complete blogging course to grow your business with timestamps YoutubeScribe.com

[0:00] Hi there, I'm Tim, head of marketing at Ahrefs.
[0:03] And I'm excited to present to you Blogging for Business.
[0:06] It is a very detailed cut-to-the-chase video course
that will teach you how to grow traffic to your blog
[0:11] and turn it into a customer acquisition
channel to your business.
[0:15] Three things.
[0:16] First: this entire course is based on a true
story of how we took our own blog from
[0:22] a resource that hardly anyone knew about to
one of the most popular and reputable blogs
[0:26] in our industry.
[0:27] In terms of traffic, we went from less than 15,000
visitors per month back on when I just joined Ahrefs,
[0:33] to over 150,000 visitors per month
when I started working on this course.
[0:38] As of today, the search traffic to our
blog looks almost like a hockey stick.
[0:42] And I'm going to show you
exactly how we achieved that.
[0:45] It took me six years and eight different blogs
to figure out the tactics and strategies that
[0:50] actually work.
[0:51] So in this course you'll be getting six years
of blood sweat and tears condensed into
[0:57] 10 video lessons packed with actionable
content marketing and SEO strategies.
[1:01] I honestly wish this course existed
back when I was just starting out,
[1:05] it would have saved me a lot
of wasted time and money.
[1:08] Second: seeing your blog traffic grow
is obviously both exciting and satisfying.
[1:13] But you're running a business, right?
[1:15] The last time I checked, they didn't
accept traffic in the banks.
[1:18] So you have to make sure that you're attracting
the kind of traffic that will convert into paying
[1:23] customers for your business.
[1:24] Trust me, I'm a huge advocate of content
marketing that brings customers and sales,
[1:30] not just arbitrary traffic numbers.
[1:32] And that's why I named this video
course "Blogging for business."
[1:36] And finally, number three: it took me almost
a year to carefully outline and record all 10
[1:43] video lessons of this course.
[1:44] And judging by the feedback from
the people who took it already, I was
[1:47] able to impress even seasoned marketing
professionals, not just newbie bloggers.
[1:52] But after creating this course, I decided
to go even further, and interviewed three
[1:56] awesome people asking them all
sorts of challenging questions.
[2:00] I interviewed Noah Kagan
about growing an audience.
[2:03] I interviewed Bryan Harris
about list building.
[2:06] And I interviewed Ramsay Taplin
about starting a blog from scratch.
[2:10] These three bonus interviews are
a real icing on the cake, trust me.
[2:15] So, what are you even waiting for!
[2:17] Grab the course, and I'll see you inside!
[2:19] Welcome to the lesson #1: "The compound
effect of content marketing"
[2:24] As I promised in the introduction video, this
lesson is going to set the stage for the entire
[2:29] course and help you better understand why
I'm advocating certain tactics and angles
[2:34] over everything else.
[2:36] Here's the agenda for this lesson.
[2:38] We'll start off with what should be your
primary goal if you're blogging for business,
[2:41] not as a hobbyist.
[2:42] Then I'm going to break down three main
customer acquisition channels and explain
[2:46] how blogging expands them.
[2:48] And finally, I'm going to showcase one very
simple, but immensely important realization
[2:52] that keeps people away from rapid blog growth.
[2:55] So here we go.
[2:56] Part 1: The primary goal of blogging for business.
[2:58] In about two years we managed to grow Ahrefs
blog from nearly 15,000 visits per month
[3:04] to 150,000 visits per month.
[3:06] Do you think this result is good or bad,
considering that it took us nearly two
[3:10] years to achieve?
[3:11] Well, if you ask me, I don't really care
about raw traffic numbers that much.
[3:15] Traffic is a vanity metric.
[3:17] We never had a goal of
growing traffic to our blog.
[3:20] Our primary goal has always been acquiring
new customers and growing our business.
[3:25] What's the point of going viral and bringing
hundreds of thousands of visitors to a blog
[3:29] if none of them will buy from you?
[3:31] It may be good for your ego,
but not for the bank account.
[3:34] So instead of trying to generate as much blog
traffic as we could, we focused our efforts
[3:38] on bringing highly targeted visitors, who
would convert into customers and bring
[3:42] money to our business.
[3:43] I know that content marketing teams love to
set themselves all sorts of nonsensical KPI's:
[3:48] Number of published articles per week;
[3:50] Number of blog visitors per month;
[3:52] Number of email subscribers per month.
[3:54] Well, if you ask me, these are all bad KPIs.
[3:57] They do make certain sense of
course, but they're secondary.
[4:00] Number of orders or sales per month,
this is the primary KPI that you should
[4:05] care about in the first place.
[4:07] You should treat your blog as
a customer acquisition channel,
[4:09] not a traffic acquisition channel.
[4:11] Unless of course you make 
money out of raw traffic.
[4:14] Like selling banner ads for example.
[4:15] In that case more traffic will
obviously bring more money.
[4:19] But this course won't teach you how to create
a media empire and make money with advertising.
[4:23] I don't have any experience with that, so
I'm not qualified to create a course about it.
[4:27] This course is about creating the blog that
will drive customers to your business.
[4:32] This is what we have succeeded at with
Ahrefs Blog and I'll be happy to share all
[4:36] our tactics and strategies with you.
[4:39] Part 2: Three main customer acquisition channels.
[4:42] Let's take a moment to step back
and look at the big picture.
[4:45] How do people discover products
and services to buy online?
[4:48] First of all, nothing beats a recommendation
from a friend or someone you respect.
[4:52] Great products generate a lot of buzz on social
networks and this drives sales like a charm.
[4:57] That's called word of mouth.
[4:59] Then there's search.
[5:00] Whenever you're facing a problem or
have any kind of question, the first place
[5:03] you go to is Google.
[5:04] And if there's a product or service that
can solve your problem, it is very likely
[5:08] that it will pop up in Google's search results.
[5:10] And finally, advertising is 
a very old and proven way
[5:13] to get a product in front 
of prospective customers.
[5:16] We see hundreds, if not thousands
of ads every single day.
[5:19] Which actually dilutes their ROI quite a bit.
[5:21] But this channel is still 
quite effective nevertheless.
[5:24] OK, so do you even need a blog in order to tap into
these three main customer acquisition channels?
[5:30] Well, Not really.
[5:32] Let me explain it with a real example.
[5:34] Let's say you own an e-commerce store
that sells shoe-laces like lacesout.net.
[5:39] Once someone buys new laces from them,
the chances are, this person is going to brag
[5:43] about this to his friends and
recommend lacesout.net website.
[5:47] That is, if that customer had a positive
experience with that online shop.
[5:51] Pleasing your customers is all you need
in order to generate the word of mouth.
[5:54] Now, let's talk about search.
[5:56] If I plug lacesout.net website into Ahrefs'
Site Explorer tool, I will see that they rank
[6:00] in organic search results for quite a few
keywords, related to their products.
[6:04] They rank at position #3 for the keyword "sneaker
laces," at position #7 for the keyword "laces,"
[6:10] and at position #5 for "sneaker shoe laces."
[6:12] And a ton of other relevant keywords, of course.
[6:15] In other words, people who search in Google for
shoe laces will inevitably discover lacesout.net
[6:20] because it ranks quite well.
[6:22] And these people are the best customers you may
hope for, because they express their direct intent
[6:27] when searching in Google for these things.
[6:29] So search as a customer acquisition channel
seems to work very well for lacesout.net.
[6:33] And finally, advertising.
[6:35] Looks like Ahrefs doesn't see any ads for
lacesout.net in Google's search results.
[6:39] PPC keywords says 0.
[6:41] But there's another great tool called Similarweb, 
where you can check for other forms of advertising
[6:45] besides Google pay-per-click.
[6:47] But it looks like lacesout.net is not doing any
advertising even according to Similarweb.
[6:51] So they must be quite happy with how the other
two customer acquisition channels work.
[6:56] But still they can pour some money
into advertising anytime they want.
[6:59] So let's check this customer acquisition
channel for them anyways.
[7:02] Now, given that this online store can successfully
leverage all three major customer acquisition channel
[7:08] why are they running a blog then?
[7:10] Well, let's take a look at this article from their
blog that teaches different lacing styles.
[7:14] According to Ahrefs, this single article ranks
in Google for over 600 related search queries.
[7:21] Here are some of them: "how to lace nikes,"
"how to lace nike shoes," "how to lace air
[7:25] max 90," etc, etc, etc.
[7:27] So people search for these kinds of things in
Google, they find this article at Lacesout blog,
[7:32] they enjoy it, they dig deeper into lacesout.net
website, and eventually they buy laces from it.
[7:38] This is a nearly perfect example of how content
marketing can drive customers to your business
[7:42] from Google.
[7:43] So let's put blog next to "Search"
customer acquisition channel.
[7:47] What about the word of mouth?
[7:48] Well, this article teaches you some cool
and unique ways to tie your sneakers.
[7:52] Guess what people will do once they
learna new way to tie their laces?
[7:56] Post it on social media, of course.
[7:58] There's even a hashtag #shoelaceart
on Instagram for that.
[8:01] And once their friends and followers ask them for
a tutorial where they learned to tie laces like that,
[8:06] they will give them a link to this article.
[8:08] See where I'm going with this?
[8:09] It's not just the positive experience with your
company and your product that can generate
[8:13] the word of mouth.
[8:14] You can also generate a lot 
of buzz with your content.
[8:17] So let's put blog next to word of mouth too.
[8:20] And finally, you can spend money to promote
the content, that talks about your product
[8:24] instead of promoting the actual product directly.
[8:26] It may sound counterintuitive, but quite
often the content that promotes your product
[8:30] will have a much higher conversion rate
than a sales page for that product.
[8:34] But we'll talk more about it later in this course.
[8:36] For now, let's just put blog next to advertising.
[8:39] So all-in-all, as you can see, creating a blog
can massively expand your reach on all three
[8:45] major customer acquisition channels.
[8:47] This is why the interest in content
marketing only keeps growing.
[8:51] Just look at the Google Trends for the
keyword "content marketing," it goes up!
[8:57] Part 3: The main reason why most blogs fail.
[8:59] Like I just said, there's a lot of hype
around content marketing these days.
[9:03] Every online business wants 
to have a successful blog,
[9:06] but the problem is, most companies have
absolutely no clue how to run a blog.
[9:10] And this is why it is so common that you stumble
upon a company blog that is regularly updated
[9:14] with new articles every single month.
[9:16] But the number of comments and shares
on these articles are in single digits at best.
[9:21] Which means that no one is
actually reading these articles.
[9:24] Which means that these articles
aren't bringing new customers.
[9:27] Which means that all the work invested
in these articles is wasted.
[9:31] And I've totally been there.
[9:32] Just a few years ago I had absolutely
no clue how to run a successful blog.
[9:36] So I just copied what other successful bloggers
were doing and tried to follow their advice.
[9:41] Other bloggers said that I should publish
more often in order to get more traffic,
[9:45] so I published every day;
[9:47] They said list posts are the best,
so I published list posts;
[9:50] Then everyone started writing
expert roundups and I followed;
[9:54] Then they said that posting your content to niche
communities was a key to success, so let's do it;
[9:59] Then they said that the actual key to success
is to regularly submit your content to Facebook,
[10:03] Twitter, and every other social
network there is, no problem;
[10:07] I was doing everything that
"guru" bloggers were teaching.
[10:10] And I did indeed see some results.
[10:12] But did I get traction with my blog?
[10:15] No, I didn't.
[10:16] Actually, each individual 
tactic worked like a charm.
[10:19] My listicles generated quite 
a buzz on social media;
[10:22] My detailed guides got tons
of engagement in comments;
[10:25] My guest articles were published at
the most popular blogs in my niche.
[10:29] But all of that didn't translate into any
traction with the blogs that I was trying
[10:34] to grow at that time.
[10:35] The traffic was plateauing, 
the sales weren't coming in.
[10:38] I even purchased a bunch of quite expensive
blogging courses, thinking that I was missing
[10:42] something important that bloggers
were unwilling to share for free.
[10:46] And these courses were quite good actually,
they taught me some new exciting strategies.
[10:50] But they didn't help me to get that
traction that I was looking for.
[10:53] I was getting better and better in executing
different content marketing tactics, but I couldn't
[10:57] figure out how all these tactics come together
into a single strategy that would grow my blog
[11:02] and drive customers to our business.
[11:04] This is how traffic to every article that
I published on my blog looked like:
[11:08] Shortly after publishing an article you
see the so-called "spike of hope."
[11:12] This spike happens because you send
this new article to your email list and
[11:16] share it with your Twitter followers.
[11:17] You may also post this article on Reddit and
share it with a bunch of relevant communities
[11:21] on Facebook or Slack.
[11:22] Other than that, you may send a bunch of outreach 
emails to famous people in your industry so that
[11:27] they would share your article with their audience.
[11:30] And if your article is truly worthy, the word of
mouth will multiply the outcome of all your efforts.
[11:36] So at times that "spike of hope" might get rather
big, making you feel happy and accomplished.
[11:41] But then all this traffic quickly fades to
nothing as soon as you pull the plug on
[11:45] your content promotion machine.
[11:46] And what you get as a result is
the so-called "flatline of nope."
[11:50] By the way, the credit for these
funny terms goes to Rand Fishkin.
[11:53] So if you rely on such spikes of hope, here's
how the total traffic to your blog will look like:
[11:58] As long as you invest your time and effort into
publishing new articles and promoting them in
[12:02] every way you can, your 
traffic seems to be growing.
[12:05] This is where the popular "you should publish
new content regularly" advice comes from.
[12:10] But as soon as you stop publishing new content,
the results that you have achieved so far will start
[12:15] fading almost instantly.
[12:16] But it shouldn't be this way.
[12:18] Because this is not how growth looks like.
[12:20] I can only call this kind 
of performance "survival."
[12:23] Here's something very important that I want
you to take away from this first lesson:
[12:28] If your content marketing efforts don't
add up over time, you're doing it wrong.
[12:33] So here is how this graph should look,
if you make your efforts add up.
[12:37] As you can see, the traffic to each newly
published article doesn't fade to nothing.
[12:42] Even the opposite, it slowly grows
over time, till it reaches a certain point.
[12:46] This way every single article that you publish
adds up to the total traffic of your blog.
[12:50] So even if you stop publishing new articles
for a while, all your progress won't immediately
[12:55] fade to nothing.
[12:56] It will stay exactly where you left it.
[12:58] Or maybe even grow a bit on it's own.
[13:00] This is called "the compound
effect of content marketing."
[13:03] It may sound super-simple, and in fact it is,
but somehow I was overlooking that simple
[13:08] principle for quite a few years.
[13:11] And I see way too many 
bloggers overlooking it today.
[13:14] This is why I wanted to make sure that you
understand this general concept, before we
[13:18] go deep into the actual
blogging tactics and strategies.
[13:21] Because all of them will be focused on driving
passive consistent traffic to every article that
[13:26] you have on your blog.
[13:27] As opposed to teaching you how to get
an immediate spike of traffic to your newly
[13:31] published article, which will soon fade to nothing.
[13:34] So let's go back to the Ahrefs Blog, which I
will often use as an example for many tactics
[13:38] and strategies in this course.
