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How to Attract Organic Links and Mentions with Content

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What journalists, freelance writers, and more experienced bloggers need are current statistics, original graphics, and thought leader insights.

How to Attract Organic Links and Mentions with Content

So if you want sites — and especially the largest sites — to link to you, give them what they want.

Choose a Trending Topic

If you want your content to be evergreen, choose a trending topic that will be popular for years to come — not just right now.

Offer multiple different and highly interesting angles to give the writers ideas on why they will want to include you in their new content or add you to existing, ranking content they’re upgrading.

Current Statistics

There probably won’t be much volume on keyword phrases related to “your niche + statistics” but that doesn’t matter.

People searching for stats write for large publications that can get your brand seen and possibly provide you with a valuable incoming link.

Sources for statistics should be (but aren’t always) attributed and linked.

Date your content and cite your sources. If writers find statistics they would like to use but cannot easily find the source or tell whether they are current, they will leave and find another site to link to instead of yours!

Original Graphics with Permission to Republish

Take your industry statistics and create original, SEO-optimized infographics and you could land a lot of targeted incoming links. The more current and colorful the image, the better.

Dark backgrounds are typically better because most sites have light content areas. Create shorter versions as well as long infographics as some sites prefer those.

If you only want to make one image, have sections with clearly defined horizontal boundaries so they can screen capture and use individual sections.

Be sure to make it obvious the writer is welcome to republish your graphics. Do this by offering an embed code, or providing text at the bottom of the content giving express permission for re-use.

You can also include that type of information on a page on your site. Once writers identify a site that permits republication of their research and graphics, they will specifically search that site for material for future content.

Thought Leader Sound Bites for Quotes

Include short, insightful quotes in your content, especially from your founder and C-suite executives. If you’d like to garner more incoming links and mentions, regularly add sound bites on current topics to your content.

When a journalist needs to meet a deadline, they can’t always reach a thought leader in time. Put what they are likely to need where they can find it, ideally on your site (so it gets the link or mention).

Twitter can work, too, but your brand may or may not get mentioned or linked. According to Brandwatch, journalists are the largest, most active group of verified accounts on Twitter at 24.6%.

PR Daily reported that 83% of journalists use Twitter, but most still want email pitches.

Sites that are fed into Google News often choose to tie a new story into an existing trending story within 24 hours. Unless the topic is so hot that there will be multiple stories, they need it now. Be the brand that delivers it.

How to Attract Organic Links

Here’s an example of an infographic from NowSourcing that has all the factors I mentioned above:

  • Hot topic that will be trending for years to come
  • Offer interesting angles
  • An infographic with clearly defined horizontal sections
  • Current statistics
  • Colorful headers for each section
  • Quotable soundbites

This is going to be a popular topic now and for many years. As a writer who contributes on multiple sites, I could easily use all or part of this infographic in many different topics for several sites.

If I were doing a post about The History and Future of the Gig Economy, I could use just the top section of the infographic:

Gig Economy Infographic gigworker the history and future of the gig economy

I often use a section of an infographic for the featured image in content and then include the full infographic at the bottom. Or I might use just that one section and link it to the infographic as I’ve done here.

A writer could create subheadings about sections of the full infographic below and then put each section of the image with their own text to make it more interesting.

Another benefit of doing that is being able to push each image out to social media separately. So you can promote your content more heavily without annoying your followers.

Offer Ideation (Ideas for Writers to Use)

Scroll through the infographic below. Notice that each section would make a great post title:

  • Is Gig Work Really New?
  • Moving Work to the Web
  • There are Apps for GigWorkers
  • Gig Work Today: Who Chooses Gig Work
  • How Do Gig Workers Use Their Extra Income?
  • What Gig Work Means for the Economy
  • Economy of the Future: Gig Work
  • How Gig Work is Reshaping the Law
  • The Rights of Gig Workers: Contractor vs. Employee

Not much thought was required to turn their sections into new pieces of content with a ready-made image to fit in it. See how they did the work for the writer?

