Monday 25 January 2016

How We Gained More than 100 Links for a Travel Website via Content Marketing



Many small businesses see content marketing as something that you can only be successful with if you are a huge company with a big budget. I was in the same boat for a long time, but after much research, many (many) failed attempts, and a lot of perseverance, I’ve finally started to see some predictability in how to get results from content marketing. Nothing illustrates this better than a project we managed for a travel company that was inspired by the finale to the fifth season of the television series Game of Thrones.

To sum up how effective this effort was, let me break down the results:

111 linking domains acquired (and counting)
19 linking domains on sites with DA of 70+
33 linking domains on sites with DA of 50+
12 all-time-high days of traffic
Referral traffic was 245 percent higher than the previous year
Coverage in The Washington Post, Business Insider, Mashable, Yahoo, Bored Panda and other top-tier publications.
This was done very simply by creating a map showing all the filming locations used throughout the Game of Thrones series and then promoting it in the right place at the right time. You can see below how this impacted referral traffic to the site:


Before I get into the nitty gritty of the exact process we went through to gain these results, I want to highlight the turning point for me when I truly believed I could make a content marketing approach work. My epiphany came courtesy of Ryan Holiday, who helped me realize there were hundreds of hugely powerful media sites out there desperate for content.

Our job, then, is simple: Find something newsworthy and create great content around it.

Here’s the process we're now using to bridge this gap:


The idea

The very first thing you have to come up with is an idea good enough to gain some traction. Don’t think this needs to be directly connected to your (or your client’s) brand. Even a loose connection is sufficient, as you’ll gain the links and brand mentions when you are referenced as the source of the content. Obviously a closer connection to your offering is better, but if you wait around until you found something sufficiently linked to your product/service in the news, then you might be waiting a long time.

For our example, the company focused on Moroccan holidays since Morocco was used as a filming location in Game of Thrones.

I find the best way to get ideas is by surfing the web, particularly the bigger news and entertainment websites (e.g., Mashable, Buzzfeed, Bored Panda etc). Buzzsumo is also an excellent tool for finding similar kinds of successful content in your niche.


Identify targets

Once you have an idea, the next job is to find the people you will target with your outreach when the content is ready. It’s crucial to do this before you create the content, as this process may highlight particular elements your targets are receptive to, which you can then incorporate to make it more appealing to them. For example, you may find that some publications enjoy featuring maps, while others prefer stats and surveys.

The key is to find specific people who have written about something similar to your topic before. We sifted through hundreds of sites to find the specific journalists and writers who had written pieces around Game of Thrones so we knew they had an interest in it and were more likely to be receptive when it came to the outreach process.

Another way to do this is to find a similar piece of content that has been successful and has gained a lot of coverage, then use a tool like Open Site Explorer to examine which websites and authors have linked to it. We found this Google Maps version of Westeros, for example, which we used to mine potential targets for outreach.


The golden nugget in this kind of scenario is identifying the sites which other sites use as as sources for their information. If you can get your content featured in those places, it is almost a guarantee that you will see it republished on a variety of other powerful sites. For example, Business Insider articles are republished on Yahoo, and we’ve found that a story will often get picked up in a lot of places if you can seed it there originally. Therefore, offering your content as an exclusive to those kinds of sites can be a great approach to follow.

Pre-outreach

One possible addition at this stage, depending on the kind of content you’re producing, would be to send an initial feeler email to one or two of your key targets to gauge their interest in the piece. (Hat tip to Brian Dean of Backlinko for this tip.) This can be a great way of getting on your target's radar without being pushy.

"Hi John: We’re currently putting together a comprehensive map which features every single Game of Thrones filming location. Obviously, excitement is at fever pitch ahead of the season finale next week. I saw you’d covered GOT earlier this year, so I thought I’d see if it was something you’d be interested in featuring?
If so, let me know, and I’ll send it over when it’s ready to go."
Be sure to let them know why it’s newsworthy and why it’s relevant to them.

If you receive a reply, that’s great. But the real goal is to create familiarity for when your content is ready for sharing.

Once you have a great idea and have identified the people you are going to target with outreach, it’s now time to produce your content.