[13:40] Two years ago, when I joined the team,
they were publishing 2-3 articles per week,
[13:44] and the traffic didn't show any signs of growth.
[13:47] It was basically a flatline 
despite all the effort.
[13:50] Today we publish 2-3 new articles per
month and our traffic is growing steadily
[13:56] and consistently, as you can tell.
[13:57] But most importantly, our blog is driving thousands
of customers to our platform every single month,
[14:04] and the more we grow our blog traffic,
the more customers we get from it.
[14:08] But we'll talk more about customer acquisition
with content later in this course.
[14:12] For now I just want to stress on the importance
of making every article that you publish bring you
[14:16] consistent traffic every single month.
[14:19] Because growth happens when the traffic
to your articles doesn't fade over time.
[14:23] Here's an example of such
an article from the Ahrefs Blog.
[14:26] This article was published back in 2016, and
as you can see from our Google Analytics,
[14:31] there was a "spike of hope" right after
publishing, but then the traffic didn't
[14:35] fade to nothing.
[14:36] It was actually growing
slowly from month to month.
[14:39] And near the end you can see that we have
re-launched this article and generated an even
[14:43] bigger "spike of hope."
[14:44] But relaunching is something, that
I'm going to cover later in this course.
[14:48] So the main strategy behind growing Ahrefs
blog from 15,000 to 150,000 visitors per month,
[14:55] is in making every single article we
publish perform exactly like this one.
[15:00] Passive consistent traffic that
doesn't fade over time is the key.
[15:03] Again, it may sound super simple and super
obvious, but somehow most people only focus
[15:08] on making their spike of hope bigger and
wonder why their traffic isn't growing over
[15:13] time despite all the hard work.
[15:15] So the rest of this course will be
focused around a single goal.
[15:19] How to create articles that bring consistent
targeted traffic that doesn't fade.
[15:24] And how to convert that
traffic into leads and sales.
[15:27] If that sounds good, I'll see you in lesson #2.
[15:31] Welcome to the lesson #2.
[15:33] In this lesson we'll be discussing two
major strategies of growing a blog
[15:37] with their pros and cons.
[15:39] I'm going to wrap up the "big picture" that
I started painting in lesson #1 and prepare
[15:43] you for the hacks and tactics that will follow.
[15:46] So here's the agenda for this lesson.
[15:48] We're going to start from studying
the anatomy of the "spike of hope."
[15:52] Then I'm going to break down two major strategies
of growing a blog and the challenges that they bring.
[15:57] Then I'm going to bust the "you should
publish more often" myth once and for all.
[16:02] And finally, I'm going to say a just few words
about the importance of converting random
[16:06] visitors of your blog into regular readers.
[16:08] So let's go!
[16:09] Part 1. The anatomy of the "spike of hope"
[16:12] According to my observations, most bloggers have
an unhealthy obsession about the "spike of hope."
[16:17] It is just too satisfying and rewarding to watch
your traffic go up pretty much the same day
[16:22] as you publish your new post.
[16:24] Instant gratification: our brains
are too addicted to it.
[16:27] But let's take a closer look at
this so-called "spike of hope".
[16:30] Where does this traffic come from?
[16:32] Well, what's the first thing you do
after you publish a new article?
[16:36] You share it with your existing audience.
[16:38] You send an email to your email subscribers,
you share the link on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
[16:43] and any other social network
where you have some followers.
[16:46] In other words, you're asking your existing
audience to come to your blog, because you
[16:51] have something new for them.
[16:52] That's the first section in your "spike of hope."
[16:55] And the size of this section is determined
by the size of your existing audience.
[16:58] Which means that if you're just starting out,
this section would be quite tiny, if any at all.
[17:04] But most importantly, there are
no new people in this group.
[17:08] Your email subscribers and social followers
have discovered you long ago, so you're not
[17:13] reaching any new people by sending an email
to your subscribers or tweet to your followers.
[17:18] This is quite important to understand.
[17:20] OK, the next thing you do to bring more traffic
to your newly published article is share it with
[17:24] a bunch of relevant communities, that
flourish on different platforms.
[17:28] You post your article to a proper subreddit;
[17:30] You share it with some
relevant groups on Facebook;
[17:33] You promote it to some relevant Slack channels;
[17:35] And, finally, you post it to some relevant
niche forums or community boards,
[17:39] where your target audience is hanging out.
[17:41] If this is the first time you share your content
with a certain group or community, then all
[17:46] the people who will land on your article as
a result will be entirely new to your blog.
[17:50] But if you've been consistently sharing
your content  with this community for
[17:53] the past few months, most of the
people there would know you by now.
[17:57] So this promotion channel is only effective
when starting out, but over time the amount
[18:02] of new people that you can reach
this way will drastically decrease.
[18:05] And that was the second part
of your "spike of hope."
[18:08] So what's the last one?
[18:10] It's the word of mouth.
[18:11] This is the traffic that comes to your article
when people from the first two sections
[18:15] share it with their friends and followers.
[18:17] This often happens passively, which means
that you don't have to do anything other than
[18:21] publish great content that people
will genuinely want to share.
[18:25] But you can also generate
word of mouth proactively,
[18:28] by reaching out to people with big audiences
and showing them your content in hopes that
[18:32] they will share it with their big audience.
[18:34] Passive word of mouth will usually improve your
spike of traffic by like 10-20%, if you're lucky.
[18:41] That's because most of your blog visitors
don't have a large enough following, to bring
[18:45] you any good traffic when they share your article.
[18:48] But if you'll manage to persuade a few big
influencers to share your content with their
[18:53] huge audiences, that may send
a tsunami of traffic your way.
[18:57] So proactive word of mouth can improve
your spike of traffic by like 1,000%.
[19:03] But that rarely happens, to be honest.
[19:05] The top people in your field are usually
super reluctant to promote others.
[19:09] Especially when your blog is new and
they have never heard about you before.
[19:13] OK, so let's wrap up.
[19:15] Turns out that the sweet spike of traffic
that you get immediately after publishing
[19:18] and promoting a new article will mostly consist
of the people who have visited your blog before.
[19:24] Which makes little sense.
[19:26] Because in order for your blog to grow, you
have to be reaching new audiences all the time.
[19:32] And this is where the traffic from Google kicks in.
[19:35] As illustrated on my graph, traffic from Google
doesn't come to your article immediately after
[19:39] publishing, it takes quite some time to build up.
[19:42] That is, if you invest in SEO, of course.
[19:46] With a pinch of SEO magic applied, your article
will start ranking in Google for some relevant
[19:51] search queries, and this will bring you
consistent traffic that will not fade over time.
[19:56] But at this point you may actually argue with me.
[19:58] Traffic from Google takes time to build up,
while generating buzz on relevant communities
[20:02] and social media seems like a much faster
way to bring people to your blog and grow
[20:07] your traffic numbers.
[20:08] But is that really so?
[20:12] Part 2. Two major strategies of growing a blog
[20:16] So on one hand we have "viral traffic,"
the one that comes as a result of
[20:20] generating buzz on relevant communities and
reaching out to influencers asking for support.
[20:25] And on the other hand we have the "SEO traffic",
the one that comes as a result of putting effort
[20:29] into making your content rank high in Google.
[20:32] So which strategy is easier and more effective?
[20:35] First of all, I have to mention that these
are actually two extreme cases, which
[20:40] in reality don't exist one without other.
[20:42] I mean there's no way to consistently go viral
and not get a single visitor from Google.
[20:47] As well as there's no way to pull massive
traffic from Google and not have a single
[20:52] person share your content on Twitter or Facebook.
[20:54] But in order to prove my point, I
will discuss them individually.
[20:57] So here are the main challenges
associated with each strategy.
[21:01] If you want to grow your blog with viral traffic,
you have to be really good at creating content
[21:06] that will resonate with your target audience.
[21:08] It should resonate with them so much that
they won't be able to resist the urge to share
[21:12] it with others.
[21:14] That's the challenge #1.
[21:15] But virality doesn't happen out of nowhere.
[21:18] You need to get support from influential people
in your industry, who will promote your content
[21:23] to their huge audiences and 
kick start the viral effect.
[21:27] Influential people are insanely hard
to pitch, so that's the challenge #2.
[21:32] And finally, the goal of your blog is
to consistently reach new people,
[21:36] who will become your new customers.
[21:38] So if you rely on viral spikes of traffic, you'll
have to regularly produce sticky viral content
[21:44] and regularly get support
from industry influencers.
[21:47] Because if you stop publishing, 
your traffic will fade.
[21:50] And that's the challenge #3.
[21:52] Now what are the challenges of growing your
blog with SEO traffic, that comes from Google?
[21:57] Well, your content still needs to be awesome.
[22:00] It doesn't necessarily need to resonate with
people that much, but it has to be insanely
[22:04] useful to them.
[22:05] Which is still a challenge, if you ask me.
[22:08] However, the real challenge is to
get backlinks to your piece of content.
[22:12] Because backlinks is one of the key things
that push you up in Google search results.
[22:16] And building backlinks is something
that most people struggle with.
[22:19] But here's something positive about SEO traffic.
[22:22] You don't have to publish regularly!
[22:24] That's because the traffic from
Google doesn't fade over time.
[22:27] Unless of course your competitors
put enough work to outrank you.
[22:31] But I'm about teach you how to
make sure that it won't happen.
[22:34] So that is my rough comparison
of two blog growth strategies.
[22:38] I'm sure you've noticed that I'm
favoring SEO traffic over viral traffic.
[22:42] Well, the truth is, I don't have any truly
viral articles in my own portfolio.
[22:47] But almost every single post that we publish
at Ahrefs blog ranks on the front page of Google
[22:52] for it's target keywords.
[22:53] And still, I do believe that viral traffic can be
a worthwhile strategy for growing a blog.
[22:59] But for now, let me dive a bit deeper into
"Viral vs. SEO" dilemma and explain where
[23:04] my strong bias towards the latter is coming from.
[23:07] First of all, most newbie bloggers have a wrong
understanding of how viral traffic works.
[23:13] Here is the picture that they have in their head:
[23:15] You publish an article and
tweet it to your followers.
[23:18] Some of them like it and tweet it to their
followers, some of their followers like it
[23:22] and tweet it to their followers.
[23:24] This goes on and on and because of this snowball
effect your article goes viral and gets tons of traffic.
[23:30] Right? Wrong!
[23:32] A few years ago guys from Pulsar
studied how content goes viral
[23:36] by examining a bunch of real viral campaigns.
[23:38] And these are the visualizations that they
have created with the data that they collected:
[23:43] What their study had shown is that content
doesn't go viral in a way I just described.
[23:49] There's no such thing as a "snowball effect."
[23:52] Even the opposite, viral content
actually spreads in a decay.
[23:56] Let me explain.
[23:57] Content only goes viral if exposed
to a super-huge audience.
[24:02] In other words, someone with a huge twitter
following has to tweet your article, so that
[24:07] thousands of his followers would
retweet it to their followers.
[24:10] These two steps of the viral outburst
bring the most traffic and visibility.
[24:15] And from there, there goes a rather quick
decay in the amount of retweets and traffic.
[24:20] Back to these visualizations
of real viral campaigns.
[24:23] You can clearly see the big hubs
that started the chain reaction.
[24:26] But here's the thing.
[24:28] The fact that an influencer has tweeted
something, doesn't mean that all his
[24:32] followers will pick it up and retweet it.
[24:35] That is why the top 2 challenges of
viral content that I've listed earlier are:
[24:39] Creating super-sticky content that everyone
would want to share with others;
[24:44] And pitching the biggest influencers in
your
space to kick-start the viral effect.
[24:49] Both of these challenges are 
incredibly hard to crack.
[24:52] And that is why I am not a fan
of chasing viral content.
[24:56] Part 3. Busting the "publish more often" myth
[25:00] That's probably my favorite part of this lesson.
[25:02] What I love the most about SEO traffic, is
that you don't have to publish a lot of content,
[25:07] but still can get tons of
traffic every single month.
[25:11] If I put our blog URL into Ahrefs Content
Explorer tool and pick the last 30 days,
[25:16] it will only show me two articles.
[25:18] But look at our traffic from
Google for the past 30 days.
[25:22] It is growing quite consistently.
[25:24] That's because we don't have a nonsense
goal  to publish a certain amount of articles
[25:28] every week.
[25:28] Our goal is to create content around very specific
keywords, closely related to our business,
[25:34] and make our content rank high in Google for these 
keywords so that it would bring us new customers.
[25:40] In fact, you can build your entire
business around a single article.
[25:44] I have a great example for you.
[25:46] Take a look at this article from healthline.com
titled, "How to lose weight fast."
[25:51] If I put the URL of this article into Ahrefs'
Site Explorer tool, I will see that it gets over
[25:55] 300,000 visitors from Google every single month.
[26:00] Let me take just a few seconds
to note that the traffic number
[26:03] that you see in Ahrefs is just an estimation.
[26:05] We have a monstrous database of over
400 million keywords, that we use to
[26:11] calculate organic traffic of different websites.
[26:13] But clearly there are many more keywords
that people might put into Google.
[26:17] So the organic traffic number that
you see in Ahrefs is just an estimation.
[26:21] And the actual Google traffic to a target website
or URL would usually be about 2 or 3 times bigger.
[26:28] So please keep that in mind when
using Ahrefs for traffic estimates.
[26:31] OK, speaking of the keywords 
that Ahrefs is tracking.
[26:34] Based on our records, that article I just
showed you ranks for over 9,000 keywords.
[26:40] Let me click that number and see what they are:
[26:42] "how to lose weight," "how to lose
weight fast," "lose weight fast," etc.
[26:47] Just think about it.
[26:48] Every month well over 300,000 people find
this article while searching for weight loss
[26:53] advice in Google.
[26:54] That's a huge business opportunity right there.
[26:57] Even if you convert half of a percent of all these
people into customers, that's over a thousand
[27:03] customers every month, which 
is clearly a ton of money.
[27:06] But this example is of course an outlier,
because it's quite rare for a single article
[27:10] to get that much traffic from Google.
[27:12] And yet, why force yourself to publish dozens
of articles every month, when you can focus
[27:17] your efforts on creating just a few keystone
articles, make them rank in Google and get
[27:22] a passive stream of prospective 
customers as a result.
[27:25] But there's more!
[27:26] Viral traffic is mostly a gamble.
[27:28] You cannot know upfront if
your article will take of or not.
[27:31] You can only guess.
[27:32] And if it does take off, you never know
how much traffic this will bring you.
[27:36] But SEO traffic is predictable.
[27:39] In fact, I just showed you how to take any
article and estimate it's search traffic potential
[27:44] with the help of Ahrefs.
[27:45] Whatever the topic you're 
going to cover on your blog,
[27:48] just put it into Google, grab the URLs of
the top-ranking articles, and plug them
[27:53] into Ahrefs, to see how much traffic they
get and what keywords they rank for.
[27:57] These traffic estimates will help you make
educated data-driven decisions and better
[28:03] prioritize your budget, efforts and resources.
[28:06] And we're about to cover both the planning
and the execution in the further lessons of
[28:10] this course.
[28:11] The tactics and strategies that you're about
to learn will give you a massive competitive
[28:15] advantage over your rivals.
