on trying to write until you’ve done your research. When you understand your topic thoroughly, know what you want to say, and understand how to approach it to meet your goals—the writing itself comes much more fluidly. 

For SEO writing, spending time on SERP research gets you to that point. And specifically, it helps you to check off a number of goals at once. You will:

  • Make sure you understand search intent for your keyword. 
  • Confirm how valuable your keyword is, and whether ranking is realistic.
  • Determine how to structure your content to optimize for relevant SERP features.
  • Understand what Google considers “good” content for the keyword.
  • Make sure you’re answering the top questions your competition is, and then some.
  • Know what you need to do to write a piece that’s better than what’s ranking now.

All of that alone won’t promise rankings. Google cares too much about things like backlinks and website authority for good SEO writing to ensure rankings alone (as nice as that would be). But it ensures you’re doing all you can to increase your chances of claiming those top spots.

8 Ways to Make Business Blogging Go Further

Business blogging has become one of the most essential methods for connecting with customers and building your website’s SEO authority. And a number of studies have confirmed the value of business blogging: it results in 55% more traffic, 97% more inbound links, and 67% more leads.  

business blogging traffic
business blogging leads

By pretty much every measure businesses use to determine website success, having a business blog is one of the best paths to improved results.

But consistently maintaining a business blog is time consuming and costly—especially one where you only publish blog posts that provide real value to your audience. And if you’re not doing that, what’s the point?

If you’re going to invest in a blog for your business, you need it to get results. And that requires the right approach. Here are a few good ways to make your business blogging go further.

1.     Start with a business blogging strategy.

You know you’re supposed to blog, so it can be tempting to just start getting blog posts up to check that box. But if you want your business blog to help you accomplish anything substantial, you need a business blogging strategy.

This should involve a few main steps:

  • Define your goals.

You’re investing time and money into your business blog because you want it to do something tangible for your business. In order to build your strategy around the things you want to accomplish, you need to clarify what your goals are. Write your goals down and, as much as possible, figure out specific metrics you can track to measure your progress. Measuring a goal like “establishing thought leadership” will be trickier than something like “increasing traffic,” but do your best.

And make sure you stay realistic here. If your goal is a number one ranking for every target keyword, or publishing a blog post every day with a team of two people—you’re setting up yourself up for failure. Keep your goals within reason.

  • Do audience research.

Your blog isn’t for you. And while it is for your business—in the sense that it’s meant to help you forward your business goals—you’re better off thinking about it as something you do for your audience first and foremost. To deliver content that your audience will value and appreciate, you need to take some time to understand who they are.

Audience research can involve a mix of data analysis—both of demographic data and marketing analytics—as well as getting more direct input from your audience using surveys or interviews.

  • Do keyword research.

Keyword research is valuable on a number of levels.. It helps you get a read on the topics your audience is talking about and the language they use. It can be a fruitful source for coming up with topics to cover on your blog. And it’s an important part of any SEO strategy, so you know what keywords to optimize each piece of content for.

You’re not starting from scratch here. If you already have a blog, analyze your most successful posts to gain a better understanding of what works well for you now. Even if you’re just starting a new blog, you can look to examples of successful blogs in your topic area to see what your audience responds well to. By taking the time to research successful business blogging examples, you’ll take some of the guesswork out of building your strategy.

2.     Keep SEO top of mind.

One of the best things about business blogging is the bump it can give to your SEO rankings. It gives you more opportunities to cover relevant keywords and topic areas, so you show up for more searches. If you provide valuable information in your posts, it gives other websites more reasons to link back to you. And some of the on-site ranking factors Google values, like time spent on site, are helped by having blogs that keep people around.

Just by having a business blog, you’re vastly improving your SEO chances. But you can help your blog posts do better in the search engines by taking a few extra steps to give your blog posts an extra SEO edge:

  • Do SERP research.

Before every blog you write or assign, take a minute to do a Google search for the keyword you’re hoping to rank for. See what type of content has made the first page for this topic. Seeing the current results offers insights into what works for that term in the search engines. Are the top results short and to the point, or are they long and comprehensive? And most importantly, what opportunities can you see to improve upon the information provided in those top posts?

  • Consider featured snippets.

A natural consequence to doing SERP research is starting to see when and how Google uses featured snippets in the results. When the search includes an answer box, write your blog post in a way that optimizes your chances for taking that answer box. The best way to do that will depend on the type of featured snippet that shows up in the search: a list snippet, a chart, or a brief text answer. Pay attention to the type of rich results on the SERP for your target term so you can create content more likely to win position zero.

business blogging answer box example

  • Strategically use headings.

