The Difference Is Linkability

Earlier this year, I experimented with a series of articles for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes on certain keywords, including my own name. I have to say that this experiment was wildly successful with highlights being:

• Ranking higher than a feature with a similar title on the New York Times website
• Increasing traffic up to 30-fold with a 30 day run-up

The key part of this experiment was to create content that will receive a decent number of inbound links (other sites linking to my website/article) which leads to better search engine rankings.

I’ve buried the experiment now, but I’ll share some of my findings with you here.

Topic

My topic of choice was the 2009 NFL Draft which was held in April. I counted down to the draft by writing a preview for each team during the 32 days before the draft. This gave me a nice temporary setting to experiment with as well as a run-up towards the draft so that my search engine rankings and traffic would peak during the draft days.

As a tip, I would focus on a topic that (1) enjoys great popularity; (2) is obscure and has a defined niche that will look for certain keywords; or (3) is a topic of interest that still requires (much) explanation/clarification.

Audience

I focused on football fans but tried to make it as accessible as possible. I used full names of coaches and players, and even appended positions to their names, e.g. HC Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady. This helps fans of other teams read the references easier but still isn’t considered as low-level reading for more savvy fans.

The language was simple in the sense that it used the same terminology that fans were used to from other websites and television. I wanted to avoid “coach speak” since that’s complicated and obscure to quite a lot of people.

Finally, the tone was neutral. My articles were positioned as objective previews where each team received an equal amount of attention.

As a takeaway, I would recommend looking at other websites of the topic you’d like to write about. Choose website that rank high in search engines, since you might be competing with them in the long run. Take a close look at how their choice of language reflects the target audience and its knowledge/skill level.

Format

As mentioned, my format was that I wrote about one team every day in the 32 days leading up to the draft. Using this format, I was able to target each team separately instead of providing long articles that weren’t always interesting to every fan. As a result, it also allowed me to analyze which articles for which teams were most popular.

This was the best format for me to use, but it’s worth considering other formats for your topics/articles. Popular formats include how-to guides, top X lists and collections/aggregations of existing content. With such formats, it’s also possible to create (reciprocal) inbound links by linking to other content.

Quality

I spent quite some time examining the needs of every team, some more than others because I don’t always watch every team in action. The thoroughness of my research did reflect in my articles and also resulted in positive comments from readers.

In terms of article length, I aimed for concise articles that didn’t exceed 600 words per article.

Make sure that—regardless of length—your articles reflect both the scope and the thoroughness that you intend to portray. Position yourself as the reader of the content to determine the value and direction of your content.

Timing

I posted one articles each day from Monday to Sunday and in the afternoon in the US. I counted down in reverse order of the NFL Draft, i.e. starting with the Pittsburgh Steelers and finishing with the Detroit Lions. In general, I noticed that articles scored best when posted on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Obviously, timing was not the only variable that contributed to readership. Team popularity also played a role and as a result, I will make some changes to next year’s series. Options are to either only post during the week or to reshuffle the order and post the articles on the most popular teams between Tuesday and Thursday.

Your mileage may vary of course, depending on your topic and audience. I would definitely recommend looking into posting during the weekend. There’s significantly less new content released during the weekend. This might help your content to stand out.

Media

I didn’t use any images, video, audio or other supporting media for my articles. In retrospect, this may have been a big missed opportunity and I’ll definitely look into it for next year’s series.

Think about how media can enhance your content. Sometimes, they can replace part of the content or they can clarify the content better than just text.

Next Steps

I will do another series for the 2010 NFL Draft and will use the experience I gained this year to improve my content and reach even better results.

I hope this post will be useful and will help you create more effective content. If you have additional tips, let us know in the comments!

Photo credit: Brandon Robbins