Go Big or Go Home
Content Marketing

Go Big or Go Home

12th April 2013

One of the opening talks for BrightonSEO promised to be a really interesting one. Hannah Smith, Principal Consultant at Distilled (and one of our own State of Digital bloggers) challenged the common perspective of link building, and told the conference attendees to ‘Go big or go home’.

Hannah’s talk identified a number of misguided ways of thinking, ultimately tackling why mediocre content is unlikely to cut it. But she also took the time to recognise that there are risks associated with big budget content. Find out more about her talk and see her slides below.

Hannah shared her experiences of creating big budget content, including:

  • The best ways to get client buy-in
  • Ideation
  • And how to deal with the common ‘bumps in the road’

Hannah asked several important questions during her talk, largely ‘is big content worth the risk of investment’? The answer is simple, yes. However, as SEOs, for many it’s about selling this in to your clients or your company. This is where these things can get difficult, but remember that this process is all about persuasion.

Big Content Persuasion

Understand the need or want of your niche and the content associated to it. Help yourself, by adapting the way that you work to cater for big content

  • Extend content cycles
  • Over deliver the first time, make your client want to come back for more

Great Examples of Big Content

Big Content Great Example Simplybusiness

The example above from Simply Business got 148 linking root domains. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

This was just the start though, they went on to produce a series of great examples of big content, you can see some of these below:

In summary:

Breakdown Big Content Linking Root Domains

Hannah said that for Simply Business per every £1 spent they are now building double the amount of links. Going big with your content pays off. Other wins included:

  • Improved ranking for head terms
  • 45% increase in organic traffic
  • Increased conversions

5 Top Tips for Going Big (or how to avoid going home…)

  1. Build content that supports your brand positioning
  2. Create evergreen content (it’s far less risky)
  3. Lead with your best idea (but have plenty more in your back pocket)
  4. Benchmark for success
  5. ‘Don’t believe the hype’ Great content produces outsized returns 

And remember: Small content = Small gamble = Small reward

Slides

Below we have embedded Hannah’s slidedeck from her talk:

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Written By
Ned Poulter is CEO & Founder of Pole Star Digital, a Digital Marketing Consultancy he runs alongside a number of entrepreneurial ventures. He spends his time developing and overseeing digital strategy for a number of well reputed international clients, developing creative approaches to achieving organic search results, increasing inbound traffic,...
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