Dividing your blog posts into sections with headings is good for both readability and SEO. It makes it easier for your visitors to skim to find the information they need, and it gives you more chances to signal to Google what your content is about. Use your target keywords in your headings where it’s relevant to do so (but don’t overdo it—it still has to be useful for your human readers).

Customize all relevant fields.

This is a simple step that can make a big difference in SEO. Make sure you customize your page URL, title tag, meta description, and alt image text to include your target keyword for a blog post. It’s a small but important way to emphasize what your post is about in a way the search algorithms recognize. If you use WordPress, any good SEO plugin you download will make this easy to do.

3.     Use your blog to answer common questions.

One of the best sources for coming up with blog topics your audience will find useful is going straight to the source. What are the questions your your customers and prospects most often come to you with? Review old emails and talk to your sales and customer service representatives to work up a list of the most frequent questions you get.

When you write blog posts that answer common questions, you accomplish two things at once. First, you write content that you know, without a doubt, your customers are interested in. And second, you make the lives of your sales and customer support teams easier, since they’ll now have handy resources they can share each time they get those questions in the future.

Your blog becomes a sales enablement and customer service tool, as well as a marketing one.

4.     Commit time to quality.

I know. This one is hard. You’re busy. Your team is probably already overwhelmed. And blogging brings the pressure of publishing a lot of content. A higher frequency of posts tends to mean better results in terms of traffic and lead gen. But rushing your content means you risk publishing stuff that’s not very good. And none of the benefits of business blogging come into play if your content sucks.

Make sure you’re willing to commit the time and resources needed to make every blog post worth it. And if you’re not sure your current team is up for the task, hire a good freelance blog writer to help pick up the slack.

5.     Create a plan for promotion.

Publishing an amazing blog post isn’t good enough. The internet is simply too saturated for your audience to find you on their own. You need to do everything you can to get your awesome blog posts in front of them.

As part of your blog strategy, create a plan for promoting your blog posts. This can include:

  • Sharing the links on social media.
  • Nurturing relationships on social media (so your feeds aren’t just promotional).
  • Writing guest posts on relevant blogs that link back to your best posts.
  • Collaborating with influencers on your blog posts, so they’re more likely to share them with their networks.
  • Paid distribution methods, such as search and social ads.

Investing in content promotion is as important as investing in high-quality content creation. If you want your business blogging to go further, you can’t skip this step,

6.     Regularly review your analytics.

The first step to doing better is understanding how you’re doing now. With business blogging, that means making it a habit to check your website analytics regularly to gauge the success of your blog posts. Google Analytics provides extensive data on how many people are viewing your blog posts, how people are finding them, and what they do once they’re on the page.

When you combine Google Analytics with the data from other sources, like your email marketing software and customer data, you can also track the role your blog posts play in driving visitors to the actions you want them to take, like signing up for your email list or making a purchase.

Use that data to regularly analyze the success of your blog posts and determine which types of blogging tactics and styles are helping you achieve your primary goals. The more you know what works, the more you can shape your blog strategy to get the results you seek.

7.     Perform content audits (at least) annually.

Businesses often get swept up in the flurry of work required to consistently create new content for a blog, but it’s just as important to take a step back and look for ways to get more out of the content you already have. At least once a year, perform a content audit to find opportunities to make your old blog posts better.

You’ll find blog posts that can be updated or strengthened, internal linking opportunities that can drive more visits to other posts, and spot any errors or broken links that need to be fixed. Content audits can help you get more traction from old posts, spur ideas for new posts you can create, and help you ensure every piece on your blog represents your brand at the level you want it to.

8.     Make a habit out of updating and repurposing.

The longer you have a blog, the more content you’ll have that falls out of date or becomes forgotten. The work you did on a great blog post five years ago will cease to matter if you stop there. Instead, make sure you revisit your old content regularly to find ways to update it and make it better.

In addition, you can make the work you did in the past go further by repurposing your most successful blog posts into new formats. Your top blog post could become a highly valuable video series or webinar. You already know your audience values the information you provided, so give them more ways to interact with it in the format of their choice.

Build a Better Business Blog

Your business blog is only valuable if your audience finds it, reads it, and comes to care about your brand because of it. Without the right strategy and approach, your blog posts will just be one more thing crowding the web without purpose.

If you struggle to consistently create business blog posts that your audience cares about, a good freelance blogger can help. Get in touch to see if we’re a fit.

How to Actually Get a Link from a Blogger

If you’ve ever been tasked with building links for a website, you know it’s one of the hardest parts of SEO. Most SEO specialists spend a lot of time sending outreach emails to bloggers asking for a link, and most of those emails go unanswered. You can easily send over 100 emails without earning one link—or, in a campaign considered successful, get one or two for all that work.

