Links have always been a major focus for enhancing organic search performance. Over time, SEO professionals have built links through various methods—both legitimate and otherwise.
Recently, significant algorithm changes have led the market to adopt content marketing for link building. This shift prompted brands and SEOs to produce vast amounts of content, often in isolation, primarily to build links that boost organic search performance. While this strategy prioritizes achieving channel KPIs, it often overlooks broader business performance and consumer needs.
Meaningful Brands, a measurement tool by Havas Group, has shown that strong brands have outperformed the stock market by 206 percent over the past decade. For the first time, the study examined the role of brand content and its value. It revealed that brand-delivered content often underperforms, making minimal impact on business results or people’s lives. Although 84 percent of people expect brands to produce content, 60 percent of content from the top 1,500 global brands is considered poor, irrelevant, or ineffective, with most content perceived as clutter by consumers.
Here are four tips for successful link-building through content marketing, focusing on a holistic approach and building connections with target audiences.
1. Define the Strategy and KPIs
It’s crucial to engage the target audience throughout the purchase journey. A clear strategy should outline how to achieve this, addressing informational content needs at each stage and the authority/link requirements for competitive ranking positions.
Success measurement requires a framework that distinguishes between channel and business KPIs, such as:
– Owned KPIs: Linking domain volume, domain authority, engagement metrics like time on page and bounce rate
– Social KPIs: Shares, likes, and tweets
– Business KPIs: Leads, brochure downloads, and conversions
2. Understand the Audience and Content Purpose
To create content that resonates with your audience:
– Understand your audience through personas, ideally enhanced by emotional intelligence.
– Determine if the content aims to engage a retained audience or attract a new one.
Learnings from the Meaningful Brands research highlight that, beyond education and inspiration, 84 percent of people expect brands to deliver content that entertains, tells stories, provides solutions, and creates experiences and events.
Once you comprehend your target audience and the content they seek, begin the ideation process. Decide whether to repurpose or expand existing content or create new content entirely. Regardless, the content should be remarkable and valuable to the audience, balancing both business and SEO KPIs.
3. Connect Across Channels
To serve your target audience effectively, leverage an owned, earned, shared, and paid (OESP) strategy by identifying who and where your audiences are, when to engage them, and what messaging to use. This approach maximizes engagement across the OESP spectrum.
Collaboration is key, avoiding content silos. A unified content plan using the Hero, Hub, and Hygiene framework ensures campaigns connect across channels:
– Hero: Captivating campaign-based content through entertainment, storytelling, and experiential events
– Hub: Content that builds trust and authority by engaging influencers and their audiences
– Hygiene: Informational content that educates, informs, and provides solutions
Campaigns should aim primarily to add value for the audience, with channel KPIs as secondary objectives. A shared content calendar facilitates this process by aligning all content, PR, events, and social plans, mapping consumer interests, and highlighting cultural events.
4. Adopt the ‘Less is More’ Mentality
With 60 percent of brand content considered clutter, elevate organic search and business performance by creating less content, but ensure it is impactful and spans multiple channels. Focus on delivering content that aligns with audience preferences, whether for entertainment or education, to drive business performance overall. If your content is both remarkable and resonant with audiences, it will naturally promote itself and meet SEO KPIs without needing isolated content creation for SEO purposes alone.