[28:16] I promise.
[28:17] But there's one last thing left to discuss,
before we dive deep into SEO.
[28:23] Part 4. How to convert visitors into subscribers
[28:27] Regardless of the blog growth strategy that
you choose to pursue, viral traffic, SEO traffic
[28:32] or a mixture of both, you need to retain
people who land on your website.
[28:36] You need to grow your audience!
[28:38] I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times:
[28:40] "You have to grow your email list."
[28:42] "The money is in the list."
[28:43] "Start growing your email list yesterday."
[28:46] Every professional marketer will tell you
that you should be growing your email list.
[28:50] Just think about it.
[28:51] If you won't convert a first-time visitor
of your blog into an email subscriber,
[28:56] the chances are you will never see them again.
[28:59] This means you won't be able to show
them the next article that you publish.
[29:03] You won't be able to pitch them
the next product you release.
[29:07] And, as a result, this person won't spread the
word about your new content and new products
[29:12] to their friends.
[29:13] In other words, your audience
is one of your biggest assets.
[29:16] So the sooner you start building it, the better.
[29:19] There are a lot of tactics and strategies
that can help you grow your audience.
[29:23] There are some technical tricks, like
popups, slide-ins, welcome mats,
[29:27] Hellobars content upgrades, lead magnets, etc.
[29:30] And there are some psychological tricks,
like attractive character, social proof,
[29:35] personal stories, building rapport, etc.
[29:37] I'm afraid I'm not going to teach you how
to build your audience in this very course
[29:42] because it will make it twice longer.
[29:45] But I have recorded a very insightful interview
with someone who's exceptionally good at
[29:50] converting visitors into email subscribers
and growing a loyal audience.
[29:54] So make sure to check out the bonus materials.
[29:56] You're going to enjoy it, I promise.
[29:58] And that's it for the lesson #2.
[30:01] That was the big picture of growing a blog
that I feel it is important to understand
[30:05] before you learn the actual
tactics and strategies.
[30:08] Making your "spike of hope" bigger
should not be your primary objective.
[30:12] Beating the "flatline of nope" should.
[30:15] And the best way to achieve that is by making
your content rank well in Google so that it would
[30:20] bring you consistent targeted 
traffic every single month.
[30:24] So that's it!
[30:25] The basic stuff is now over.
[30:28] Starting from the next lesson, I'm going to
show you a lot of very specific and actionable
[30:32] strategies that will teach you
how to get traffic from Google.
[30:35] We're going to kick off Lesson #3: with an
upgrade of your keyword research skills.
[30:41] But don't worry, I'm not going to teach you
the same  keyword research tactics that
[30:45] everyone else teaches.
[30:46] I have quite a few very unique insights to share
with you, which are based on my experience
[30:51] training writers for our own blog.
[30:54] Sounds good?
[30:55] Then I'll see you in lesson #3.
[31:00] Welcome to the lesson #3.
[31:01] In this lesson I'm going to show you how to
analyze the full traffic potential and ranking
[31:06] difficulty of a keyword that you
want to target with your article.
[31:10] Here's a quick agenda.
[31:11] I'll show you how to test your article ideas
for the so-called "search demand" and how
[31:15] to determine their full traffic potential.
[31:18] The emphasis is on the word "full."
[31:20] Then I'll give you a few simple tips on
choosing the best keyword to target.
[31:23] And finally, we're going to talk about analyzing
your chances to rank in Google and the keyword
[31:28] difficulty metric that we have in Ahrefs.
[31:30] And just in case you're entirely new to SEO
and this is the first time you hear about
[31:34] the practice of keyword research, worry not!
[31:37] I tried to make this lesson very newbie-friendly,
even though there will be quite a few rather
[31:42] advanced tricks in it.
[31:43] So let's go!
[31:44] Part 1: How to test your article
ideas for "search demand?"
[31:47] Can you guess what is the biggest
mistake that newbie bloggers make?
[31:50] They write articles about things that
no one is searching for in Google.
[31:54] And actually, newbie bloggers are
not the only ones guilty of that mistake.
[31:58] I see a lot of professional bloggers
falling into that trap too.
[32:01] Let me explain it with a short
story, that happened recently.
[32:04] I get a lot of emails from Ahrefs
customers asking me for SEO advice.
[32:08] And one day I got an email from
a lady, who was a fantasy fiction writer.
[32:13] She had published a few fantasy fiction books
on Amazon, but she wasn't getting any sales.
[32:18] So she started a blog, in order to get some traffic,
build an audience of fantasy fiction lovers and sell
[32:23] her own books to them.
[32:24] She was publishing new articles quite regularly
for almost a year, but her blog wasn't getting
[32:29] any traffic, her audience wasn't growing and,
as a result, she wasn't making any sales of
[32:34] her self-published books.
[32:36] So I opened her blog, to see what kind of
articles she was publishing there and these
[32:40] were basically short fantasy fiction stories
or chapters from her upcoming books.
[32:45] I mean the titles of her articles
looked kind of like this:
[32:48] "My new short story: "Two
paladins and one sword."
[32:51] "Chapter #12 from my upcoming book."
[32:53] "The progress on my "Flower of Ice and Fire" book."
[32:56] These titles immediately explained why her
blog wasn't getting any traffic and why her
[33:01] audience wasn't growing.
[33:02] As discussed in the first two lessons of this
course, Google is the single best way to get
[33:07] a consistent flow of new readers to your blog.
[33:09] But how can you get visitors from Google, when
no one is searching for what you're writing about?
[33:14] I mean people don't even know that
this lady exists in the first place.
[33:17] How can they be searching
for her articles in Google?
[33:20] That said, the main reason she was struggling
to get traffic to her blog was lack of search
[33:25] demand for the things that she was writing about.
[33:27] So does this mean that blogging is a bad customer
acquisition channel if you're a book author?
[33:32] Of course not!
[33:33] You just have to blog about things that your
potential readers are actually searching for
[33:37] in Google, so that they could find your articles
and become the regular readers of your blog,
[33:42] and eventually buy from you.
[33:44] Which was my advice to her almost word for word.
[33:47] So what do readers of fantasy fiction
books search for in Google?
[33:50] After brainstorming for a few minutes and
doing a simple keyword research exercise that
[33:55] I'll show you a bit later, I found a few cool
keywords that she could cover on her blog:
[34:00] "books like harry potter," "books like the hobbit,"
"books  like lord of the rings,"  "authors like
[34:04] terry pratchett."
[34:05] According to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer each
of these  keywords has some nice monthly
[34:09] search volume, and "books like harry potter" is
the most popular search query among them.
[34:14] People search for it 3,700 times every single
month in the US alone, and the global search
[34:20] volume across all countries
is 7,000 searches per month.
[34:24] So by targeting these search queries with
her blog posts she was almost guaranteed
[34:28] to get a lot of highly-targeted 
visitors to her blog.
[34:32] And because these searches clearly indicate
that people are looking for book recommendations
[34:37] and therefore willing to buy, she could easily
squeeze recommendations of her own books
[34:42] into her articles and make some sales this way.
[34:45] So I hope my point is clear.
[34:47] Writing about things that no one is searching for
almost guarantees that your blog will be a failure.
[34:53] You need to write about things that people
are actually searching for in Google.
[34:56] And that is why keyword research is such
an essential thing to master for any blogger
[35:01] or content marketer out there.
[35:06] Part 2. How to determine the full
traffic potential  of a keyword.
[35:10] OK, so we have four cool keywords to target and
we know how many times people search for them
[35:14] in Google per month, which
is called "search volume."
[35:18] Let's say I decided to write an article
targeting the least popular among these
[35:21] four, "authors like terry pratchett."
[35:24] According to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer it
only gets 150 searches per month in the US,
[35:29] and the global search volume from all
around the world is not much bigger.
[35:32] By the way, the search volume numbers that
you see in Ahrefs, and pretty much in any other
[35:36] keyword research tool are estimations.
[35:39] Most keyword tools take their search volume
from Google's own Keyword Planner tool,
[35:43] which shows you rounded annual averages.
[35:46] Which is not very precise, as you can tell.
[35:48] Here at Ahrefs we decided to go a step
further than most keyword research tools.
[35:53] We paired data from Google Keyword Planner
with an additional data source - clickstream.
[35:58] This way we get slightly more accurate search
volumes and we can update them more often
[36:02] than most other tools.
[36:03] But at the end of the day,
they're still estimations.
[36:06] So back to the lesson.
[36:07] Having monthly search volume estimation on
our hands, we can try to calculate how much
[36:11] search traffic we can get if we rank on
the front page of Google for that keyword.
[36:16] I'm pretty sure you already know that the #1
ranking result in Google will get approximately
[36:20] 30% of all clicks.
[36:22] Then around 15% of clicks will go to position
#2, and around 10% to position #3.
[36:28] And if you rank lower than top 3, you'll get even
less clicks, so let's not even bother calculating.
[36:33] These percentages will of course be quite
different for each search query, but SEO
[36:38] professionals just use these simplified
averages to make traffic estimations.
[36:42] So what do we have here.
[36:43] With the search volume for "authors like terry
pratchett" of 150 searches in the United States,
[36:49] you'll get 45 clicks if you rank #1, 22 clicks
if you rank #2, and 15 clicks if you rank #3.
[36:56] These numbers don't seem very exciting, do they?
[36:59] Especially when you consider how much work it
would take to write a decent article on that topic.
[37:04] But in reality, you're going to get
much more traffic than that.
[37:07] Here in Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
we have a handy SERP button.
[37:11] It pulls the top 10 ranking pages for your keyword
and shows a lot of useful data for each of them.
[37:16] The column that we're
interested in is called Traffic.
[37:20] And it says that the page that ranks #2 for
the keyword "authors like terry pratchett"
[37:25] seems to be getting over a 100 visitors
from search every single month.
[37:29] This is 5 times more than we
have just estimated for that page.
[37:33] That's because this page doesn't rank for
"authors like terry pratchett" keyword alone.
[37:38] It also ranks for many other related searches.
[37:41] Which can be seen from the
column called "Keywords".
[37:43] It says that this article ranks
in Google for 31 keywords.
[37:48] Let's click this number and see what they are.
[37:50] This link brings me to Organic keywords
report in Ahrefs' Site Explorer tool, which
[37:54] lists all the keywords that we see this
article rank for in top 100 search results.
[37:59] But I don't need top 100, we just discussed
that most traffic goes to top 3.
[38:03] So let's use positions filter to see the
keywords where this article ranks in top 3.
[38:08] And except for my original keyword, "authors like
terry pratchett", this page ranks for three more
[38:13] similar searches: "authors like terry pratchett" and
"douglas adams," "authors  similar to terry pratchett,"
[38:19] "books like terry pratchett."
[38:20] A duplicate keyword with quotation marks icon
tells me that in addition to regular search listing,
[38:26] this page also ranks in a big featured
snippet for each of these keywords.
[38:30] So, as you can tell, different people may use
different search queries to look for the exact
[38:35] same thing in Google.
[38:37] And Google is smart enough to understand that
these searches are similar and therefore ranks
[38:42] the same page for all of them.
[38:44] We've already discussed this in the previous
lesson, where I showed you a weight-loss article,
[38:48] that was ranking in Google for almost 10,000
keywords related to weight loss and pulling
[38:53] over 300,000 visitors per month from search.
[38:57] But that was way above the average.
[38:59] Guess how many keywords an average
top-ranking page will rank for?
[39:02] Here at Ahrefs we studied over 3 million
Google searches to answer this question.
[39:07] And according to our data, the #1 ranking page
will rank for about a thousand related keywords.
[39:13] Which leads us to a following takeaway.
[39:16] Search volume of a single keyword is a bad
indicator of the total search traffic potential
[39:22] of the article on that topic.
[39:23] The search volume of the "authors like terry
pratchett" keyword in the United States
[39:27] is only 150 searches per month.
[39:30] Which may lead to a conclusion that
this keyword is not worth targeting.
[39:34] But according to Ahrefs data, the article
that ranks at position #2 for this keyword
[39:38] is generating over a hundred visitors per
month from search, because it also ranks
[39:43] for a few more similar keywords.
[39:45] A hundred highly targeted new visitors every month
is quite a solid number for most newbie bloggers.
[39:52] And, as I said before, this number
in Ahrefs is an underestimation.
[39:56] Which means the actual search traffic to that
page can easily be up to 5 times higher.
[40:01] So please don't make content marketing decisions
based on the search volume of a single keyword,
[40:06] look at the total search traffic of the
top-ranking  pages for that keyword.
[40:11] I wonder if you've noticed another
thing here, which is insanely cool.
[40:15] The page that ranks #2 gets 3 times more
traffic than the page that ranks #1.
[40:20] How is that even possible?
[40:22] Well, just open both pages and compare them.
[40:24] The top-ranking page is a simple list of book
authors, with no extra details about them.
[40:29] But the page that ranks #2 is a public discussion
on a forum, where people are sharing their
[40:35] recommendations with some reasoning behind them.
[40:37] Which results in more content
for Google to process.
[40:41] In other words, a better, deeper coverage
of a topic will often lead to ranking in Google
[40:46] for more related keywords and therefore
getting more search traffic in total.
[40:51] But we'll talk more about it later in this course.
[40:56] Part 3. How to find the best keyword to target
[40:59] Here's that simple keyword research
exercise that I promised to show you.
[41:02] The one that helped me find these four cool
keywords that we were discussing just now:
[41:07] I told you that I found them by putting myself in
the shoes of people, who love reading fantasy
[41:11] fiction books.
[41:12] And just guessing what kind of things
they might be searching for in Google.
[41:16] But the search queries that I originally
brainstormed were actually a bit different:
[41:20] "what are the books similar to harry
potter," "fantasy books like the hobbit,"
[41:24] "books similar to the lord of the rings," "what
authors write in the style of terry pratchett."
[41:29] And according to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer,
none of them has any decent monthly search volume.
[41:34] But I don't care about the search
volume of these queries.
[41:38] We already know that there are hundreds of
ways to google for the exact same thing.
[41:42] That's why I always look at the search results
for each of these search queries and see how
[41:47] much traffic the top-ranking pages get in total.
[41:49] So by clicking on the SERP dropdown I can
see that the page that ranks #1 for "Books
[41:54] similar to the lord of the rings" search
query gets almost 500 visits per month.
[41:59] And that is in the US alone.
[42:01] The total search traffic to this page across all
counties is almost a thousand visits per month.
[42:07] So clearly this topic has some
decent search traffic potential.
[42:10] Even though my original search
query had almost no search demand.
[42:14] And if I want to get all this search traffic
to my own site, I will have to write an article
[42:19] that would be quite similar
to this top-ranking one.
[42:22] So let's see what else we can
learn about this #1 ranking page.
[42:26] Did you notice the column called Top keyword?
[42:28] It shows me a search query that is slighly
different from my original one, but it has
[42:33] a profoundly bigger search volume.
[42:35] Where does this Top Keyword come from?
[42:37] As you can see, this article ranks
for almost 900 different keywords.
[42:41] And the top keyword that we feature here is
the one that brings the most traffic to this article.