You don’t need to have huge budgets to create great-looking graphics and interesting images. Websites like Fiverr and Upwork are fantastic resources for finding freelancers who do great work. It simply takes a bit of initial time to sift through and separate the wheat from the chaff. Once that’s done, give the freelancers a detailed brief and tell them exactly what you want.

There are a wide variety of different types of content you could create in this way, including infographics, maps, charts, graphs, slideshows, interactive graphics, and videos. If your idea is interesting and newsworthy enough, then packaging it up in any one of these formats should give you a great opportunity to gain coverage.

Another useful point to consider, in this stage and the "ideas" one, is that the wider the audience you can cover with your content, the more likely you are to get it featured in lots of places. If your content is relevant to people in the US, UK, and around the world, then any site on the Internet may write about it. Limit it to a study about the UK and US, though, and sites are unlikely to pick it up. Fortunately, pretty much everyone on the globe now loves Game of Thrones.

Given that our idea centered on filming locations in Game of Thrones, it made sense to structure the content in a map format. We added in some nice images of each place and gave it a GOT feel and we were good to go!


Contact your exclusive target

Once your content is ready to go, contact your outreach targets and tell them about the content. Provide a concise summary of what you have and why it's valuable to them. The key here is to offer it as an exclusive feature for that site before reaching out to anyone else. If the writer sees an opportunity to win those clicks before any other site features it, then they're more likely to pounce on your offer.

If they aren’t interested and don’t reply, though, move on until you find one or more takers. Remember, you only need one solid placement to be successful.

Promote, promote, promote!

Immediately after getting our content featured, we begin the process of promoting it. The more we help the post perform well, the more likely it is that other people will pick it up.

Do everything you can to get more visibility for that post: Share it on your social networks, hijack hashtags, add it to a relevant sub-reddit on Reddit, ask friends to share it, etc.

Boost the post with ads on Facebook and Twitter to enhance its visibility and give it the best possible chance of getting as much social proof as possible. It may seem counter-intuitive to spend money promoting someone else’s site, but the benefit you’ll get from the additional social proof will be well worth it.

Another benefit of this is that many of these sites promote the most popular content they publish to their homepage feeds. If you can get enough early buzz around your piece, then it will only enhance its visibility further by pushing it onto the homepage.

Once you have your exclusive feature in place, the next action is to publish it on your own site.

When you add it to your site, ensure that you add plenty of additional information to it. Make sure that your enhanced version is better than the original piece of content.

Ride the wave

So, you’ve got your first piece of exclusive content placed, promoted it like crazy so that it has irresistible social signals, and published an enhanced (i.e., new) version of it on your site. Now it’s time for the second wave of outreach. Return to your list of highly relevant targets and start contacting them. The only difference this time is that you are not offering exclusive content. Instead, you are pointing them to the exclusive and highlighting how much people are loving it — and how much success (and clicks) they could have a share of if they published the content on their own site.

“Hi Joan: In collaboration with Lawrence of Morocco, we've created a map featuring every real life location used through the series Game of Thrones that I thought you might like. Would you be interested in featuring it on Bored Panda?

Obviously, anticipation and interest is building around the upcoming finale of Season 5, as well as their recent announcements about locations for Season 6, so it's a bit of a hot topic at the moment. Plus, everyone loves GOT!

The map has already received some really great feedback since being featured on Business Insider (http://uk.businessinsider.com/game-of-thrones-set-...), and has taken off on social media since we published it on the LOM site - http://www.lawrenceofmorocco.com/news/game-of-thro....

I've attached the map here for you to take a look. If you publish it, if you could link to lawrenceofmorocco.com as the source, that'd be great. If you need anything else, just let me know.

Hope you like it!"
Keep digging

Now is the time to work down your list and contact those third-tier sites to ask about featuring your content. They might not be the strongest sites on the web individually, but provide great value collectively.

For us, this effort involved us contacting the self-proclaimed "nerd sites" (i.e., sites that cater to fans of comics, video games, and cosplay). Our third effort at outreach successfully targeted these groups. As a result, we gained links on Unreality Mag (DA of 57) and Nerdist (DA of 80), among others.