I could do an entire series just on that one infographic. A person could even launch an entire new site with these topics!

Ready to Go Attract Organic Links?

Hopefully, you can see how GigWorker and NowSourcing managed to hand writers everything they need to craft great content and include them in it.

Granted that Brian Wallace at NowSourcing has over a decade of experience in how to do the research and come up with the topics. So he has an advantage.

But you can do this, too. It just takes some thought and creativity.

 

Infographic The Future of the Gig Economy

Questions? Ideas? Ask them in the comments.

 

Top image credit: Pixabay + Canva

Originally published 12/18/19; republished 2/10/20 to add custom video and SlideShare by Julie Weishaar from NewHorizons123.

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Gail Gardner

Small Business Marketing Strategist at GrowMap
Gail Gardner is the founder of GrowMap.com. She is a Small Business Marketing Strategist who mentors small businesses, bloggers, and freelancers. After 23 years in the field with IBM and 5.5 years managing AdWords accounts, her focus shifted to small business marketing strategy. GrowMap.com is listed by Cision as a Top 100 Site for Marketers and has received three Small Business Influencer Awards from Small Business Trends. Named by D&B a Top 50 SMB Influencer on Twitter, you can follow Gail @GrowMap and on LinkedIn.
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Comments

  5. Hello Gail,

    Agreed your point that there is no alternative for quality and unique content. Loved how you breakdown the topic so well .With high level google monitoring links organic traffic is very important ,and your points explains it the right way! Adding info graphic highlights the point of discussion .

    Reply

  8. Yes with trending and quality content you can attract more & natural backlinks without investing. My question is that does we can get such type of backlinks with video content? if yes! then how?
    I am still here for your reply.

    Reply

    • Hi Teerath,

      Videos are more likely to rank in Google so they have a better chance to get embedded in content others publish. Two tips for getting your videos chosen:

      1) Grab their attention immediately. If your videos have long rambling introductions, writers are not going to choose them to add to content.

      2) Don’t make it a commercial. Provide value and maybe have a clear, brief call-to-action (CTA) at the end. If there is too much self-promotion in it, we can’t include it in content we submit on large sites.
      Gail Gardner would love you to read ..The Relevance of Storytelling in Brand Marketing [Infographic]My Profile

      Reply

      • Thank you it really helps.
        You told me that How to get video content promoted. But what about the backlink for the website? Because if someone embeds your video in their content then why should they include a backlink as well?

        Reply

        • Hi Teerath,

          You don’t always get both a link and a video. But the video embed can take them to your YouTube channel (or other video hosting site). And there, in the description, you should link to your own site and/or related content.

          Link value flows from site to site. So it would flow from the video, to YouTube (or other video site), on to your site.

          Yes, the link would probably be NF, but it should still have value. No one really knows which links are more valuable than others as it is extremely difficult to test — and while you’re testing, the algorithms just keep changing.
          Gail Gardner would love you to read ..50 Places to Repurpose Web Conferences as Video ContentMy Profile

          Reply

          • Yes! Thank you for the graceful reply. I got the answer. I have to create video content with clear CTAs.
            Thank you again

  11. Hi,
    Everyone wants organic click and he always works on creating content with anchor text for hyperlinks. It is always required to use it in an efficient and formal way. Thanks for your suggestions and tips these are also very amazing and helpful up to some extent.

    Reply

  12. Hello Gail, First of all Thanks for this amazing post, loved how you breakdown the topic so well. I am fresher in this digital marketing field and I always go through to know more about the Search Engine Optimization. There is no other option, We have to optimize very good so that we will get more exposure. As everyone says Content is the King.

    Reply

  13. I really enjoyed this Gail. I like to start thinking about link attraction at the earliest possible time in the content creation process. Great writing “is” link building.

    Reply

  16. Marvelous advice! I struggle to get any quality increase in traffic to my site for a while now, I will continue with an infographic to drive quality traffic over my website.