[42:47] Which makes it safe to assume, that the most
popular search query that people use to search
[42:51] for book recommendations similar to
"lord of the rings" is exactly this one.
[42:56] And it would also be safe to assume, that if
your article will rank high for this top keyword,
[43:02] it will also rank for all other longer tail
keywords, that basically mean the same thing.
[43:07] Because this is exactly what we see happening
here with this top-ranking article, that ranks for
[43:13] almost a thousand search queries.
[43:15] So if I were to write an article on this topic,
I would not target my original search query
[43:20] and title my article something like "10 Awesome
Books Similar to The Lord of the Rings"
[43:25] Because it doesn't represent the most popular
search query that people put into Google.
[43:30] I would instead target the search query with
the biggest search volume, and title my article
[43:35] "10 Awesome Books Like The Lord of the Rings"
[43:38] This is how you find the most commonly used search
query for whatever topic you want to write about.
[43:43] So please pause this video
and try this little exercise.
[43:47] Step 1: Put yourself in the shoes of your
potential customers and think about the things
[43:52] that they might be searching for in Google.
[43:54] Word these search queries in any way that
makes sense to you and put them into Ahrefs'
[43:59] Keywords Explorer tool as is.
[44:01] Step 2: Explore the search results for each of
your search queries and see how much search
[44:06] traffic they get in total.
[44:07] Step 3: Look at the top keyword, that brings
the most search traffic to each of these pages
[44:12] and notice how different it is to your original search
query and if it has a vastly bigger search volume.
[44:18] Step 4: Note down the articles with the highest
search traffic along with their Top keyword.
[44:24] And that is exactly how I create
my lists of content ideas.
[44:27] I have the Top keyword, which describes the
topic that needs to be covered, along with its
[44:31] monthly search volume.
[44:33] And I have the URLs of a few top-ranking articles
that get the most search traffic for that topic.
[44:38] And the next thing I want to know is how
difficult it would be to outrank these articles
[44:43] and get all this traffic to myself.
[44:47] Part #4. How to determine your
chances to rank in Google
[44:51] As you can tell, analyzing the search
traffic potential of your article idea
[44:54] is a very simple and straightforward process.
[44:57] A much bigger challenge is to determine your
chances to outrank the existing articles with
[45:02] your own one and get all this traffic to yourself.
[45:05] The truth be told, no one really knows for sure how
exactly Google ranks pages in their search results.
[45:11] Google is using hundreds of different ranking
factors, and they are mixing them depending
[45:15] on the search query.
[45:17] A lot of people, who are new to SEO, are often
looking for some magic tool, that will give them
[45:22] very specific recommendations on what
they need to do in order to rank #1.
[45:27] Or even better... a magic tool
that will do it for them.
[45:30] But I'm afraid such a tool doesn't exist.
[45:32] For many years Google was pouring billions
of dollars into building the most sophisticated
[45:37] search engine on the planet.
[45:38] So there's no way for some third party tool to
crack their algorithms and give you the power
[45:44] to effortlessly get your pages to the top.
[45:47] But what we can do is get clues from pages
that already rank at the top of Google.
[45:52] We can analyze them from different angles, compare 
them between each other and make assumptions
[45:58] on why certain pages outrank others.
[46:00] And there are only two
sources of information for us:
[46:04] It is the page itself, and links to
that page from other websites.
[46:08] I'm going to cover the on-page
factors later in this course.
[46:12] So for now let's just assume that all the top 10
ranking pages for your desired keyword
[46:16] are equally awesome.
[46:17] And your own page is no exception.
[46:20] The content of your page is 100%
relevant to that search query.
[46:24] It helps searchers with whatever
they were searching for.
[46:26] It loads fast, it is optimized for mobile.
[46:29] It provides great user experience
and it is visually appealing.
[46:33] And I have a perfect example to
illustrate such a situation.
[46:36] Take a look at my guide to keyword research
that was published at Ahrefs' Blog.
[46:40] This article is clearly relevant to the topic
of keyword research, and I doubt that you
[46:45] need more than two seconds to realize that.
[46:47] But if you google for "keyword research,"
our article only ranks #3.
[46:52] While guides from Moz and Backlinko
rank #1 and #2 respectively.
[46:56] If you take a look at their articles,
each of them has it's pros and cons.
[47:00] So it's really hard to tell if our own
article is better or worse than theirs.
[47:05] Especially it is hard to figure out if you're
a machine, and not a human being.
[47:09] So why does Google put us at position #3
and puts Moz at position #1?
[47:14] Well, like I mentioned earlier, they may use
a ton of different factors, to identify which
[47:18] page deserves to rank higher.
[47:21] For example, guys from Google have recently
admitted that they track how users behave
[47:25] after clicking on a certain search result.
[47:27] How long do people stay on that page?
[47:29] Do they close it immediately after visiting?
[47:31] Do they browse deeper into this website?
[47:33] Or do they go back and refine their search,
because they didn't find what they wanted?
[47:38] But think about it for a second...
[47:39] In order for Google to measure how people behave
after clicking on your page in the search results,
[47:45] that page should somehow rank in the
top 10 search results in the first place.
[47:49] So how do you get in the top 10?
[47:51] Links from other websites is what gets
you to the front page of Google.
[47:55] You can think of links as votes.
[47:58] When some website links to your page, they are
telling Google that out of all pages on the same
[48:03] topic they like your page best.
[48:05] And the more of these votes your page
will get, the more Google will respect it.
[48:09] So, as a general rule, the more websites link
to your page, the higher it will rank in Google.
[48:15] Now, back to my example.
[48:17] If you examine these search results in Ahrefs'
Keywords Explorer tool you'll notice that the article
[48:22] from Moz has vastly more backlinks
than our own article.
[48:26] It is much shorter and therefore
not as deep as our own guide.
[48:29] But the huge number of links tells Google
that it must be somehow better nevertheless.
[48:35] That's why they rank #1.
[48:36] But I'm sure you've noticed that
this relationship is not linear.
[48:40] I mean some of these pages have more backlinks
than our article, but they don't rank above us.
[48:45] Well, like I said, Google is using hundreds
of different factors in their ranking algorithms,
[48:50] and the raw number of linking
websites is just one of many.
[48:54] But it's a rather strong factor nevertheless.
[48:56] We did a cool research last year across
2 million random search queries.
[49:01] We wanted to study the correlation of
different ranking factors with the position
[49:05] of a page in Google.
[49:06] And out of all ranking factors that we have
studied, backlink factors had the strongest
[49:11] correlation with Google ranking.
[49:12] Correlation is not causation, of course.
[49:15] But any SEO professional knows that
links are uber-important for SEO .
[49:20] If the search results for your desired keyword
have links from hundreds of websites, there's
[49:25] a very slim chance that you'll be able to
outrank them, unless you get the same
[49:29] number of links to your own page.
[49:31] Let me show you another cool case.
[49:33] Let's look at the search resuts for
a keyword "chocolate lab:"
[49:36] What you can immediately notice is three outlier
pages with tons of backlinks, that rank among
[49:42] pages with just a few backlinks.
[49:43] And the next thing you notice is that these three
pages aren't perfectly relevant to the search query.
[49:49] I mean the other seven pages are clearly about
chocolate labradors, you can see that just
[49:54] by looking at their titles.
[49:55] But these other three are about
labrador retriever dog breed in general.
[50:00] How come they rank between
perfectly relevant pages?
[50:03] That's because they have too
many links to ignore them!
[50:06] And if you were attentive, you might have also
noticed that these three pages with a ton of
[50:10] backlinks rank for a ton of keywords
and generate a ton of search traffic.
[50:15] We didn't study this at scale yet, but I'm pretty
sure that the number of links to a page and it's
[50:20] total search traffic are well connected.
[50:22] That is why I always look at the total number
of the linking websites to the pages that I want
[50:27] to replicate on my own blog.
[50:29] Remember my document with content ideas?
[50:31] I always put the number of linking
websites next to each URL.
[50:35] My goal is to then cherry-pick the content
ideas that get the most search traffic with
[50:40] the least backlinks.
[50:41] So I advice you to pause this video and review
the content ideas that you have shortlisted so far.
[50:46] Put the URLs of the articles that you want
to replicate into Ahrefs' Site Explorer and
[50:51] note down the number of referring
domains in your document.
[50:55] Hopefully they don't have a lot of websites
linking to them, so you'll easily get your own
[50:59] article to the top of Google 
with just a few backlinks.
[51:02] But that was a very simplified look
at the concept of keyword difficulty.
[51:06] If you want to dive deeper, I have published
a cool article at Ahrefs blog, titled "How
[51:11] to Gauge Keyword Difficulty and Find
the Easiest Keywords to Rank for."
[51:14] Which I highly recommend you to read.
[51:16] And before we wrap up this lesson,
there's just one last thing left to discuss.
[51:24] Part #5. How to use Keyword
Difficulty metric in Ahrefs
[51:28] I guess you noticed that we have a metric
called Keyword Difficulty, or KD in Ahrefs.
[51:33] Remember I was talking about the magic tool
that would solve all your ranking problems?
[51:37] Well, a lot of people feel exactly this way when
they first see our Keyword Difficulty metric.
[51:42] And then get rather disappointed, when
it doesn't live up to their expectations.
[51:46] All because there's nothing
magical about this metric.
[51:49] It is simply a proxy to an average number
of linking websites among the top 10 search
[51:53] results for your keyword.
[51:55] Remember I told you that links
will help you get in top 10,
[51:58] and once you're there, a lot of additional
ranking factors will kick in?
[52:02] Well, that is why the hint below
the Keyword Difficulty number says:
[52:05] "You'll need backlinks from ~X websites
to rank in top 10 for this keyword."
[52:11] See? We don't promise that you'll rank #1.
[52:14] And we put a tilde in front of the number of
linking websites so that to let you know that
[52:18] it is an approximation.
[52:20] And my recent example with search results
for "chocolate lab" is a great illustration
[52:24] on why you cannot blindly
rely on this approximation.
[52:28] Six of the top ranking pages actually have less
than 10 backlinks, but KD score says you'll need 38.
[52:36] That's because the other three outliers
skew the average to a bigger number.
[52:41] And yet, Keyword Difficulty is insanely useful
when you need to narrow down a huge list of
[52:46] keyword ideas to those where you
don't need a lot of backlinks to rank.
[52:50] Because reviewing the top 10 search results for
a few thousands of keywords will take you ages.
[52:55] And to make a final decision on a keyword,
you should always review the top ranking pages.
[53:01] There's no way around it.
[53:02] Please also keep in mind that our
Keyword Difficulty score is not linear.
[53:06] Keyword Diffculty 10 means you'll need backlinks
from approximately 10 websites in order to rank
[53:11] on the front page of Google.
[53:12] While KD 70 means that you'll
need links from 202 websites.
[53:17] And KD 90 means that you'll need
links from 756 websites.
[53:23] It's up to you to decide which
score is easy and which is difficult.
[53:26] But our customers kept asking us this question,
so we had to define four ranges to make it a bit
[53:32] easier for them.
[53:33] So KD below 10 is considered easy, because almost
anyone can get links from up to 10 websites.
[53:39] From 10 to 30 we have medium difficulty,
because getting up to 36 websites link to
[53:45] you is quite a challenge.
[53:46] Anything above 30 we consider
hard, for obvious reasons.
[53:50] And anything above 70 is super-hard
because only a few websites are able
[53:54] to generate that many backlinks to their pages.
[53:57] So how many backlinks do you think
you can get with your own blog?
[54:01] We have a report in Ahrefs' Site Explorer
tool that may help you to figure this out.
[54:05] Let me plug the URL of Ahrefs' blog
and go to a report called Best by links.
[54:09] Here I can see our best performing articles,
by the number of websites linking to them.
[54:13] And it looks like our best articles have from
a 100 and up to 350 referring domains.
[54:19] Which, according to our Keyword Difficulty
scale, means that we can target keywords
[54:23] with Keyword difficulty up to 80.
[54:26] And anything above that would
be quite challenging for us.
[54:29] So pause this video and plug your own blog
into Ahrefs' Site Explorer to see how many
[54:33] backlinks your best articles have.
[54:35] And by the way, you might be wondering where
we get these numbers of backlinks and if you
[54:39] can trust this data.
[54:40] I'm glad you asked, because it
is our favourite thing to brag about.
[54:45] Ahrefs' bots have to crawl the entire
internet to collect this information.
[54:50] Which is pretty hard to do to be honest.
[54:52] As of today, we crawl 4.1
million pages every minute.
[54:56] And according to a third-party study, Ahrefs
bot is the second most active after Google.
[55:02] In other words, you can trust our backlink data.
[55:05] And that wraps up lesson #3.
[55:07] I hope you've learned a lot about analyzing
keywords for traffic potential and ranking
[55:12] difficulty, so it's about time I show you four
sources of content ideas that will help you
[55:18] fill your content calendar for a full year ahead.
[55:21] Sounds good?
[55:22] Then I'll see you in lesson #4.
[55:26] Welcome to the lesson #4.
[55:28] In this lesson I'm going to solve the common
struggle of finding great content ideas for your blog.
[55:33] So that you will never have
to worry about it again.
[55:36] So here's the agenda for this lesson:
[55:38] I have four sources of great
content ideas for you.
[55:41] These four will be enough to fill your content
calendar for a full year ahead, I promise.
[55:46] And then we'll talk about prioritizing your
list of content ideas, and decide which of
[55:50] them will have the highest
impact on your business.
[55:53] So let's go.
[55:55] Part 1: How to discover great content
ideas by studying your niche
[55:59] Regardless of the niche that
your business falls into,
[56:02] be it business consulting, health care,
insurance, photography or anything else.
[56:06] The chances are a ton of people
are talking about it online.
[56:10] There might be forums or
different online communities,
[56:13] where your ideal customers are hanging out.
[56:15] There might also be groups on 
Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit or Slack.
[56:19] And there might be some sites where people leave
their Reviews about relevant products or services.
[56:24] In other words, there's no shortage of places
online, where you can go and watch your target
[56:28] audience communicate and speak their mind.
[56:30] Even Reddit alone can supply you with enough
content ideas to keep you busy for months.
[56:35] There's a subreddit for almost anything.
[56:37] You're in business of selling knives?
[56:39] No problem, let's search for "knives" on Reddit.
[56:42] And I see two cool subreddits right
away: r/knives/ and r/knifeclub/.
[56:47] It took me just a few minutes of browsing
these subreddits to find a few great ideas
[56:51] for blog posts:
[56:52] But let's not forget what we learned in lesson #3:
[56:55] We need to make sure that people are
actually searching for these topics in Google,
[56:59] estimate the total search traffic potential, see
if there's a parent topic that we could target,
[57:03] and finally look at the number of linking
websites among the top-ranking pages.
[57:07] So let's put these three topic ideas from Reddit
into Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer for a quick research.
[57:13] And immediately one of them seems promising.
[57:15] I see an article at knifeinformer.com titled
"The Best Gentleman's Pocket Knife" and it
[57:21] gets almost 400 visits per month in the US
while only having one link from one website.
[57:26] And the rest of the search results don't seem very
competitive based on how many backlinks they have.
[57:31] How cool is that?
[57:32] It took me just a few minutes to find an awesome
article idea, that has quite decent traffic potential
[57:37] and a tiny amount of links.
