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.
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
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:
- The Productivity Series: Email – 101 linking root domains (including a link from LifeHacker)
- Google AdWords Small Business Guide – 79 linking root domains
- WordPress for Small Businesses – 197 linking root domains
- The Small Business Guide to Google Analytics – 188 linking root domains
In summary:
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…)
- Build content that supports your brand positioning
- Create evergreen content (it’s far less risky)
- Lead with your best idea (but have plenty more in your back pocket)
- Benchmark for success
- ‘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: