When most SEOs think of link building, the idea of obtaining high-authority backlinks often comes to mind. However, Michael Johnson, partnerships development manager at Page One Power, suggested during his session at SMX Next that focusing on creating quality content should be the main priority in any link-building effort.
“One observation I’ve made is that many people think their link-building campaigns are failing because of their outreach — when in reality, it’s because their content isn’t earning backlinks,” said Johnson.
“To excel at link building, consider the people you’re reaching out to,” he added. “Think about audiences and the value you can provide to them.”
Creating linkable assets requires marketers to understand what topics and content formats are relevant to their audience. As Google’s John Mueller mentioned in an SEO office-hours hangout, “We try to understand what is relevant for a website … the total number of links doesn’t matter at all.”
Effective Linkable Content Types
“One of the main purposes of linkable content is to expand your audience,” said Johnson. “It’s not about doubling down on the core audience you’re already in touch with — it’s about connecting your brand with new, relevant audiences on the web.”
Relevant content must be presented in appealing ways to attract a broader audience, making it easier for readers to see its value and for search engines to analyze its information.
Johnson identifies two particularly effective content types that encourage linking: informational/education articles and resource guides.
Educational articles are crafted to provide readers with necessary information in a straightforward manner. These pieces often use “How-to” or “FAQ” structures to make the content easy to read and are particularly useful across virtually any industry.
Johnson advises marketers to consider “how the piece connects your website with relevant audiences and topics that are being discussed.” When housed on third-party sites, the audience reach is expanded even further.
Resource guide content can perform well when hosted on your own site. Being long-form content, it allows marketers who flesh out specific, relevant details on their given topic to gain backlinks more easily.
Johnson shared a resource guide created by his content team for a client supporting STEM education for students with disabilities. The article’s structure and highly relevant content generated promising results: “With this piece, not only are we providing valuable information to an audience that needs it, but we’re also connecting our site with numerous great resource pages on the web,” he said. “We earned some excellent .edu links, and links from public school websites.”
Not all relevant linking properties have a high domain authority (DA, which is not a Google ranking factor), so Johnson suggests SEOs avoid focusing too much on it. Overemphasizing high authority sites might cause you to overlook relevant, lower authority assets, so craft resource-type content with these in mind.
How Building Linkable Content Grows Traffic
“The goal of linkable content is to connect you with relevant sites across the web to expand your audience, so it needs to be a useful, valuable asset,” Johnson explained.
Creating content that’s relevant and applicable to readers makes it more linkable. The primary factor determining your content’s linkability is its connection with your audience — everything else is secondary.
Johnson highlighted the significant impact that creating this type of content can have on your target audience: “We’re solving problems and helping business owners. This [content] sparks passion and care in people.”
“If your content can solve problems for people, they will be inclined to link to it,” he added.