Prospect.io shared the numbers of a couple of their campaigns. Their less successful campaign earned them one link per 60 sites they reached out to, and even their more successful one only netted them 13 links per 120 sites. Total that’s over 150 people that didn’t respond—or at least, didn’t respond positively.

link building results

So why don’t most link building campaigns work?

As a blogger that receives frequent link building emails, I can provide an explanation of the main reasons most link building emails I get don’t work, as well as a description of the rare times link building outreach did get results.

Link Building Pitches That Won’t Work

The most common type of link building email I get that never yields a positive response looks something like this:

Dear Kristen (or worse, Dear Austin-copywriter.com),

I came across your piece: <link to something I’ve written>. What a useful resource!

I thought you might like to know, we recently published a piece on <related topic> which provides a ton of information that would be valuable to your readers.

Maybe you can add our link to your great piece? <their link>

It’s a polite enough email and one I can tell is applying tips that are suggested in articles around the web. It tries to demonstrate that they did some research on me to make sure the email is relevant (although actual emails sometimes undercut that point by doing this part badly). It includes flattery. And it attempts to make a case that what they’re suggesting will be useful to my audience.

But none of that really matters for some key reasons. Here’s why this doesn’t work.

It’s asking me to do more work.

Going back and adding a link to a piece that’s already published takes time out of my busy day. And in order to make sure the link is added in a way that’s natural and relevant, I’d generally have to re-write some part of the piece to make it work.

The likelihood that putting that work in would actually result in a blog post that’s better for my audience or produces better results for me is low. In most cases, it’s frankly nonexistent. The only person that work would benefit is the person sending the email—a total stranger to me.

For pieces I wrote for clients, it’s even asking me to ask my client to do more work.

Many of these emails aren’t asking me to add links to pieces on my own blog, they’re wanting me to update blog posts I wrote for clients. When I submit a piece I wrote to a client, there’s a whole level of work in between my submission and the post going up on their site. Someone does editing work, loads it to the blog, adds images, and schedules it to be published.

Making an update to that piece isn’t as simple as me going in and changing it. At that point someone else working for that client who has the right access would have to do that work. So not only would I be doing work to figure out how to update the piece so the link would fit naturally, I’d be asking my client to do extra work to go in and make changes to the live post.

That would be an awkward ask for me at best, and something that’s just not really appropriate to ask of a client when there’s no benefit to them or me.

A decent portion of the time, the email is sloppy or the link isn’t relevant.

Even if you do everything right in a link building pitch like this, you won’t get that link because of the two points above. But the majority of these emails I get don’t do everything right.

In fact, the most common page I get people asking me to add a link to is this one:

http://austin-copywriter.com/writing-samples/

If you took two seconds to read that URL and figure out why that page is not a logical target for someone else’s link building campaign, then you just did more work than most of the people sending me these emails. You don’t even have to click through—the reason’s right there in the URL that these people include in their very email.

Sometimes the pages they ask me to add links to are tag or category pages on the blog—not quite as egregious as the Writing Samples page, but still not a piece of content I could even add your link to if I wanted to.

Sometimes the subject line of the email doesn’t match the contents, an obvious copy-and-paste error. Or sometimes they get my name wrong or say things that make it clear they don’t understand I’m a freelance writer (something that’s extremely obvious in the first few seconds you spend on my site).

In short, the attempts to show they did their research and made sure the email was relevant fail, in obvious and ridiculous ways.

Link Building Pitches that Do Work

In the eight years I’ve been blogging around the web, I’ve gotten just a couple of link building pitches that actually do lead to the source earning new links.

Here’s what they did differently.

They made my life easier.

That’s it. That’s the big secret.

Instead of asking me to do more work. A good link building email finds a way to make me do less.

Specifically, these pitches:

  •      Suggested topic ideas that hadn’t been written about yet.

For many of my clients, part of my job is coming up with blog topics. I have to do a certain amount of research and brainstorming on a regular basis, which takes work and time. If you take the time to look at the blog, find a gap in the current coverage (that in some way relates to your business or content), and send a suggestion, you’re helping me out.

If you include a few links in your email to resources you’ve created that will jump start my research process on the subject, even better! And when I start writing, I’ll include a link back to those helpful resources, both as a thanks for the help, and because they genuinely provide useful, relevant information to my audience.

  •      Made sure the topics they provided were relevant to my audience.