Once the dust has settled and you’re sitting back all pleased with yourself, remember that there are still things you can do to make the job easier next time.

Follow up with the sites that used your content to thank them for featuring it, comment on how well it did (in case they didn’t realize that themselves), and ask them if they’d be happy to receive more ideas from you in the future.

(Seek expert advice from social media advertising agency)

One other thing you can do is to make a note in your calendar of future dates when your content may be relevant again. For us, we’re ready to go when the next Game of Thrones season approaches. That's when we’ll start reaching out to a new batch of sites, possibly with an updated map.

Final thoughts

I bought into the idea and benefits of content marketing a long time ago, but struggled to put the recommendations I'd read about into practical action to gain (relatively) consistent and predictable results for a long time.

Hopefully, this post will help you, too, to take the plunge and find success.

Do share your own experiences and difficulties with social media marketing in the comments below, along with any questions.


Canny Digital Pte Ltd
15 Enggor Street #05-04,
Realty Centre, Singapore (079716)
Phone: 68505446
http://www.canny.com.sg


Thursday 24 September 2015

How To Get a Satisfying Job With SEO Singapore

There are several electronic digital marketing and advertising programs offered both equally on the web and throughout universities and colleges. But before you learn more about these programs, inform us just what electronic digital marketing is dependant on.

seo singapore


Electronic digital marketing and advertising is a business exercise associated with selling makes with the aid of interactive mass media like the World wide web and cellphones. This kind of stimulates products with the aid of many social media marketing company to be able to achieve shoppers inside most cost-effective method. In addition to showing to become a cost-effective, electronic digital marketing and advertising can be some sort of regular and personal solution to achieve prospective customers.

Kinds of Electronic digital Advertising

There are a couple of kinds of electronic digital promotion: pull and drive. Electronic digital marketing programs are around for both equally varieties:

: Draw electronic digital marketing and advertising is dependant on the user being forced to search for, look for, and retrieve information with the aid of social meddia exploring. Some examples associated with pull electronic digital marketing and advertising are sites and piping mass media (i. at the. the use of sound and video). That sort of marketing and advertising has no rules with regard to rules, type or even size associated with information. Really the only bad suggestions the webmaster will need to utilize extensive marketing and advertising hard work to uncover users thinking about his / her information. Contour checking abilities are constrained too. Another highlight is zero personalization mounted on that sort of marketing and advertising and the webpage views look comparable to many.

: Thrust marketing and advertising consists of both internet marketer and the audience. Some examples associated with drive marketing and advertising incorporate e-mail, TEXT and FEED. Inside drive electronic digital marketing and advertising, the internet marketer should send out the information on the individual to ensure that this individual will get the information. That sort of marketing and advertising can be personal and can be used pertaining to certain specific audience. This checking and canceling too can be more in depth so supporting travel greater earnings for that webmaster. Really the only downside associated with by using this sort of marketing and advertising can be the technological know-how offers a set of rules to check out. Should this ceases to follow the rules the delivery in the social media agency singapore and advertising communications can be clogged and the information too can be turned down and invalidated.

Electronic digital Marketing Lessons

Electronic digital technological know-how can be modifying the way business and marketing experts understand and technique their particular shoppers. Should you too wish to combine your own marketing and advertising pursuits by it technological know-how subsequently begin seeking the optimal electronic digital marketing and advertising programs, right this moment.

There are several electronic digital marketing and advertising programs in which make use of superior electronic digital mass media and it also technological know-how to help a single plan for marketing and advertising their particular products. This training together with it's idea and useful facets helps a single obtain very good knowledge of marketing and advertising principles and other applicable specialist parts. Some specialist marketing and advertising instruction parts incorporate Global business, Marketing life values, Company operations and Electronic digital mass media.

Many you must do is to research the parts in which curiosity people one of the most to check out a course in which fulfils the needs you have. Electronic social media marketing and advertising programs assist you gain the specified expertise so that you can obtain greatest career prospects in advance. When you are skilled as a electronic digital internet marketer, you'd effortlessly receive a gratifying task inside job areas associated with advertising, marketing and advertising, model operations, internet and e-marketing, general market trends and marketing and advertising operations.