    Reply

  17. Hello Gail, I am totally agree with you… Content is king, and if we publish evergreen content always, then it will attract more visitors and organic backlinks to our website.

    Regards,
    Vijay Kumar

    Reply

    • Hi Cara,

      Here’s how to use embed codes if you’re using WordPress with the Classic Editor plugin installed:

      First, find the code. Then put some text in your content where you want the content to go. It can be anything: HERE or asdf or whatever. Remember what you use.

      Switch to the TEXT tab in WordPress (assuming you’re using WordPress) and search for the text you used. Highlight it and paste the embed code over it.

      Then switch back to the “VISUAL” tab to continue writing your content. You can add embed codes anywhere in your text.

      If you’re using something else, you have to be able to get to the HTML code, find where you want the embed to go, and paste it in there.

      People using WordPress Gutenberg are on their own. There is probably a block for that, but I hate blocks so I can’t help you with how that works.
      Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Cold Email Strategy: How to Update Yours for 2020My Profile

      Reply

  20. Slow and steady wins the race. No hurry in ranking and link building. No alternative of quality and unique content. Great work! Kudos

    Reply

    • I believe this is really correct. Google is monitoring the links regularly but if you have the content which attracts users then it will surely helps you to add growth to your business.

      thanks for the article.

      Reply

  24. The content is King, only great content can attract organic links, so the hot topic is a good way, we also use the hot topic to write some technical post on our blog to attract the readers.

    Reply

  25. Getting organic links and mentions is the ultimate goal of a digital marketer working on seo and the above article has everything one needs to know to get started. Thank you to the author Gail Gardner for this ultimate blog.

    Reply

  35. Such a nice post and detailed infographic. Never seen such detailed infographic. But it makes the reading and information interesting (the point you were proving). The info graphs are a really good way to convey the content. Readers do like it a lot.

    Reply

  36. Hi Gail,
    I like your article about how to attract organic links, mentions and shares with content. This is my first visit to your blog.

    This is a very useful article for bloggers. I want to read more about the blog. Thanks for sharing great and useful tips.
    thanks for sharing the amazing post.
    Have a great weekend.
    Asha Poul would love you to read ..How to Become a Professional Photographer?My Profile

    Reply

  41. Hey Gail Gardner,
    Great post. Thanks for sharing these valuable and helpful information. Besides that, I really enjoyed reading it as well. I have been learning SEO and your infographic blog has really helped me alot. Keep up the good work.

    Reply

  44. Wow, that’s really nice write up about Gig work. There are so many options available in the market to earn extra money. The insight information about how this income is spent by these freelancers is a useful part. The no of Gig workers is going to increase since there is much more demand in the market.

    Reply

  46. Thank you for your article!

    This is very helpful for me to do my website’s SEO.

    Also, I learned a lot of knowledge after I read this article.

    Thank you again for sharing!

    Reply

  47. Dear Gail, thank you for this great piece and eye opener. I have actually be thinking about this inforgraphic but don’t really know how to ho about it and not really serious about it. With this article I am serious to put it to practice. Is it something one can easily design with app or outsourcing? I love what I saw in the two examples.
    Favour would love you to read ..Best Glasses For Gin and TonicMy Profile

    Reply

  52. We are at the stage of our blog where we are working on getting more organic links. This is a brilliant post, and we appreciate the information! Love the posts that you are sharing and look forward to reading more. Perfect website for especially new bloggers.

    Reply

  57. Very-helpful And informative content Thanks for Sharing with us. i read lots of Blog posts and i never heard of a topic like this. i love this topic you made about the bloggers bucket list.