I mentioned how the email templates that don’t work often pay lip service to thinking about my audience, but you have to go beyond lip service here. Make sure you figure out who a particular blog is targeting and suggest topics that will matter to them.

If you’re link building for a security company and contact me about a piece for a client’s blog that has an audience of seniors, your pitch should have a senior-specific angle. Don’t suggest a post on “How to Make Your Home More Secure,” go for something like “How Seniors Living Alone Can Stay Safe.”

And often getting more specific is better, since broad topics have usually already been done. Think about how you can use your expertise (or your client’s expertise) to help suggest a unique angle.

  •      Tied the pitch into to a trending topic or date.

Many of my clients love it when a piece can be tied back to a specific holiday or trending topic coming up—even the kind of goofy ones, like National Ice Cream Day (July 21, if you’re curious). Look for something that makes your pitch more timely. HubSpot has a handy calendar with all the unofficial holidays you can use in your pitches.

Keep in mind here though that some businesses plan their schedules out far in advance. Pitching a topic relevant to National Popcorn Lover’s Day (March 14) in late February may work out for you, but often looking ahead a couple of months will work better.

Start Actually Earning Links

Does this sound like more work than copy-and-pasting the same template 100 times? You betcha.

Will it get you more than one link per every 100 or more emails? Almost certainly, if you do it well.

Take time to learn who you’re contacting, who their audience is, and what the blog regularly covers. Then suggest a new post that you can be a valuable resource to help them write. That’s much more likely to earn you a link than asking them to update an old post they’ve already published.

8 Ways to Lose a Link

Content marketing means creating content with a purpose. For every piece of how to lose linkscontent you create, you should have a specific goal (or usually, several) in mind that you want it to achieve.

If you care at all about SEO – and I’m not sure I’ve met a content marketer that doesn’t – then one important goal you should have for blog posts is earning links. While the factors Google uses to determine search rankings are complicated, backlinks (quality ones, in particular) are still arguably the most important factor.

And one of the biggest factors involved in earning links is appealing to writers. We’re the ones who do most of that linking.

Let me assure you that we’re not spending our days considering whether or not we’ll make or break brands in our decisions about what to link to in our articles. We’re just trying to write the best, most useful content for our clients and their readers.

We’re not thinking about you, but you can benefit from thinking about us and understanding what goes through our heads when we decide whether or not a piece of content we come across is worthy of that link.

Just like anyone, we have our standards and pet peeves – sins that will make us immediately click off a page and refuse to consider it a worthy authority for our readers. To help you avoid inadvertently losing out on a link, I surveyed a few colleagues to better understand what makes all of us tick and decide a link is not worthy of our love.

8 Sins to Avoid if You Care About Building Links

1.    A bad website design

If your website looks like it was built in 1999 and hasn’t had an update since, it won’t look authoritative to me (or any of your other visitors). I’m not the only one who feels this way, Content Strategist and Author Leah Levy told me “I wouldn’t link to a piece if the site looks spammy — that is, it has an outdated design.”

“Spammy” is about the last word you want people to use to describe your website or content. The quality of the content itself won’t matter much if it lives on a website that looks so cheap and old that no one can get past the design.

As Linda Dessau, the founder of Content Mastery Guide, put it “Since a link is an endorsement, I steer clear of sites that look outdated or unprofessional. I want to be associated with people and businesses that have a polished and professional image.”

2.    Sloppy writing

Part of our job is paying attention to things like spelling, word choice, and sentence structure. When we encounter something that’s sloppily written or riddled with typos, you can bet we notice.

Linking to something that clearly no one bothered to proofread would make me look bad. If you can’t be bothered to take the time to read over your blog posts (or hire someone to do so) to make sure they make sense and don’t include any embarrassing errors, then writers won’t bother to share or link to them.

And it’s not just about writers nitpicking, sloppy writing makes you look untrustworthy. Leah agrees, she told me, “I wouldn’t link to anything with clear spelling or grammatical errors (nor would I trust it).”

3.    Bad UX

A good website design isn’t just about making sure you don’t look stuck in the 90’s, you also want to make sure people find your site easy to navigate and pleasant to be on.

Unfortunately, many businesses are callously sacrificing good UX in attempts to get more email sign ups and clicks. Pretty much anyone you talk to will have their opinions on what makes for bad UX (although not everyone would know to call it that).

For me it includes pop ups that block out the text and blog posts split needlessly between several pages when they could all be on one (slideshow posts are notorious offenders). I’ll put up with a certain amount of that on sites that are established enough or if the content is really useful. Normally though, I click away and find something else.

Freelance writer Susan Johnston Taylor has her own list of UX dislikes: ““If a site is littered with Google ads, broken links or typos, it doesn’t seem very credible.