Canny Digital PTE. LTD.
15 Enggor Street #05-04,
Realty Centre, Singapore (079716)
+65 81134647

Thursday 23 July 2015

Tuesday 21 July 2015

3 Website Design Singapore Tips for Niche Industries



There are social media agency singapore staples who have become a lot more respected as time went by (like adaptive design and style or responsive design), and web design trends who have decreased in attractiveness. Part of this is due to the fact that some design and style styles can seriously bolster various industries—while some others may drag them down in Google serp's. Whether your specialized niche is fitness, fund, relationship advice as well as creating cat memes, knowing proven web site design tips for niche industries is very important. Remember: If anyone don’t know these types of white hat tips, some of your competition surely will.


Much like as with additional practices like articles marketing, sometimes you'll need “evergreen” approaches in the best way to deisgn your internet site. This works especially well for anyone webmasters who don’t contain the time to replace their sites often. It’s also understandable for individuals who don’t necessarily contain the budget to purchase costly web designer using a frequent basis. Even so, if cost will be the sole reason you’re definitely not regularly updating your internet site, consider transitioning to your DIY platform using free themes similar to WordPress. No matter exactly how “behind the times” you believe you are, WordPress and its competitors are convenient to use and dole available some gorgeous freebie themes to the taking.
Ready to take your web site design strategy to another level? Here’s exactly how:
1. Embrace sensitive design for computer and mobile
Both these sound like large buzzwords, but they’re really pretty self-explanatory. Responsive design (RD) is really a means of designing a website so it replies well and quickly regardless of what platform or gadget is it being used. Those DIY tools like Wix and WP include responsive design built in, so you can establish it and forget about it. Otherwise, make sure you hire a social media company service who prioritizes RD. Giving a website an almost tactile as well as interactive feel can get a user considering even something that might not necessarily end up being thrilling, such as tools like pension calculators.
Having an intense mobile design strategy can be tricky and most likely are not for every specialized niche business. Not every company needs a responsible design for their mobile app, sometimes. However, if you have something similar to a financial site that you would like a user to be aware of and interact using, they might find it less complicated to navigate that has a responsive mobile design and style. Take an informal poll of your respective customers or do a focus group to learn what they want.

2. Go basic with nav bars
Your navigation bar or “nav bar” is exactly what it sounds like. It’s in which bar (well, usually a bar) using a website where you'll find tabs for “services, ” “about us all, ” “contact, ” etc. People intuitively look for certain spaces using a website for that, almost always at the header or with either side. Some websites seek to get creative in addition to “hide” their navigation bar or contain it swimming all over the place. Don’t do in which. Usability and ease always trumps creative imagination. This can be particularly so with niche industries where your customers aren’t usually your site to captivate themselves.



3. The particular big image pattern
A seemingly easy method to freshen up your website has a big picture as your backdrop. It’s easy to swap out therefore it looks like your internet site is always new which is really trending at this time. However, big images may also cause big complications: Namely site speed and improper loading. Even if your current RD has ensured that the image shows up correctly on every single platform, that doesn’t specifically address the speed issue.
A amount of things impact loading speed, whether it be the caliber of your web host to Wi-Fi interconnection. However, really big images may also slow things along. The New You are able to Times also lately reported, Google researchers found people won’t wait longer compared to blink of a close look beyond what they expect to get a page to fill. That big picture, if sized erroneously, could lose anyone visitors and time spent on site.
An overarching theme to keep in mind here is and keep things simple, clean and easy to get at. Clean up your internet site, stay abreast connected with and utilize search engine marketing (SEO) best techniques, and remember in which no website actually stays “optimized” intended for long. It takes typical maintenance and updates to make certain your website is at its best. Tips, tricks and hackers come and proceed, but having a foundation based on quality, whether it’s articles or design, is really a principle that isn’t planning anywhere.

Xavier is an social media services expert at CannyDigital, (Canny Digital, 14 Robinson Road, Phone: +65 6059599), a leading SEO services company in Singapore.  Follow Canny Digital on Facebook, Twitter & YouTube.


15 Enggor Street #05-04, 
Realty Centre, Singapore (079716)
+65 65059599
http://www.canny.com.sg/