[57:39] Guess how many content ideas you will find
if you browse Reddit for like two hours?
[57:43] And Reddit is just one of the wide variety
of places around the web where you can go
[57:48] and study what your target
audience is talking about.
[57:50] In fact, amazing content ideas can come from
almost any source that is somehow related
[57:55] to your business!
[57:56] This one time I was browsing the book store
in the airport, while waiting for my flight.
[58:00] And saw a magazine, which had a title too
good to ignore it: "How to setup online business"
[58:05] So I immediately bought it.
[58:07] Not because I was hoping to learn anything
new from it, but because this was the magazine
[58:11] that my target audience was reading.
[58:13] And therefore it could help me
understand them better.
[58:16] This is how this magazine ended up on my work
desk and I was browsing it whenever I wanted
[58:21] to procrastinate for a while.
[58:23] That's how I stumbled upon this article:
"Search engines: how to get listed"
[58:27] Seriously? People struggle with that?
[58:30] With over seven years of experience in SEO, I could
not understand how someone could not know this.
[58:35] So I pulled Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer
tool and entered that headline there.
[58:39] I checked the top-ranking results and I was
totally blown away by the amount of search
[58:43] traffic that I saw coming to
one of the top-ranking articles.
[58:47] Over 11,000 visits per month from the US
alone and 18,000 visits per month globally.
[58:54] And the top keyword of this article
is "submit website to search engines."
[58:58] Looks like this is the most popular search query
that people are using to search for this topic.
[59:03] And it's search volume is 1,400 searches
per month in the US alone.
[59:07] I thought this was a great topic for us to cover
at Ahrefs blog, because people who are looking
[59:12] to submit their websites to search engines are
actually looking to get traffic from search engines.
[59:17] And that was a perfect opportunity
to introduce them to Ahrefs tools.
[59:20] So guess who published a detailed
guide on that topic two months ago?
[59:24] And today we already rank at position #8
for the main search query - "submit website
[59:29] to search engines."
[59:30] Which is the bottom of the front
page of Google search results.
[59:33] And in just two months from the publish date, this
post has already brought us almost a thousand
[59:37] vistors from Google search.
[59:39] Which is quite a decent result
for such a short timeframe.
[59:42] So I hope this was a good example to illustrate
how studying your niche and getting in the heads
[59:46] of your potential customers helps you to
create highly relevant content on your blog
[59:51] and get targeted traffic from Google.
[59:53] And before we move on to the next strategy,
I suggest you to pause this video and take action.
[59:57] Search on Reddit & Facebook for relevant
communities where your target audience
[60:01] is hanging out.
[60:02] Spend at least 10 minutes browsing each
of these communities and look for things
[60:06] that bother people the most and the
language they use to describe them;
[60:10] Whenever something strikes you as a great
idea for an article on your blog, don't forget
[60:14] what you've leaned in the previous lesson and
test this content idea for search traffic potential
[60:19] and ranking difficulty.
[60:20] Try to find at least three cool article ideas,
before you move on to the next strategy
[60:25] that I'm about to show you.
[60:26] And just in case you need more guidance in
researching your niche and getting into the
[60:30] heads of your pontential customers, we have
a great article at Ahrefs blog just about that.
[60:35] Make sure to check it out.
[60:39] Part 2: How to generate keyword
ideas using keyword  research tools
[60:43] There are quite a few awesome tools that help you
study what people are searching for in Google.
[60:48] Let me cover a few of the most popular keyword
research tools and explain how they work.
[60:52] So there's this tool called Answerthepublic
which is quite popular among SEOs
[60:57] and content marketers.
[60:58] Probably because of this highly
charismatic dude on their homepage.
[61:02] No, I'm just kidding, that's a really
neat free tool, seriously.
[61:05] Give it any word or phrase and it will return
a list of relevant questions that people put
[61:09] into Google.
[61:10] For example, if I type "cats" into the search
bar, it will give me almost 200 questions
[61:16] that contain the word "cats:"
[61:18] "can cats eat dog food," "where cats like to
be pet," "which cats sheds the least," etc.
[61:23] You're probably wondering, how does this
tool know what people are searching for?
[61:28] Well, the source of their data is very simple
- it's Google's Autosuggest feature.
[61:33] If you start typing your question like "can
cats," it will immediately show you some
[61:37] popular searches.
[61:38] And it you start typing the next letter, it will
give you suggestions based off this letter.
[61:43] That's where this little free
tool gets their search queries.
[61:46] As stated on their homepage, they use
Autosuggest feature in Google and Bing
[61:50] to give you keyword suggestions.
[61:51] Here's another similar tool that is based
on Google Autosuggest feature.
[61:55] It's called Ubersuggest.
[61:56] The difference between the two is that
Ubersuggest doesn't focus on questions.
[62:00] And all their keyword suggestions will start
from your seed keyword, as you can see here.
[62:05] Everything starts with the word "cats."
[62:07] Both of these tools don't show you the monthly
search volume of the search queries they suggest,
[62:11] but you already know where to get it, right?
[62:14] Now, onto the next keyword research tool.
[62:16] Which you probably know already.
[62:17] It's called Google Keyword Planner, and it's
a part of AdWords - Google's advertising platform.
[62:22] This tool used to be the single best source
for keyword ideas back in the days, but in
[62:27] recent years Google was taking more and
more data away from SEO professionals.
[62:31] So today Google Keyword Planner is a great
tool for advertisers, that want to pay for traffic
[62:36] from Google, but not so
much for SEO professionals,
[62:39] who want to get free traffic from Google.
[62:42] And yet, you can still get great keyword
ideas from Google Keyword Planner.
[62:45] If I enter the word "cats," I'll get a few hundred
cool keyword ideas, and the tool can even sort
[62:50] them into groups, which is
rather handy and useful.
[62:52] The main downside is that you don't see
monthly search volume of these keywords.
[62:56] You only see ranges, which are not super helpful.
[62:59] And if you want to see the actual numbers,
you'll have to start an advertising campaign
[63:04] and put some money into it.
[63:05] But in any case, Google's own keyword research
tool should not be ignored, even though they
[63:10] limit the data that you get for free.
[63:12] And finally, let's look at the keyword
research tool that we have in Ahrefs.
[63:15] It's called Keywords Explorer and it runs on a
monstrous database of 4.6 billion search queries.
[63:22] We use multiple sources of data
to collect a database of this size.
[63:26] But the main one is clickstream.
[63:28] In short, clickstream data comes from a large
group of mostly free apps that you install
[63:33] on your computer and give them permission
to collect your browsing data, anonymize it
[63:38] and aggregate into a huge clickstream database.
[63:41] From this database digital marketers can then
learn what people search for online and which
[63:46] websites they visit.
[63:47] But there's no personal information
on any of these people.
[63:50] Clickstream data is literally a rescue to the SEO
community as many amazing tools and features
[63:56] can be built on top of it.
[63:57] So back to Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer.
[63:59] If I enter the same word "cats," I'll get
a list of almost a million search queries
[64:04] that contain the word "cats" in them.
[64:06] I guess when you compare this number
of keyword suggestions to the number of
[64:10] keyword ideas in Google Keyword Planner
you'll see why SEO professionals are so mad
[64:14] at Google, right?
[64:15] But what do you do with a list of
almost a million search queries?
[64:19] Well, remember the previous lesson where
we talked about Keyword Difficuly?
[64:22] I said it's a great way to narrow down a huge
list of keyword ideas to those where you don't
[64:28] need any backlinks to rank.
[64:29] So let's put 0 in KD filter and see what we'll get:
[64:33] "when do cats stop growing," "can cats
eat bread," "do male cats have nipples."
[64:38] These search queries could easily be
answered with awesome blog articles.
[64:42] If I open the search results for "can cats
eat bread" search query I'll see that most
[64:46] of the top-ranking articles get a few
hundred monthly  visits from search
[64:50] with almost no backlinks.
[64:52] Which looks like a great opportunity to me.
[64:54] And that was a quick overview of how to use
keyword research tools to get a ton of great
[64:58] keyword ideas to target on your blog.
[65:00] Just feed these tools with words and phrases
related to your niche and examine the output.
[65:05] And don't forget what we've learned in lesson #3.
[65:08] Always look at the total search traffic potential
of the top-ranking pages and how many backlinks
[65:12] they have.
[65:13] And please take action before
you move to the next strategy.
[65:17] Go play with the tools that I've just mentioned
and see how many awesome article ideas you'll
[65:21] be able to find.
[65:24] Part 3: How to find keywords that
your competitors are ranking for
[65:29] "He who wrestles with us, strengthens
our nerves, and sharpens our skill.
[65:34] Our antagonist is our helper." - Edmund Burke
[65:38] This quote perfectly applies to
content marketing and blogging.
[65:41] We can study our competitors, pinpoint their
best performing content and beat them at it.
[65:46] But first, you need to know who you're up against.
[65:49] You might already know which websites you're
competing with in Google search results.
[65:53] But in case you don't, just put the keywords
found in the previous excercise into Google
[65:57] and see who ranks there.
[65:59] Those are your competitors.
[66:00] Let's try that with one of the keywords we've
discovered earlier - "can cats eat dog food."
[66:05] When browsing Google search results for
that keyword, I see a cool website that catches
[66:09] my attention.
[66:10] The website name is way too awesome
to ignore it - lovemeow.com - I love it.
[66:16] So we know that lovemeow.com website ranks
well for "can cats eat dog food" search query.
[66:22] Wouldn't it be awesome to know all
other search queries that it ranks for?
[66:26] Because we have a tool for that in Ahrefs.
[66:28] Let's put lowemeow.com into Ahrefs' Site Explorer
and go to a report called Organic keywords.
[66:34] Here I can see all the search queries that
a target website or article ranks for.
[66:39] That is very cool, but not
very actionable to be honest.
[66:42] That's why I prefer the report called Top pages.
[66:46] It groups all these keywords that a website
is ranking for by the ranking page.
[66:51] So I can easily see which articles bring
the most search traffic to this blog.
[66:55] The top-performing article at lovemeow.com blog
is titled "Why Does My Cat Stick His Tongue Out".
[67:02] And in brings almost 900 visitors
from the United States alone.
[67:06] And the total traffic is 1,200.
[67:08] So how cool is that?
[67:10] Usually when people see this feature for
the first time they are totally blown away
[67:14] by the amount of value they can get from it.
[67:16] In just a few seconds you can see all the
best performing pages of any competitor.
[67:21] And there's also a column with the number
referring domains to each of these pages.
[67:25] So all you need to do from here is cherry-pick
the pages that bring them the most traffic
[67:30] while having the least amount
of websites linking to them.
[67:33] And once you're done with the first competitor,
you can click on Competing domains report
[67:38] and see which other websites are ranking for
the same search queries as this competitor.
[67:43] Here's a cool one I see right away: catster.com.
[67:46] Let's browse their top pages.
[67:48] Looks like their articles get vastly more search
traffic than what we've seen at lovemeow.com.
[67:55] And some of them have less
than 10 referring domains.
[67:57] Which means they should be fairly easy to outrank.
[68:00] And once you're done with catster.com you can click 
Competing domains again and dive even deeper into
[68:06] your competitive space.
[68:07] I'm sure you get the idea.
[68:09] So hit pause and take action!
[68:11] Spend some time digging into websites of your
competitors and noting their pages best into
[68:16] your spreadsheet.
[68:17] And I have one last source of
awesome content ideas left for you.
[68:23] Part 4: How to find low-hanging content
ideas from all ower the web
[68:28] I just showed you how to research the content
of your competitors and find some golden nuggets
[68:33] that you can easily replicate on your own blog.
[68:35] But you can only do this one
competitor at a time.
[68:38] How cool would it be to research
the entire niche at once?
[68:42] Let me show you how you can do exactly that.
[68:44] We have a tool called Content Explorer,
which is basically a database of 846 million
[68:51] pieces of content, that Ahrefs crawler
has collected from all around the web.
[68:55] And I can enter any word into the search bar
and find all pieces of content that mention
[68:59] this word in their content, title or both.
[69:02] Let's continue with the word
"cats" as our example.
[69:05] I want to find all pages from all around the
web that have the word "cats" in their title.
[69:10] Which results in over a million pages.
[69:13] Now, let's see how many of these pages get
over a thousand visits per month from Google.
[69:18] We have a filter for that here.
[69:19] And now we're down to slightly over 2,000
pages, that generate over a thousand monthly
[69:24] visits from Google.
[69:25] That's roughly 0.1% of all pages that
mention the word "cats" in their title.
[69:31] Which says a lot about how most of
the published content performs, right?
[69:35] But how many of these pages generate their
search traffic with no backlinks pointing at them?
[69:40] We have a filter for that too.
[69:42] It's called Referring domains.
[69:44] Let's put 0 into it.
[69:45] And now I'm down to 63 pages only.
[69:48] Let's sort them by the amount of search
traffic to see the best ones on top.
[69:51] And if I scroll down a bit,
I'll see an awesome article:
[69:54] "The Best Flea Treatment for Cats for 2017."
[69:58] It gets almost 5,000 visits per month
from Google while having 0 backlinks!
[70:03] What an amazing opportunity!
[70:05] I can also click the Details button and see which
keywords bring search traffic to this article.
[70:10] Looks like it ranks really high for things
like "best flea treatment for cats," "best
[70:14] flea medicine for cats," "flea
treatment for cats," and such.
[70:17] That's an amazing content opportunity that
took me less than a minute to discover.
[70:22] Here are a few more great articles from that list:
[70:24] "How to Calm a Cat in Heat," "Tips for Moving a
Cat Long Distance," "Safe Fruits For Your Cat."
[70:30] All of them get decent search
traffic with 0 backlinks.
[70:34] And I only tried a single keyword - "cats"
- and only focused on articles with 0 backlinks
[70:40] and over 1,000 visitors from search.
[70:42] I can also try some other relevant keywords
like "kittens" and loosen my filters a bit,
[70:47] to get content ideas with a bit less
traffic and a few more backlinks.
[70:51] Which will give me vastly more results to explore.
[70:54] So how cool is that?
[70:55] As you can tell, Content Explorer tool is
a unique and insanely valuable tool,
[70:59] because it allows you to filter through
almost the entire Internet of content.
[71:03] And find what brings the most search
traffic with the least amount of backlinks.
[71:07] When I shared this trick with our Facebook
community, people were totally blown away
[71:12] and immediately used it to find
great content ideas for their sites.
[71:16] So hit pause and try this yourself.
[71:18] I'm sure you will find something
cool for your own blog too.
[71:21] And one last thing I have to mention
is your website's Domain Rating.
[71:25] Which represents the strength of the
overall backlink profile of your website.
[71:30] As a general rule, it can be challenging to
outrank websites that have high Domain Rating.
[71:35] For example, here you can see an article
from Huffington Post that is titled
[71:39] "The Top 100 Most Adorable and Cute Cat Names"
[71:42] It has 0 referring domains, but the Domain
Rating of huffingtonpost.com is 80.
[71:49] Which is very high.
[71:50] So if the Domain Rating of your own website
is much smaller than that, like 60 or below,
[71:55] It is unlikely that your article
will outrank huffingtonpost.com
[71:59] I mean if both articles have 0 backlinks,
it is obvious that Google will pick the one,
[72:04] that was published on a stronger website.
