Building Links and Coverage When Your Content Campaign is Over - outREACH Conference 2018

Building Links and Coverage
when your Campaign is Over
@staceycavStacey MacNaught

@staceycav #outreachconf
As an SEO, I got into the content marketing
game driven by one thing….

Links.

(Also, it was easier to explain what I do to
my Nan when it was visible in the news)

We bound around this term a lot…
“Linkable assets.”

And sure, if you smash your promotion
goals, land hundreds of top tier links and get
people talking, you can be confident your
content is brilliant.

But, if a campaign stops generating links the
moment you stop emailing/calling people,
have you really created a linkable asset?

So let’s talk about where your campaign
goes when your attention shifts…

I ran a little survey…
https://www.staceymacnaught.co.uk/outreach-statistics/

59% of those involved in outreach do all
their outreach for a project in one go as
quickly as possible.

@staceycav #outreachconfhttps://www.staceymacnaught.co.uk/outreach-statistics/

And only 22% say they “re-outreach” old
projects often or all the time.

Just 25% of respondents claim to hit their
outreach targets often or all the time.

So, for three quarters of respondents, hitting
targets is “hit or miss,” at best.

But success rates are higher amongst the
minority who do revisit old content all the
time or often.

Far too small a data set to make any
scientific analysis on… but is it just a
coincidence that those revisiting old
content frequently feel they’re having
more success?

I don’t think so.

Back in 2014, I did this:

One year (and no more work) later…

And now…

In the past 30 days:

Including placement on pieces like
this…

More recently…

It’s the things you do before and during
content production lay the foundations for
long term success

And your active outreach and promotion
work is imperative to making content “self
sufficient.”

Optimise your campaign assets like your
biggest commercial landing pages.

We (rightly) spend so much time on
creative outreach email subjects and
attention grabbing headlines….

But these aren’t always suitable for
page titles and meta descriptions
written to rank.

https://runrepeat.com/american-runners-have-never-been-slower-
mega-study
The headline is
brilliant.

https://runrepeat.com/american-runners-have-never-been-slower-
mega-study
But it’s not continuing to build links…

This is less than ideal, but isn’t the biggest issue

Those searchers aren’t looking for a
study… but these ones might be.

As the page has built links through
outreach activity, its organic rankings
have increased.

As the page has built links through
outreach activity, its organic traffic
has increased.

With data and statistics driven
content, searchers are often looking
for sources.

Good writers link to their sources.

Even non proprietary data driven
content that ranks for stats queries
wins links.

@staceycav #outreachconfhttp://www.priorygroup.com/eating-disorders/statistics

@staceycav #outreachconfhttps://www.petsecure.com.au/pet-care/a-guide-to-worldwide-pet-ownership/

So, whatever the content asset,
approach keyword research and
page optimization the same way you
would with a service or product
page.

What might someone search where
your content asset is a great answer
to their query?

Release your campaign assets under
Creative Commons Attribution Licensing.

Particularly effective with imagery,
whether it’s an infographic, small
illustration or photographs..

You can tag the content on your
page as Creative Commons with
rel=“license”
http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-license

Or, use Flickr

Track usage and Chase Attribution.
https://www.pixsy.com

Monitor mentions of key topics where a
“revisit” might be genuinely impactful.

@staceycav #outreachconfhttps://www.talkwalker.com/

In an agency context, that almost always
requires a retainer rather than one off
project, but is a genuinely impactful task –
to simply have someone reviewing alerts
and sending quick emails.
https://www.pixsy.com

Monitor similar or competing content for
disappearing…

Older, similar (well linked) research pieces
sometimes disappear! Jump on those
opportunities quickly.
https://littlewarden.com/

Monitor your own content that way too.

Let’s talk about targets again.

I don’t believe that three quarters of
people doing this are bad at outreach.

Maybe we’re bad at target setting.

And maybe we need to work more
closely with sales teams or stakeholders to
set objectives that take into account long
term value.

But one thing I did find made an
immediate improvement to performance
4 years ago…

Securing link number 10 on a project with
a target of 10 feels like…

Securing link number 10 on a project with
a target of 100 feels like…

Setting more ambitious goals (even if they’re
internal targets only) makes more ambitious
teams.

Sell the long term value of content.
Treat content assets like service pages.
Aim HIGHER.

hello@staceymacnaught.co.uk
@staceycav

Building Links and Coverage When Your Content Campaign is Over - outREACH Conference 2018

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