Part #2. How to create content that attracts backlinks
The entire Lesson #6 (the previous one) was devoted to the topic of "great content."
I showed you that making your content great is uber-important.
Mainly because great content promotes itself, while awful content will always flop, no matter
how hard you promote it.
Well, great content also tends to attract a lot of backlinks.
Great content = linkable content. End of lesson.
No, I'm just kidding.
Great content doesn't always attract backlinks.
There are a few more requirements that need to be met.
At its core, Linking is just a form of sharing.
But just because a piece of content is "great", this doesn't necessarily mean you will share
it with others, right?
Let's say you were struggling to tie your tie and found a great video that solved
this problem for you.
Would you then go ahead and tweet it?
I don't think so.
Linking to that video is even more unlikely as it requires a lot more effort than a simple tweet.
And besides, in order to link to a piece of content, you have to own some kind of web
property where you can link from.
Which the vast majority of people don't have.
This is why link acquisition is a hard nut to crack.
If you want your article to attract backlinks, you need to make your readers want to share
it with others.
Luckily, there has been a ton of research along the lines of how word of mouth works"
and what makes people want to share something with their social circles.
Generally, the things that people enjoy sharing will fall into one of the four categories:
Emotion, Utility, Numbers, and Stories.
In the first group we have content that will spark an emotion in you.
For example, news will often take us by surprise, make us angry or make us upset.
In very rare cases, it may also cheer us up.
And once you feel that emotion, you naturally want to share it with others.
Humans are social creatures and we tend to pass our emotions on to each other, rather
than keeping them inside.
The second group is all about utility.
If we discover something particularly useful, we'll be inclined to share it with others.
This is a way to earn the so-called "social currency."
If you provide value to the society by helping them solve their problems, the society will love you back.
The third group is all about numbers.
Numbers help us make a point and add credibility to what we say.
That's why we like to reference research to solidify our argument.
And finally, stories.
We love them because they're easy to relate to.
It's one thing to read some general advice on how to lose weight.
But it's a totally different thing to read a real story of how someone has lost weight,
and learn from their first-hand experience.
So these are the four general types of content that people like to share and some basic
psychology behind them.
At this point I have to disclose that I don't have a Phd in Psychology and the advice that
I just gave you is quite basic.
But it should be enough to get you thinking in the right direction.
And should you decide to go beyond that advice (which I actually suggest you do) there's a great
book that I can't recommend enough.
Contagious by Jonah Berger - an absolute must- read for any content marketer out there.
So that was the theory.
Now, how about some practical tips?
I just gave you four types of content that should attract backlinks, but how do you know which
type will work best in your specific industry?
You may decide to test everything and see what sticks.
But usually, you don't need to do this.
Why?
Because chances are your competitors have already done the hard work for you.
All you need to do is analyze their content and find out what brought them the most backlinks.
Let me show you how it's done using Ahrefs Blog as an example.
I'll copy our blog URL and put it into Site Explorer.
The report I need is called "Best by links."
This report will give me a list of all articles at Ahrefs blog ordered by the number of links
that they have.
By looking at this report I can see that six of our top 10 most linked articles are research studies.
Which means that in our industry people prefer to link to data-driven posts.
The most successful among our research studies is the one that gives a numeric answer to
an extremely popular SEO question: "How long does it take to rank in Google"
This study has links from almost 500 websites.
What about the other four of our top 10 most linked articles?
These ones fall under "Utility" group:
A guide to keyword research, a guide to link building,
a guide to outreach, and a collection of actionable SEO tips.
These are very detailed and very actionable guides that teach people different aspects of SEO.
And because of their utility they brought quite a few links to our blog.
This is how you analyze what tends to attract backlinks in your industry
by studying your competitors.
Just plug their site into Ahrefs Site Explorer, go to Best by links report and look for patterns.
Go try it now!
I'm sure you'll get a ton of ideas for link-worthy content in less than five minutes.
And this wraps up the section on creating link-worthy content.
I guess you won't be surprised if I say that we have covered this topic at Ahrefs Blog.
The article is called "Deconstructing Linkbait" and I highly recommend you to check it out
for some additional insights.
But don't let the terminology fool you.
Linkbait, linkable assets, link worthy content - these things sound like they generate backlinks
out of the thin air.
Which is obviously not true.
If you want your content to get links, you need to get some eyeballs on it first.
Because people cannot link to things that they don't know exist!
In other words, even link-worthy articles require a ton of promotion in order to get links.
And before I give you a list of the best content promotion strategies, here's one "secret"
to acquiring backlinks that marketers rarely talk about.