[72:06] But if you build a bunch of quality backlinks
to your own article, you do have a chance
[72:11] to outrank even high-DR domains.
[72:13] Please also note that the numbers that
you see in Content Explorer are cached.
[72:17] I mean there's a small discrepancy in backlink
and traffic numbers for the same article in
[72:21] Site Explorer and Content Explorer.
[72:23] But that discrepancy shouldn't be too big,
as we update all numbers quite regularly.
[72:28] And this wraps up the four strategies that will
supply you with an almost never ending source
[72:32] of great content ideas.
[72:34] And now it's time to prioritize these
ideas in your content calendar.
[72:41] Part 5. How to prioritize 
your list of content ideas
[72:45] If you were taking action
while watching this lesson,
[72:47] I'm sure your spreadsheet of content
ideas is full of golden nuggets.
[72:51] Which should feel quite satisfying already.
[72:53] But how do you decide which
of them you should tackle first?
[72:56] Well, in the early lessons of
this course I promised that
[72:59] we're going to focus on the
business value of blogging.
[73:02] What's the point of investing your time and
resources to bring people to your website,
[73:06] if these people won't buy from you?
[73:08] So we need to add one more column to our
spreadsheet and name it Business value.
[73:13] To fill a cell in this column
you'll need to ask yourself:
[73:16] "What are the chances that a person, looking
for that thing in Google and reading my article
[73:20] on that topic would become my customer?"
[73:23] I usually give my content ideas
a score from 0 to 3,
[73:27] where 3 means that my product or service
is an absolutely irreplaceable solution
[73:31] for a target search query,
which leads to an easy sell;
[73:35] 2 means that my business will help people
with what they are searching for, but it's
[73:39] not essential in solving their search query;
[73:41] 1 means that my business can only be
mentioned in passing, because the search
[73:45] query is only slightly related to what I sell.
[73:48] And 0 means that there's not even a chance
to squeeze a single mention of my business
[73:53] into the article.
[73:54] Early in this course I told you that with Ahrefs
blog we never had a goal to grow monthly
[73:58] amount of traffic.
[73:59] We wanted to make our blog a customer aquisition
channel and grow the monthly number of leads
[74:04] that it generates.
[74:05] That's why we often had to ignore topics
with huge traffic potential in favor of topics
[74:11] with huge business potential.
[74:12] Let me explain that with a very vivid example.
[74:15] Most likely you've heard about HubSpot.
[74:18] They are one of the biggest brands
in digital marketing software field.
[74:21] They have 1,800 employees and a huge
content marketing team that runs their blog.
[74:27] According to Ahrefs, HubSpot blog gets
almost 2M visits per month from Google.
[74:33] Which is an absolutely staggering number.
[74:35] So let's look at their best-perfoming articles
using the Top pages report in Ahrefs.
[74:40] And here's their best article, that brings
them almost 80,000 visitors per month
[74:45] in the US alone and accounts
for 8% of their entire blog traffic:.
[74:51] "How to Make an Animated GIF in Photoshop."
[74:54] Yeah, it's not a mistake.
[74:56] Their best performing article is
a tutorial on making a gif image.
[75:00] Does this article grow their business?
[75:02] Well, the product that HubSpot sells
can be described as a "marketing CRM".
[75:06] And if you ask me, the road of someone looking
for tutorial on making a GIF image to becoming
[75:11] a paid user of a "marketing 
CRM" is kind of a maze.
[75:15] I mean, people who are searching Google for "how
to make a gif" are clearly not their dream customers.
[75:20] So this content idea would get a business
potential score of 0 from me.
[75:25] Now, let's examine our own blog and
see if we practice what we preach.
[75:29] Here are the articles that bring the
most search traffic to Ahrefs blog:
[75:32] "keyword research," "top google searches,"
"website traffic," "seo tips," "seo audit," etc.
[75:38] Obviously, these articles are nowhere near "how
to make a GIF" guide in terms of traffic numbers.
[75:43] But they convert readers into
customers of Ahrefs very well.
[75:47] Here's a tweet from last week to prove it.
[75:50] This guy took Ahrefs free trial after
reading our guide to long tail keywords.
[75:54] And a few weeks later he tweeted
that he became our paid customer.
[75:58] This is exactly what we're looking to achieve
with almost every article that we publish
[76:03] on our blog.
[76:03] And it is utterly important to keep
this in mind at all times.
[76:07] Search volume doesn't equal business opportunity.
[76:10] The searchers' intent behind
your search query does.
[76:13] That is why marketers are so obsessed
with keywords that have the word "buy"
[76:18] (or it's synonims) in them:
[76:19] "best place to buy dslr camera," "hire a 
business coach," "rent an apartment in london."
[76:25] These searches clearly indicate that the person
behind them is one step away from pulling
[76:30] money from their wallet.
[76:31] But in all honesty, you should not ignore their
generic versions with much higher search volume
[76:36] just because the search traffic coming from
them would be harder to convert into customers:
[76:41] Especially if you have some experience writing
good sales copy and persuading people to buy
[76:47] what you sell.
[76:48] A person searching for "business coach"
might not be ready to hire one right away,
[76:53] but it is your article that could
persuade them to do so.
[76:56] So if the more specific search query with a
clear buying intent gets a business value of 3,
[77:02] the generic one would still get 2 from me.
[77:05] All you need to do is just stay reasonable
with your business value scores and don't
[77:10] fall for writing guides on
how to create a GIF image,
[77:13] unless of course you sell some
kind of software for creating gifs.
[77:17] And that's the end of the lesson #4.
[77:19] Now, you should have a perfect understanding
of where to get almost unlimited content ideas
[77:24] and how to vet them for search traffic potential,
ranking difficulty, and business value.
[77:30] And in the next lesson I'll show you how to make
sure that your article is properly optimized
[77:34] for the search query that you're targeting.
[77:36] Sounds good?
[77:37] Then I'll see you in lesson #5.
[77:42] Welcome to the lesson #5.
[77:44] How to optimize your article for a target keyword
and generate maximum search traffic with it.
[77:49] Here's what we're about to cover:
[77:51] The all-important "searcher intent"
and how to match it with your article;
[77:54] How to optimize your article for a given
keyword so that to make it perfectly-relevant
[77:58] in the eyes of Google;
[78:00] How to squeeze maximum search 
trafficout of your article;
[78:03] And, finally, how to audit your existing
content and get the most out of it.
[78:07] So let's go!
[78:08] Part 1. What is "searcher
intent" and how to match it.
[78:11] In Lesson #3 I said that the Biggest mistake that
keeps bloggers away from getting search traffic
[78:16] is writing articles about things
that no one is searching for.
[78:19] Well, as soon as newbie bloggers learn about
the keyword research and how to identify
[78:23] the total search traffic potential of a certain
topic which we have covered in Lesson #3,
[78:28] they start making their Second biggest
mistake: targeting the wrong keyword.
[78:32] How is that even possible, you may ask?
[78:34] Well... let me share a quick story with you.
[78:37] Once upon a time we received a guest-
post pitch from one of our customers.
[78:41] He wanted to write a post on how to
use Ahrefs for advertising research.
[78:46] We have this Paid search section in Ahrefs'
Site Explorer tool, which shows you the keywords
[78:50] that a target website is advertising
for via Google AdWords.
[78:53] Along with their ads and landing pages,
where they send this paid traffic.
[78:57] And this is what he was offering to cover in his
guest article, along with some nice examples.
[79:01] I thought it would be nice to have a post
on Ahrefs Blog featuring this functionality,
[79:05] so I forwarded this email to my team and asked to
do a quick keyword research & find a good keyword
[79:10] that we could possibly target
with that guest article.
[79:13] And they got back to me with a keyword "advertising 
research," which has the monthly search volume of
[79:17] 450 searches per month in the US and around a 100
visits from search to some of the top-ranking results.
[79:24] So that's a green light, right?
[79:26] Wrong!
[79:27] By looking at the top 10 ranking pages for
this keyword I can see that they talk about
[79:30] advertising research in general.
[79:33] While the guest article that we were suggested
was going to talk about researching the AdWords
[79:37] Pay-per-Click strategies of your competitors.
[79:40] Which is a very specific and narrow topic.
[79:42] I mean, people who are searching in Google
for "advertising research" are not neccessarily
[79:47] interested in Pay-per-Click
advertising specifically.
[79:50] Otherwise, they would Google for "pay-
per-click advertising research", right?
[79:54] So we would make a big mistake if we try to
target the keyword "advertising research"
[79:58] with an article about Pay-per-Click
advertising research.
[80:01] That article would not meet the so-called
searcher intent, which Google can easily
[80:05] figure out by looking at how users behave after
clicking on your article in the search results.
[80:10] They would simply bounce if they
won't see what they were looking for.
[80:13] So which search query would be
the right one for that article?
[80:16] I brainstormed a few relevant searches, tested my
assumptions in Keywords Explorer, and got these:
[80:21] "adwords competitor analysis," "pay-per-click
competitor analysis," "pay-per-click competitor."
[80:26] Sure, the search volume on all three of them is
not particularly exciting, but at least they are
[80:30] perfectly relevant to the suggested guest post.
[80:33] And the top-ranking pages for these keywords
do get a little bit of traffic from search,
[80:37] according to Ahrefs.
[80:39] Which I am reminding you is
always an underestimation.
[80:42] Unfortunately, we didn't end up publishing
that article, so I can't show you the results.
[80:46] But at least I have a cool story that illustrates the
importance of targeting the right searcher intent.
[80:51] Way too often newbie bloggers would try to
optimize their article for the keyword with
[80:55] the highest search volume, ignoring the fact
that their article doesn't really match the intent
[81:00] of the people who are searching
for that keyword.
[81:02] And while they think they're making a smart
decision, they're actually shooting themselves
[81:06] in the foot, because Google is pretty
smart at figuring out what people want
[81:10] when they search for something.
[81:11] And if your page doesn't give them
that, it won't rank at the top.
[81:14] So, if you have a great article idea, but
there's not much search demand for
[81:18] that topic, don't try to trick Google and optimize
it for something it is not - a broad topic with
[81:24] high search demand.
[81:25] You should pick the most relevant search
query, even if the search volume seems low.
[81:30] At least this way you get a good chance of
actually ranking for that keyword and getting
[81:34] some highly-relevant search traffic.
[81:36] Here's a small exercise, that will help you to re-
confirm that you're targeting the right keyword.
[81:41] Take the draft of your article and send it
to a few friends or co-workers, asking them
[81:45] what it is about.
[81:47] The words that they will use to describe your
article will help you understand what kind
[81:51] of search queries it deserves
to rank for in Google.
[81:53] But what if you don't have an article yet?
[81:56] What if you just discovered a cool keyword
and you want to write an article on that topic
[81:59] and make sure it would perfectly
match the searcher intent?
[82:02] In this case, the best thing you could do
is put yourself in the shoes of people, who
[82:06] would search for that keyword in Google
and ask yourself a few simple questions:
[82:10] What are people looking for when
they search for that keyword?
[82:13] What goal do they have in mind?
[82:15] What is their motivation?
[82:16] What kind of search result
would perfectly satisfy them?
[82:19] In other words, think of the "searcher
intent" behind that keyword.
[82:23] For many keywords it is plain obvious.
[82:25] Like "how to tie a tie" - clearly, people
need an instruction on how to do that.
[82:29] Preferably visual, because it's almost
impossible to explain that with words.
[82:33] But sometimes the searcher
intent can be quite ambiguous.
[82:36] Like the keyword "violas" - it can be
a music instrument or a flower.
[82:40] And if you're unsure about the right searcher
intent for some query, the best thing you can
[82:44] do is put it into Google and
see what comes up.
[82:47] Google has invested years of work and billions
of dollars into figuring out what people mean
[82:51] when they type something into the search bar.
[82:53] And they are actually quite good at it.
[82:55] For "how to tie a tie" they suggest a short video
clip, because their data and use behavior signals
[83:01] showed that this is what the vast
majority of searchers want.
[83:04] And for "violas" Google gives a mix of search
results: some about the musical instrument
[83:08] and some about the flower.
[83:10] This means that the searcher intent
for that keyword is actually two-fold.
[83:14] And there's nothing you could do about it.
[83:16] So that is "searcher intent" in a nutshell.
[83:18] It really boils down to putting yourself in
the shoes of searchers and using logic
[83:22] to understand what would satisfy them.
[83:24] Make sure you always check the search results
for the keyword that you decide to target.
[83:28] If the pages that rank there are entirely
different from what you were going to say,
[83:32] you probably misunderstood
the searcher intent behind that keyword.
[83:36] And once you choose the right keyword for
your article, here's how you optimize for it.
[83:41] Part 2. How to optimize your
article for a given keyword
[83:44] So you have a great keyword in mind, and you're
absolutely sure that you're going to match
[83:48] the searcher intent with the article
that you're about to write.
[83:51] How do you optimize your article for that keyword?
[83:53] Well, You don't!
[83:55] I mean, if your article perfectly matches the
searcher intent for that keyword and gives
[83:59] people exactly what they're looking for, that
is nearly 80% of all optimization work.
[84:04] Yes, Google is just a machine and it is not
smart enough to actually read your article
[84:08] like a human being and understand why it is better
than thousands of other articles on the same topic.
[84:14] But Google isn't dumb either.
[84:15] Squeezing your target keyword into your
article more frequently than your competitors
[84:20] was a good way to trick Google
10 years ago, but not so much today.
[84:24] Let's examine the search results
for the keyword "how to learn seo."
[84:27] Our article ranks at position #5, if we count the
featured snippet and the "people also ask" box.
[84:33] How many times do you think we use the
phrase "how to learn seo" in that article?
[84:37] Once! Only in the headline.
[84:39] So maybe that's why we don't rank #1
for "how to learn seo" search query?
[84:43] Maybe the competing pages use this
keyword more frequently in their content?
[84:47] Let's see...
[84:48] And no!
[84:49] Both articles that rank above us have 0 mentions
of that keyword, so why do they rank so high then?
[84:56] That's because Google has enough technology
and enough ranking signals to be able to find
[85:00] the most relevant page for a certain search
query without relying on how many times that
[85:05] keyword was used on a page.
[85:07] In fact, we have studied the top 10 ranking
pages for 2 Million random search queries.
[85:13] And what we discovered was quite fun.
[85:15] 75% of all pages that ranked in Google top 10
don't have even a single mention of the search
[85:22] query that they rank for anywhere on the page.
[85:25] Back to our example with "how
to learn seo" search query.
[85:28] Google is smart enough to understand that
phrases like "seo learning center" or "online
[85:33] resources for learning seo" are perfectly
relevant to what the user is searching for,
[85:38] even though they don't match
the search query word for word.
[85:42] This is why I suggested that by nailing
the searcher intent with your content you
[85:46] automatically do 80% of all optimization work.
[85:49] Your article is likely to have enough synonyms
and relevant words and phrases for Google
[85:54] to be able to understand what it is about.
[85:56] So does that mean you should ignore any
kind of keyword optimization and write as
[86:00] you please?
[86:01] Not really.