    Reply

  60. Hi, thank You for very interesting post. I´ve been blogging for very short time now with just a little traffic and mostly paid on social media. I hope to implement Your tips and grow bigger. I see You have a plenty knowledge about SEO. Would be great to share some of Your knowledge here. Take care and kee posting
    Leoš would love you to read ..The best scenic viewpoints in BarcelonaMy Profile

    Reply

  64. Hello Gail,
    I want to genuinely thank you for this SEO guide.
    I was struggling to get a birds-eye view of what needs to be done and really helped me with that!
    This is by far the best guide that I found by a longshot!
    Thanks again and keep up the good work.

    Reply

  66. Gail,
    I recently created a couple of infographics and would like to ask your recommendation how to promote them, in addition, to having them on my blog. I posted them on Pinterest and submitted them for review to a couple of free infographics directories.
    Paid directories that I found looked semi-abandoned and not worthy of submission. Perhaps I didn’t manage to find the right ones…

    What else can be done?
    Thank you!
    Vera would love you to read ..How to draw a rose step-by-step guide for beginnersMy Profile

    Reply

    • Hi Vera,

      You could seek out sites in related niches and contact them to offer your infographic. But if you do that, please do them a favor and don’t message/email to ask for permission to send it.

      I don’t know whose bright idea that was, but I find it very annoying. Why take my time twice? Why not just send it the first time?
      Gail Gardner would love you to read ..CEO Shares Tips for Marketing Your Small BusinessMy Profile

      Reply

  68. This is such a useful article for bloggers. Personally, I do tend to try and produce mostly evergreen content. But occasionally, being on the pulse with a current affairs or trending story can really get your blog out there. People do click on things that are current.

    Going to look into the Exploding Topics that one of the comments above alluded to!
    Jo Boyne would love you to read ..Why I’ll Never Buy Another HotpointMy Profile

    Reply

  70. Excellent points, Gail! I’m starting to plan new strategies for my site’s SEO campaign this year and this post offered me broader ideas. I’ve seen a lot of blogs that contain infographics and indeed it’s a lot appealing. Plus, it makes it easier for readers to understand the idea of the topic. These tips are really helpful. Thanks!

    Reply

  71. Gail,

    Thanks for your heads-up! I have been following a set of bloggers regularly and I would love to link their articles whenever I publish new post on my blog. I strongly believe in their content value.
    That means, consistency in producing valuable content would get good readership (like me) as well as links and mentions. Hope I am right, Gail.
    Jessica Jones would love you to read ..WordPress Speed Optimization Hacks – Speed Up Your Site To Load Within A SecondMy Profile

    Reply

  73. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience, I appreciate that.
    The conclusion is predictable – content which is worth to share will gather mentions and backlinks.
    I’ll bear in mind some of the features you provided in the article and implement them to skyscraper technique.

    Greetings!

    Reply

  77. So true that the gig economy is not new, but is definitely on the rise due to a branding effort! We have also created a handy guide for those interested in creating engaging content in 2020, get those keywords going and answer all of your customers questions! Check it out and let us know what you think (and yeah we’re a team of giggers!) https://www.joltspace.com/post/if-content-is-king-who-s-queen-your-12-step-guide-to-content-marketing-success

    Reply

  85. Wow!
    This is very helpful idea for all blogger. I am starting blogging so it’s good way for me. Thanks for sharing this knowledge article.

    Reply

  88. I think “evergreen content” and “trending topics” are opposites. Trends come and go, whereas evergreen content is good for (potentially) forever.

    Neither is right or wrong – trending topics tend to have higher returns on investment, whereas evergreen content (as its name suggests) lasts.
    Joe would love you to read ..The 2019 Cincinnati Cybersecurity ConferenceMy Profile

    Reply

    • Hi Joe,

      Sometimes trends don’t last long, but other times they trend for years. Take mobile responsiveness, for example. If you write about a trend that is short-lived, you aren’t going to get nearly the benefit of writing for something that is ramping up and will continue.

      For example, smart homes aren’t going away anytime soon (although they should). A.I. is another topic that will be talked about for years as is crypto-currency.
      Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Additional SerpStat Discount for Their Ho-Ho-Holiday Limited Time SaleMy Profile

      Reply

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