Advice on Content Marketing in a Tough Niche
-
Hello,
In our niche, nobody links to the content/information with rare exceptions. Do you guys have any good articles/ideas for cases like this? The content that is linked to is once removed in subject matter from the content of our site, like if we sold shoes and had to write on different types of clothing stores.
Looking for advice on what to do and how to figure out what to write about. We've probably got a descent budget this time but we're not sure how to go about this.
Any advice is appreciated.
-
Jane, do you recommend that we do a brand new study like Aviva did? It seems like that would make for a much higher quality article. If so, what's the minimum sample size and are there companies you know of that we can hire to do the study?
Thanks! Great ideas here.
-
I am in a hard market for links as well. I find that studies and reports on data work quite well. So what I do is identify a topic that is interesting, gather the governmental data and put it together in a way that I have not otherwise seen.
-
I have seen some companies commission interesting studies that are vaguely related to their niches, supposedly for research purposes, but if these are good enough and interesting enough, they are often cited in news sources.
Take insurance company Aviva - insurance is pretty boring, right? The company compiled a study on the amount of money new parents spend on their babies a couple of months ago - the article Aviva published is here: http://www.aviva.co.uk/media-centre/story/17298/first-time-parents-spend-492-million-preparing-for/
Here is some of the press that study got:
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/money/Consumer/article1411345.ece (also in print edition, hence brevity of online snippet)
http://www.covermagazine.co.uk/cover/news/2340859/just-one-in-five-new-parents-have-life-cover
http://www.futureproofinsurance.co.uk/blog/?p=397
Unfortunately, these articles don't link to Aviva's website - either the home page, the release or anywhere else. This is an action that should be followed up by the SEOs (disclaimer: I have worked with Aviva on projects in the past, but neither myself nor anyone I know was involved in this piece of content creation or distribution - I just liked the study and appreciated the attention it got, minus the links. I read about it in the newspaper).
Aviva has conducted similar studies in the past, as have a bunch of similar companies whose core product is otherwise both competitive and not a perfect candidate for "content marketing". The trick is to spin the market such that you find an interesting facet to research and write about.
If that market happened to be shoes, a study could focus on how many Americans suffer unnecessary injuries due to wearing the wrong footwear. For instance, running shoes that don't suit their running styles, high heels in jobs where people spend a lot of time on their feet, shoes that are too small, whether Vibram shoes are beneficial to foot and leg health or whether they're a gimmick, how much money per year Americans spend in health costs associated with foot / leg health that could be avoided by wearing better or correct footwear. I've made this up quickly, so please excuse the rough idea!
The key is to find something that resonates with a lot of people, not just your target market. Aviva doesn't really mind that the majority of the people who consume their new parents article are not going to take out an Aviva health insurance or life insurance policy. Whilst they're definitely raising awareness for these products, they're also raising basic company awareness and they should gain links because of that press.
The more obscure or dull the industry, the harder this can become - and consumer insurance does have direct ties to a large portion of the population's everyday life. Again, you're looking for an angle that outweighs the fact that "nobody links to the content/information with rare exceptions." The more you can tie your angle to both your basic niche and the general public's interest, the better.
You can also get more specific than "the general public" and target a group of potential linkers who would otherwise not be interested in your market - say you are a shipping / international logistics company. You might find that the music industry is very liberal with their blogging and link-giving. Research and write about the amount of money lost per year in damages shipping music equipment, providing insurance options and developing guidelines for safety in that specific market. Again, a very off-the-top-of-my-head example (and I doubt the music industry links like this at all, but you get what I mean).
Hope this helps!
Jane
-
Don't worry about the links, especially at the start. Just keep blogging. Over time you'll get to where you figure out what resonates with readers and drives engagement.
-
Is it a national, regional or more local site?
Perhaps you could find a national topic or even international topic which has a track record of being linked to, write an article about that topic, then start emailing the sites who have a history of linking to past content to let them know about your new piece of content.
If you keep trying, you will get the right kind of links even in a tough niche.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Content update on 24hr schedule
Hello! I have a website with over 1300 landings pages for specific products. These individual pages update on a 24hr cycle through out API. Our API pulls reviews/ratings from other sources and then writes/updates that content onto the page. Is that 'bad"? Can that be viewed as spammy or dangerous in the eyes of google? (My first thought is no, its fine) Is there such a thing as "too much content". For example if we are adding roughly 20 articles to our site a week, is that ok? (I know news websites add much more than that on a daily basis but I just figured I would ask) On that note, would it be better to stagger our posting? For example 20 articles each week for a total of 80 articles, or 80 articles once a month? (I feel like trickle posting is probably preferable but I figured I would ask.) Is there any negatives to the process of an API writing/updating content? Should we have 800+ words of static content on each page? Thank you all mozzers!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Can you give me some advices to rank this domain?