[86:01] The rule of thumb is to use your target keyword,
or at least the most important words of your
[86:06] keyword, in the following places:
URL, title, headline, and contеnt.
[86:11] Let's go back to the search results for "how
to learn seo."
[86:14] The main words of this keyword
are obviously "learn" and "seo".
[86:18] All of the top 10 ranking pages have
the word "seo" in their URLs and titles.
[86:23] As for the word "learn", some of the pages
have it in their URLs and titles, and others
[86:28] get away with the synonyms and closely related
[86:30] words like "resources,"
"tutorial," "training," "teach."
[86:34] So, as you can tell, Google allows you quite
some flexibility in keyword targeting.
[86:38] That is why, by simply matching the searcher
intent with the content of your article, you're
[86:43] already making it 80%
relevant to that search query.
[86:46] Because you are already using all the right words.
[86:49] I'd say that further refining your URL, title, headline and
content will probably move the needle by another 10%.
[86:57] This percentage is quite arbitrary, there's
0 science behind it, but you get the idea.
[87:02] And I'm sure you want to
learn about the final 10%.
[87:05] There's a great article by Cyrus Shepard,
where he explains rather advanced things,
[87:10] TF-IDF (which stands for Term
Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency);
[87:15] Semantic distance & Term Relationships;
Co-occurrence and Phrase-Based Indexing;
[87:20] Entity Salience, etc.
[87:22] There's also a great article by Dr. Pete, that
shines a bit of light on how Google reads
[87:26] and understands your search queries, in
order to find the most relevant search result.
[87:31] Both of these posts are absolutely great reads,
and I highly recommend you to check them out
[87:35] if you're serious about SEO.
[87:37] But at the same time, they're just scratching
the surface of how Google really works.
[87:42] Their algorithms are much more complicated.
[87:44] So unless you're a professional SEO, I don't
recommend you to get carried away with
[87:49] advanced on-page SEO tactics,
which are quite technical.
[87:52] The foundation of your success in search is
the actual content, not the SEO enhansements
[87:58] that you apply to it.
[87:59] To win in the search results today you need
to be an authority and expert on the topics
[88:03] on which you are writing.
[88:04] And if your article is objectively better
than what already ranks in Google top 10,
[88:09] you should be there soon.
[88:12] Part 3. How to squeeze maximum
search traffic out of your article.
[88:16] What we've just covered is how to optimize
your article for a single keyword.
[88:20] But as you already know, it is rare that a page
would rank in Google for a single keyword only.
[88:25] I mean, you cannot rank #1 for "how to
tie a tie" and not rank anywhere in top 10
[88:30] for something like "how to tie a tie tutorial."
[88:34] Take any search query and there would be hundreds,
sometimes thousands, of other ways to put it.
[88:39] And Google tends to rank pretty much the same
pages for all these relevant search queries.
[88:44] And here's the best part.
[88:45] Your page might be ranking
poorly for that main keyword.
[88:48] But still get decent search traffic
from all these variations.
[88:52] Let's examine the search results for the query
[88:54] "website traffic," using our Keywords Explorer tool.
[88:57] As you can see, our article
at Ahrefs Blog only ranks #5.
[89:01] But it still gets almost 6,000 visits
from search according to Ahrefs.
[89:05] All because it ranks for over
600 other relevant keywords.
[89:09] And that's in the US alone.
[89:10] Let's look at the global search traffic
data via Site Explorer tool.
[89:14] So the total traffic to this page is almost
9,000 visits per month, where 63% coming
[89:20] from the United States and 10%
from the United Kingdom.
[89:24] Pretty decent result, for an article that doesn't
rank in top 3 for it's main keyword, right?
[89:28] So let's look at the keywords that are bringing
it traffic from Google: "website traffic," "check
[89:33] website traffic," "website stats," 'website traffic
estimator," "website popularity," "how to see
[89:38] how much traffic a website gets."
[89:40] That's a pretty wide rage of search
queries that it ranks for.
[89:43] I mean, things like "website popularity"
and "website traffic estimator" are not
[89:47] so closely related.
[89:49] But Google decided that our article
is worth ranking for both of them.
[89:53] Oh, and should I say that our article doesn't
mention any of these two search queries?
[89:57] That's because we are practicing what we
preach and focus on creating great in-depth
[90:02] authority content, rather than filling
it with hundreds of keywords.
[90:06] But who doesn't want more traffic, right?
[90:08] So here's how we are going to optimize
this article for maximum search traffic:
[90:12] #1. We need to study the keywords that we already
rank for and make sure that we mention them
[90:17] in our article.
[90:18] Like I just showed you, our article ranks
for search queries like "website populariy"
[90:23] and "website traffic estimator" that are
not even present anywhere in our article.
[90:27] But don't get me wrong, we're not going to
stuff our article with every keyword variation
[90:32] that we want to rank for.
[90:33] We're going to think of a natural way to
rewrite our article, mentioning these things.
[90:38] We mostly looking for keywords that could
be turned into a few additional paragraphs
[90:42] in our article.
[90:43] And "website popularity" seems like
a great topic that we could expand on.
[90:47] Second, we need to study the keywords that
competing pages rank for, but our page doesn't.
[90:52] To do that, I'm going to use our amazing Content
Gap tool that can be found within Site Explorer.
[90:58] So I'll start with the keywords that two pages
above us rank for, but our page doesn't.
[91:02] And here are a few search queries that seem
promising: "website traffic report," "track website
[91:07] traffic," "measure website traffic."
[91:09] These things easily deserve a few paragraphs
in our article that will add value to anyone
[91:14] reading it.
[91:15] And, finally, #3.
[91:16] We need to study other popular searches,
relevant to our main search query.
[91:21] For that purpose we have quite a few reports in
Keywords Explorer, under the Keyword ideas section.
[91:26] And you can also use Google Keyword Planner
tool, which will suggest quite a few interesting
[91:30] keywords to consider.
[91:31] All in all, the goal here is to study the things
that people are searching for, related to your
[91:36] main topic and try to expand your
article based on that knowledge.
[91:40] In fact, this is how you should be
writing your articles in the first place.
[91:43] Study what people are searching for and create
an outline for your article, based on these searches.
[91:48] This will help your future article to rank
for all these searches and get maximum
[91:52] search traffic from Google.
[91:54] This is probably the best advice that I can give
you, in terms of optimizing your article for Google.
[91:59] Knowing what people search for around a specific
topic will help you create an amazingly useful
[92:04] article for these people.
[92:05] And here's where you should start applying
everything that you've just learned from
[92:08] this lesson.
[92:10] Part 4. How perform an SEO
audit of your published content.
[92:14] In the previous lessons I showed you how to
find amazing content opportunities with huge
[92:19] traffic and business potential.
[92:20] And now you also know how to squeeze
the most traffic out of these opportunities.
[92:24] So you must be keen to pick a new topic and
write an amazing new article for your blog, right?
[92:29] Well, let me stop you right there.
[92:30] If you're looking for a quick win, the best
thing you can do is audit the content that
[92:35] you already have on your blog.
[92:36] And here's why.
[92:38] First of all, your published articles may already
have some backlinks, which signals to Google
[92:42] that they are cool and deserve to rank.
[92:45] While the new article has to be promoted
in order to get some websites to link to it.
[92:49] Secondly, your competitors most likely
don't bother updating their content.
[92:53] So if the top-ranking articles for your target
keyword seem outdated, you can often outrank
[92:58] them by making your article up-to-date and
re-publishing it as if it was brand new.
[93:02] Google will usually reward fresh
content with higher rankings.
[93:05] I see this happen quite often.
[93:07] And finally, your past articles might be simply
targeting the wrong keyword, and therefore
[93:12] not bringing you any traffic.
[93:13] Figuring out the right searcher intent and re-
optimizing your article for the right keyword
[93:18] can do wonders to your search traffic.
[93:20] So here's how you audit your existing content.
[93:22] Go through every published article that
you have on your blog and assign it to
[93:26] one of the three following groups.
[93:28] Group #1: "Update"
[93:29] These are the articles, that already bring
you some nice traffic from search.
[93:33] I'm pretty sure each and every one of them
could be improved somehow, using the tactics,
[93:37] that you've just learned.
[93:38] Even your best-performing articles
can be updated and improved.
[93:41] Take a moment to think about it.
[93:43] Most bloggers never bother improving their top-
performing articles, and that's a huge mistake.
[93:48] Because the guys who rank below you
are most likely working hard to outrank you.
[93:54] Group #2: "Merge"
[93:55] It doesn't make much sense to have
multiple articles on the same topic.
[93:59] It's always better to have one great in-depth
article other than five mediocre ones.
[94:04] Especially, if those duplicate articles
have some backlinks.
[94:07] You can use 301 redirects to point these
backlinks  to your main article on that topic
[94:11] and help it rank better.
[94:13] Group #3: "Delete"
[94:15] This group is optional.
[94:16] But here at Ahrefs Blog we have
deleted nearly half of our old articles.
[94:20] The primary reason for doing that was that
these articles were massively outdated and
[94:24] didn't bring any search traffic at all.
[94:26] So deleting them didn't make
any difference to our traffic.
[94:30] However, some people believe that getting
rid of your underperforming content makes
[94:34] Google love your website more.
[94:35] I cannot prove or disprove that statement,
but if I were in charge of Google, I'd definitely
[94:40] use something along these
lines as a ranking signal.
[94:42] And that's pretty much it.
[94:44] I'm sure you have many great articles on
your blog that could be further improved.
[94:47] Do it and you'll see a nice traffic
boost in the next few weeks.
[94:51] And then you can go ahead and publish some
new amazing articles, using all the tactics
[94:56] and strategies that you've
learned so far in this course.
[94:58] Speaking of writing amazing articles,
that is exactly what we're going to cover
[95:02] in the very next lesson.
[95:04] Sounds good? Then I'll see you there.
[95:07] Welcome to the lesson #6. How to create 
great content that promotes itself
[95:11] Here's what we're about to cover:
[95:13] First of all, I will explain why your content
has to be great in the first place.
[95:17] Then I'll give you some actionable advice
on how to create the kind of content that
[95:20] people will care to read and share with others.
[95:23] And finally, we're going to talk about creating
unique content that will help you to stand out.
[95:28] So let's go!
[95:29] Part #1. Why your content has to be great
[95:32] I already gave you a ton of great tips on
keyword research and how to discover
[95:35] great topics to write about on your blog.
[95:38] And I'm about to teach you how to promote your
content and how to build backlinks to your content,
[95:42] so that it would rank high in Google and bring
you passive search traffic every single month.
[95:47] But there's something in-between, which is
insanely important for your blog's success.
[95:51] And that is creating great content.
[95:54] I know, I know, you've probably heard this
advice a thousand times and your first reaction
[95:58] would be "Tim, please, let's just skip that
and move on to the stuff that matters!"
[96:02] But it is the stuff that matters.
[96:04] The quality of your content predetermines
the very success of your blog.
[96:08] If your content is awful, all the promotion
and link building tactics that I'm about to
[96:13] share with you won't work.
[96:15] As well as the other way around - if your
content is top-notch, you'll have to work
[96:19] a lot less promoting it.
[96:20] The word of mouth will do the job for you.
[96:23] So, to Recap:
[96:24] Great content promotes itself.
[96:26] While awful content is awfully hard to promote.
[96:29] Let me give you a few good
examples from Ahrefs blog.
[96:32] I'm sure you know Reddit.
[96:33] This is an online community where a lot
of very smart people are hanging out.
[96:37] And they are very skeptical most of the time.
[96:39] So if there's something wrong with what you
posted there - you can be sure that they will
[96:44] be very vocal about it.
[96:45] And here's the thread, where someone
has posted an article from Ahrefs blog.
[96:49] When I saw that it has 20 comments, my first
thought was that Redditors were grilling us.
[96:54] But it turned out that they 
were actually super-positive.
[96:57] And they didn't just say good things about
that specific article that was posted, but
[97:01] about our blog content in general.
[97:03] See yourself:
[97:05] "Can't just be me that finds the blog
posts from Ahrefs really good reads?"
[97:08] "Ahrefs always seems to have
some great posts out there."
[97:11] "Yeah, I like their posts as well."
[97:13] "I agree - I really like their stuff."
[97:15] So what did we do to get these
raving reviews on Reddit?
[97:18] Nothing!
[97:19] We didn't submit our article to
Reddit - one of our readers did that.
[97:23] We didn't ask our friends and co-workers to
post positive comments - the Reddit community
[97:28] naturally enjoyed our content.
[97:30] As you can probably tell, we got quite
a bit of traffic from this Reddit thread.
[97:34] And it all happened with zero
intervention from our marketing team.
[97:38] All we had to do is publish a great article
on our blog,  and the promotion on Reddit
[97:42] happened naturally.
[97:44] Here's another example.
[97:45] You may know the GrowthHackers community,
where some people submit the content they
[97:49] enjoyed and others check it out
and upvote it, if they happen to like it.
[97:53] Then the most upvoted articles of the week
are being sent via email to all members of
[97:57] the community.
[97:58] And that is hundreds of thousands of people.
[98:00] So here's one of those weekly newsletters,
where an article from Ahrefs Blog scored
[98:04] at the #1 position.
[98:06] This case is very similar to the one from
Reddit in a sense that we didn't have to do
[98:11] anything to make it happen.
[98:12] It wasn't our employee who submitted this
article to GrowthHackers and all the upvotes
[98:17] were 100% natural.
[98:18] I didn't even know that our article was
trending at GrowthHackers until I received
[98:22] this email newsletter.
[98:24] Again, zero promotion was
done to make it happen.
[98:27] All we did is published a great article that
our readers enjoyed and shared with others.
[98:31] But don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating
against promoting your content on Reddit,
[98:37] GrowhHackers or any similar
communities that exist in your niche.
[98:40] It's called "Publish & Pray" approach
and it won't get you very far.
[98:44] I do recommend you to be active everywhere,
where your target audience is hanging out.
[98:49] And promote your content to these
people, whenever you get a chance.
[98:53] With these two examples I was trying to illustrate
how much easier it is to get traction at these
[98:58] communities, when your content
is objectively awesome.
[99:01] So instead of spending your time looking
for "secret" marketing tactic that will help
[99:05] you to hijack these communities, you
should instead put all this time into
[99:09] making your content as awesome as possible!
[99:12] Because this is the single best way to conquer
any audience and turn them into your fans.
[99:17] Your goal is to make your content so awesome,
that anyone reading it would want to share it
[99:21] with someone else.
[99:22] I love what Leo Widrich, the co-founder
of Buffer, tweeted the other day:
[99:26] "When writing a post, I get into a mindset
to answer just this 1 question with a Yes:
[99:31] "Would anyone email this article to a friend?"
[99:34] Way too often bloggers think that their content
flops because they don't promote it enough,
[99:38] while in reality their content
flops because it's awful.
[99:42] In the words of Ryan Holiday:
[99:44] "Promotion is not how things are made
great—only how they're heard about."
[99:49] So before you start promoting your new piece
of content, please make sure that it deserves
[99:53] to be promoted in the first place.
[99:57] Part #2. How to create content that people
will care to read and share with others
[100:02] Most resources that I've examined while preparing
for this very course will advice you to "create great
[100:07] content," and call it a day.