As does writer and editor Christine Moline of Jane Doe Ink, who told me, “I wouldn’t link to a poorly organized post or any pages cluttered with ads.”

Linda added a couple more issues to the list: “I screen for overly aggressive or annoying pop-ups, sites that are slow to load or aren’t mobile-friendly.”

All told, different descriptions of bad user experience accounted for the most common answer I received from writers.

Just to reiterate, the final list of UX issues that will make writers click away comes to:

  • Annoying pop ups
  • Articles split into too many pages
  • Lots of ads
  • Broken links
  • Slow loading times
  • Sites that aren’t mobile friendly

If you’re prioritizing getting email sign ups or ad money over the experience visitors will have on your website, know that may be costing you links.

4.    Overly promotional content

When you’re paying for content (or investing a lot of time in it), it’s hard to set aside the idea of promoting yourself. I get it. You want a direct payoff for what you put into it.

When you make your content all about you though, it makes it come off as less trustworthy.

I head from multiple writers that overly promotional content was a no-no in their linking choices, but writer and content maven Phaedra Hise had the most to say on the subject: “I don’t link to anything that’s too promotional. I’m really picky about that – if it’s too promotional I might even link to it as an example of what NOT to do, but usually I don’t even like to give that kind of publicity.”

I mean, links are nice, but you don’t want to get one by becoming a writer’s example of what not to do.

5.    A statistic without a link or citation

None of the other writers mentioned it, but this is one of my personal rules. If your article mentions a statistic without telling me where it’s from, you will immediately lose my trust.

The thing is, many of us think we know statistics we don’t. I’ve come across the same statistic casually mentioned in article after article that I’ve never been able to track down to a source.

Sometimes the source is a research report that costs hundreds of dollars, so I understand if not every statistic can be easily linked to. But make sure you let me know which report that costs hundreds of dollars it’s from so I’m willing to at least take your word that it’s real.

I can only speak for myself on this one, but if you ever want a link from me, make sure you cite your sources.

6.    Outdated information

A lot of industries move fast. If your blog post from three years ago says something that’s no longer true, then it’s losing value in the link economy.

Says Susan, “If a post is several years old or clearly references outdated information, I’d try to find a more recent post to make sure I’m linking to something that’s still current.”

That doesn’t mean your old posts are useless, just that you should make a project out of updating them now and then. In particular, any posts you have that are popular and bringing in traffic now should be revisited so you can see if there’s a good opportunity to update any of them for accuracy.

7.    Lack of authenticity

This relates somewhat back to overly promotional content, if you come off like you’re trying too hard or acting like something you’re not, people will notice.

Barry Feldman, founder of Feldman Creative put it at the top of his list of things he won’t link to: “Posts lacking personality. I think you can offer a lot of knowledge, but I’d rather not align my brand with yours if it’s boring. And that represents 90% of content marketers, sorry to say.“

The good news is that if 90% of marketers are doing it wrong, then bringing some real personality to your writing is a good way to differentiate yourself.

On a related note, Carol Tice, author of the recent ebook Small Blog Big Income and the blog Make a Living Writing , cited one of her biggest dealbreakers as when “the blog author is pretending to be an authority when they really just started doing the thing they write about.”

There’s a definite value to positioning yourself as a thought leader or expert – but only if you have the knowledge and experience to back it up.

8.    Moral reputation

Carol had another big sin that she mentioned: “I won’t link to posts on the Huffington Post due to its policy of not paying writers, since I am an advocate for fair writer pay.”

She’s the only one of the writers I talked to that mentioned this particular point, but I suspect we’ve all shied away from visiting or linking to a website if we know the brand represents something we disagree with.

Be careful what you stand for and how you treat your employees and contractors. If you gain a reputation for being about something that many writers don’t agree with, they’ll be quick to find another resource to go with instead.

Conclusion

To summarize, the eight deadly sins that will lose you links are:

  • An outdated website
  • Sloppy writing and typos
  • A bad user experience
  • Being overly promotional
  • Not citing your sources
  • Letting your content become outdated
  • Not being authentic
  • A bad brand reputation

Avoiding these things obviously doesn’t guarantee you links. We’re still going to seek out the resources that are most valuable to our readers and relevant to the subject we’re talking about. That may be your links; it may be those of another business or publication. But if you’re guilty of one of these eight sins, then even if your content is useful, there’s a good chance we’ll look for another resource to use instead.

If you want to appeal to the people doing the writing, then take heed. Producing valuable content is one part of the puzzle, avoiding the errors on this list is another.