Hi Moz community, I've a coleague that's working to rank this site: www.devsar.com. The selected keywords are:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gaston Riera
Mobile development
Web development
Django Development
Python Development I've checked the site: It's fast and clean. Has a good PA and DA. It's responsive and good lookking. Meta description , title, hreflang.. everything in order. Link profile a little rare (checked with ahref.com), it's because someone made a mistake redirecting some expired domain Can you help me to help my mate out?
Thanks
GR.0 -
Merging Niche Site
I posted a question about this a while ago, but still haven't pulled the trigger. I have a main site (bobsclothing.com). I also have a EM niche site (i.e shirtsmall.com). It would be more efficient for me to merge these site, because: I would have to manage content, promos, etc. on a single site. In other words, I can focus efforts on 1 site. If I am writing content, I don't have to split the work. I don't have to worry about duplicate content. Right now, if I enter a product URL into copyscape, the other sites is returned for many products. What makes me apprehensive are: The niche site actually ranks for more keywords than the main site, although it has lower revenue. Slightly lower PA, and DA. Niche site ranks top 20 for a profitable keyword that has about 1300 exact match searches. If you include the longer tail versions of the keyword it would be more. If I merge these sites, and do proper 301s (product to product, category to category) how likely is it that main site will still rank for that keyword? Am I likely to end up with a site that has stronger DA? Am I better off keeping the niche site and just focusing content efforts on the few keywords that it can rank well for? I appreciate any advice. If someone has done this, please share your experience. TIA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Big problem with duplicate page content
Hello! I am a beginner SEO specialist and a have a problem with duplicate pages content. The site I'm working on is an online shop made with Prestashop. The moz crawl report shows me that I have over 4000 duplicate page content. Two weeks ago I had 1400. The majority of links that show duplicate content looks like bellow:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ana_g
http://www.sitename.com/category-name/filter1
http://www.sitename.com/category-name/filter1/filter2 Firstly, I thought that the filtres don't work. But, when I browse the site and I test it, I see that the filters are working and generate links like bellow:
http://www.sitename.com/category-name#/filter1
http://www.sitename.com/category-name#/filter1/filter2 The links without the # do not work; it messes up with the filters.
Why are the pages indexed without the #, thus generating me duplicate content?
How can I fix the issues?
Thank you very much!0 -
Content Above The Fold (strategies)
Does anyone know if using a wide responsive layout that brings content well above the fold on big screens (but still pushes it down on small screens or mobile devices) is a good option? We have an adsense site that just got destroyed and I'm assuming its this new Google algo that's looking at sites with too big of ads above the fold.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iAnalyst.com0 -
Merge content pages together to get one deep high quality content page - good or not !?
Hi, I manage the SEO of a brand poker website that provide ongoing very good content around specific poker tournaments, but all this content is split into dozens of pages in different sections of the website (blog section, news sections, tournament section, promotion section). It seems like today having one deep piece of content in one page has better chance to get mention / social signals / links and therefore get a higher authority / ranking / traffic than if this content was split into dozens of pages. But the poker website I work for and also many other website do generate naturally good content targeting long tail keywords around a specific topic into different section of the website on an ongoing basis. Do you we need once a while to merge those content pages into one page ? If yes, what technical implementation would you advice ? (copy and readjust/restructure all content into one page + 301 the URL into one). Thanks Jeremy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tit0 -
All Thin Content removed and duplicate content replaced. But still no success?
Good morning, Over the last three months i have gone about replacing and removing all the duplicate content (1000+ page) from our site top4office.co.uk. Now it been just under 2 months since we made all the changes and we still are not showing any improvements in the SERPS. Can anyone tell me why we aren't making any progress or spot something we are not doing correctly? Another problem is that although we have removed 3000+ pages using the removal tool searching site:top4office.co.uk still shows 2800 pages indexed (before there was 3500). Look forward to your responses!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | apogeecorp0 -
Keep older blog content indexed or no?
Our really old blog content still sees traffic, but engagement metrics aren't the best (little time on site), and as a result, traffic has gradually started to decrease. Should we de-index it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0