[100:09] I mean, what does it mean
"to create great content?"
[100:11] Ain't the content you create great already?
[100:13] And how do you know if it's not?
[100:15] Well, I don't consider myself to be a content
marketing superstar, but in the last few years
[100:20] I managed to make Ahrefs Blog one
of the best ones in the SEO space.
[100:23] And I think, along the way, I figured a few
ingredients that will make your content great:
[100:28] Here they are:
[100:29] Quality, Uniqueness, and Authority.
[100:31] Let me expand on each of them one by one.
[100:34] Quality.
[100:35] In all honesty, there's no shortage of advice
on how to improve the quality of your content.
[100:39] So I'll just do a brief recap of the things that
I'm sure you're already well familiar with.
[100:44] Here they are:
[100:45] #1. Learn to write well.
[100:47] Writing is a skill that almost anyone
can learn and master.
[100:51] Think of playing a guitar.
[100:52] When you first try it, you surely can produce
some sounds, but it can hardly be called music.
[100:57] But then you learn some chords,
how to pick strings and so on.
[101:01] And after some time your friends are asking
you to take the guitar and play them something.
[101:05] Same with writing, at first it will be very clumsy
and tough to read, but after some learning
[101:10] and practice people will
start enjoying your articles.
[101:13] Luckily, there's no shortage of advice on
the topic of "how to improve your writing."
[101:17] Just start learning and
practicing as soon as possible.
[101:20] Now, the next thing you do to ramp
up the quality of your content is...
[101:23] Improve how it looks.
[101:25] It is a well studied fact that most people will
skim through the article before reading it,
[101:29] which will help them to evaluate
if it is worth reading at all.
[101:33] And if your article doesn't look good, people
are unlikely to risk their time reading it.
[101:38] Here are the things that make
your content visually appealing.
[101:41] The design of your blog, quality images, short
paragraphs, subheadings, quotes, lists, and all
[101:47] sorts of formatting tricks.
[101:48] All these things make your article pleasing
to a human eye and transmit a message to
[101:53] your blog visitors that the author of the article
invested quite some time to ensure pleasant
[101:58] reading experience.
[101:59] But let's move on.
[102:00] The last but not the least.
[102:02] You need to craft an eye-catchy headline.
[102:05] Headline is the only bit of your entire article
that people will see on Twitter, Facebook,
[102:10] Google and on the homepage of your blog.
[102:12] Which means you only have about a dozen words
to persuade people that your article is worth
[102:17] their attention.
[102:18] Writing headlines that lure people into
your article is both art and science.
[102:22] There are many ready-made headline templates
that you can try using, as well as many
[102:27] psychological tricks that will educate you to
create your own attention-grabbing headlines.
[102:31] I won't teach you any of that, because
I'm not a professional copywriter.
[102:34] But there's one piece of
advice that I can give you.
[102:37] Make sure to brainstorm at least five
different headlines for every article you write.
[102:43] If you won't invest the time and effort into
coming up with just five headline variations
[102:47] to choose from, your entire article is almost
guaranteed to flop, no matter how good it is.
[102:53] In the words of Andrew Chen, from Uber
[102:56] "Titles are often written as a vague pre-thought,
but in fact, it's the most important creative
[103:01] decision you'll make."
[103:02] And this wraps up my brief recap of
ramping up the quality of your content.
[103:06] But in all honesty, all these things are just
a proxy to the actual idea behind your article.
[103:12] Which brings us to the second ingredient
of great content: Uniqueness.
[103:16] I see a rather upsetting trend in the
blogging and content marketing space.
[103:21] When they go after some keyword, many
people research everything that has already
[103:24] been published on that topic and then try to
squeeze it all into a single article of theirs.
[103:29] But this way you're only creating a clone of
existing content and not adding any extra value.
[103:35] And if it's a clone, it doesn't deserve
more attention than the original.
[103:39] So with this approach you're immediately putting
yourself one step behind your competition.
[103:44] If you want to stand out with
your content - it has to be unique.
[103:48] So how to create unique content?
[103:50] Well, you still have to research everything
that has already been published on the topic.
[103:55] But then you don't create a clone.
[103:57] You create something that would be
different from what's already there.
[104:00] Ideally you want to say something
that hasn't been said before.
[104:04] Which is rather hard to do, as it requires
you to be at the very forefront of your industry.
[104:09] These people are called thought leaders.
[104:11] And most likely you're not one of them just yet.
[104:13] So another option is to find a new angle,
which would be somewhat different from
[104:18] the conventional opinion on that topic.
[104:20] Ideally you'd want to turn 180 degrees and
challenge the status quo - this often generates
[104:25] a lot of buzz.
[104:26] But only if you have good arguments
to make your point.
[104:29] And finally, if the above is not an option, you
might simply try to explain that topic better.
[104:34] You might not be the thought leader of your
industry, but you might be a great writer,
[104:39] teacher, and storyteller.
[104:40] If you invest enough time into finding better
arguments, better proof and better examples,
[104:45] you do have a chance to outperform
the original piece on that subject.
[104:48] And now, here goes the last ingredient
of great content: Authority.
[104:53] Like I just mentioned, in order to say
something entirely new and unique,
[104:57] you have to be at the very
forefront of your industry.
[105:00] You have to be an authority in your niche.
[105:02] Let's say I do a few weeks of research and write
a cool article on the topic of colonization of Mars.
[105:07] Would you read my article on that topic?
[105:09] Or would you prefer to learn about the
colonization of Mars from someone with
[105:13] more authority in that subject?
[105:15] Like Elon Musk, for example.
[105:17] If you go to YouTube and search for his
talks on that subject you'll see that they
[105:20] get millions of views.
[105:22] That's because Elon Musk is probably the most
qualified person in the world to talk about
[105:26] the colonization of Mars.
[105:27] So you know he can teach you a lot of things
that you won't be able to find elsewhere.
[105:31] Hence the crazy amount of views.
[105:33] And that is a nice illustration of the impact
that authority and credibility have on
[105:37] the content that you create.
[105:39] But what if you're not the Elon Musk
of your industry?
[105:42] Does that mean you're doomed to oblivion?
[105:44] Not at all!
[105:45] There's a simple trick to "hacking" authority
that writers have been using for ages.
[105:50] Take a look at this article at Wait But Why, that
explains the colonization of Mars start to finish.
[105:55] It is super long, so you'll need a rather
compelling reason to spend your time
[106:00] on it, right?
[106:00] Well, how about that: this article
was co-written by Elon Musk.
[106:04] I bet now you're thinking that every paragraph
of this post is totally worth your time, right?
[106:10] That's how you "hack" authority.
[106:11] If you're not the best person to talk about
a certain subject, find that best person
[106:16] and interview them.
[106:17] Obviously, it is almost impossible to get
a hold of a person like Elon Musk and
[106:22] interview them for your article.
[106:23] But I'm sure that whatever industry you're
in, there are many high-profile people who
[106:28] are easily accessible.
[106:30] Think about journalists.
[106:31] This is one of the core duties of their
profession - to find credible sources
[106:35] and use them in their writing.
[106:37] If you want to create great content,
you need to be a journalist.
[106:40] Here's an example of our own article at Ahrefs
blog, where we tried to answer a question
[106:46] "how to become a marketing manager".
[106:48] We could easily crank up an article on that
topic in a few hours and call it a day.
[106:52] But instead, we took time to reach out to 10
high-profile marketers and used their advice
[106:57] to create a great resource on that topic.
[107:00] As you can see, we featured all 10 of them
early in our article, so that to show our
[107:05] readers that there are quite a few very smart
people behind what they're about to read.
[107:12] Part 3. How to create unique
content that will stand out
[107:16] As you can tell by now, I'm a big advocate
of creating 100% unique content as opposed
[107:21] to re-writing what has already been published.
[107:24] If you will write about things that cannot
be  found elsewhere, your blog is almost
[107:28] guaranteed to be a success.
[107:29] But where do you find these
unique things to blog about?
[107:32] I really like what Rohin Dhar, the CEO
and Founder of Priceonomics, said in
[107:36] his Content Marketing Handbook:
[107:38] "Authentic information that your company has
access to is the currency of truly valuable
[107:43] content marketing.
[107:44] Sure, there may be more "shareable" content
out there - cute animal pictures, snarky
[107:48] commentary, celebrity gossip, and the like
- but that stuff won't get you customers.
[107:53] Information, on the other hand, will.
[107:55] It can be data that your company produces,
insights you have because of your industry
[108:00] experience, or stories about
the people you have access to."
[108:03] Let's focus on that last sentence.
[108:04] You can craft unique content from:
[108:07] The data that your company produces;
[108:09] Insights you have because of
your industry experience;
[108:12] And stories of the people you have access to.
[108:14] I do admit that it's easy for me to be an advocate
of these things, since I work at Ahrefs.
[108:19] We have tons of data that we can study.
[108:21] We have tons of unique insights that we can share;
[108:23] And we have access to the best
minds of the SEO industry.
[108:26] But what if you're a newbie blogger and
you don't have these kinds of luxuries?
[108:30] Well, actually you do!
[108:32] Anyone can collect some unique
data about their industry.
[108:35] Anyone can come up with unique
insights related to their industry.
[108:39] Anyone can connect with industry experts
and get a bit of help from them.
[108:43] I know this, because not too long
ago I've been a newbie blogger myself.
[108:47] Take a look at this article, that I wrote
for my personal blog back then.
[108:50] I wanted to write a post about guest blogging, but
there were a ton of articles on that topic already,
[108:56] published by well-known people with
a ton of authority and a big audience.
[109:00] My only option to stand out: among them
was to do something entirely unique.
[109:04] Which no one else did before me.
[109:06] Well, remember my advice earlier in this lesson?
[109:09] I decided to turn 180 degrees and challenge
what all existing guides were saying about
[109:14] guest blogging.
[109:15] I wrote some guest articles before and I didn't
see any of the outcomes that all these guides
[109:20] were promising I would get.
[109:21] So I could easily write a cool article based
on my own experience in guest blogging.
[109:26] But why would people listen to some
random blogger with zero credibility, right?
[109:30] As we've just discussed, people
want to learn from authorities.
[109:34] So I followed another advice from this lesson.
[109:36] I acted like a journalist and reached
out to over 500 bloggers, big and small,
[109:41] and asked them to share some data with
me on how their guest articles performed
[109:46] and if they were happy with the results.
[109:48] This whole venture resulted in
one of my best articles to date.
[109:51] And even though it was published on my personal
blog, which hardly has any traffic, that article
[109:56] generated quite a buzz and got over
a hundred links from 60 different websites.
[110:01] And it generated a total of 
10,000 visits to my blog.
[110:05] And keeps generating a bit of
passive traffic even years later.
[110:08] Would I be able to get this kind of result
by writing an article with the same tips that
[110:13] can be found in other articles
about guest blogging?
[110:16] Of course not!
[110:17] My article only performed so well,
because it was 100% unique.
[110:21] So I hope that my story will discourage you
from creating new clones of existing content
[110:27] and encourage you to bring something
entirely new to this world.
[110:31] Let's be honest.
[110:32] The vast majority of people are too
lazy to do these kinds of things.
[110:36] But that is actually a good thing!
[110:38] The more steps you take towards making your
content awesome and unique, the less competition
[110:43] you're going to encounter.
[110:44] And that wraps up the lesson
on creating awesome content.
[110:47] And in the next one we're going to start talking
about link building and the kind of content
[110:52] that attracts links.
[110:53] Sounds good?
[110:54] Then I'll see you in the next lesson.
[110:57] Welcome to the lesson #7. How to create link-worthy
content (and stop worrying about link building).
[111:03] Here's what we're about to cover.
[111:05] Do you always need backlinks to rank?
[111:07] How to create content that attracts backlinks.
[111:09] And finally, the rarely-mentioned
"secret" to acquiring backlinks.
[111:14] So let's go!
[111:16] Part #1. Do you always need backlinks to rank?
[111:19] This is a tricky question to answer.
[111:21] So let's just start off with a few facts.
[111:23] Fact #1: Google's Andrey Lipattsev has
revealed that backlinks are one of  Google's
[111:28] top 3 ranking signals;
[111:30] Fact #2: The majority of SEO professionals
agree that it's not possible to rank in Google
[111:36] without any backlinks.
[111:37] And Fact #3: There were quite a few SEO research
studies that showed a rather notable correlation
[111:44] between the number of backlinks pointing
to a page and the position of that page in
[111:48] Google search results.
[111:49] A while ago we even performed our
own correlation study here at Ahrefs.
[111:54] We analyzed the search results for nearly
2 million random search queries and discovered
[111:59] that backlink factors correlate with Google
position a lot better than any other factor.
[112:04] Even the usage of an exact match keyword in
title, headline or even actual content of that
[112:09] page had a weaker correlation.
[112:11] So, it seems that everything is
in favor of backlinks, right?
[112:14] Well, in that case, why did ⅓ of SEOs in
my poll voted that you can rank in Google
[112:20] without any backlinks?
[112:22] That's because the question itself is tricky.
[112:24] Can you rank in Google without backlinks?
[112:26] This is not a "Yes or No" question.
[112:29] The only correct answer here is "it depends."
[112:32] So let me explain what caused such
contrasting opinions with a nice example.
[112:36] I'm a big fan of a video game called Fallout,
and I also have a unhealthy habit to research
[112:41] anything and everything in Ahrefs.
[112:43] So when I discovered that there was a Wikipedia
for everything Fallout, I naturally dropped it into
[112:48] Ahrefs to see what was going on there.
[112:50] Turns out this website is generating over 20
million visits from Google every single month!
[112:56] Which is quite an impressive number.
[112:58] So the next two things that I wanted to find
out were: how many pages are responsible
[113:02] for this huge search traffic?
[113:04] And how many backlinks do they have in total?
[113:06] I can see the number of linking websites right
on the Overview report of Site Explorer tool.
[113:10] It says 7,500.
[113:12] And in order to see the number of pages that
are bringing them traffic from search I need
[113:16] the Top Pages report, which can be
found under Organic search section.
[113:20] It defaults to US, so I switch to All countries
and get over 65,000 pages that are generating
[113:27] search traffic to this website.
[113:29] So what do we have here?
[113:30] Over 65,000 pages with search traffic;
[113:34] And only 7,500 linking websites.
[113:37] Do you see where I'm going with this?
[113:38] By looking at these two numbers you realize
that there's absolutely no way that every page
[113:44] with search traffic has backlinks, right?
[113:47] Let's see if that is the case.
[113:49] I'm going to search for pages about Fallout
bobblehead figures (because I actually have
[113:53] a few of them on my work desk).
[113:55] As you can see from the RDs column, many of
these pages have 0 websites linking to them,
[114:00] and yet they get thousands of
visitors per month from search.
[114:04] So did we just get a proof that you can
get search traffic without backlinks?
[114:08] Well... Yes and no.
[114:11] There are three things in place which allow
these pages to get a ton of search traffic
[114:15] without any backlinks pointing at them.
[114:18] First of all, there's simply
a lack of competition.
[114:21] The amount of content that can be found in
Google on the topic of Fallout bobblehead
[114:24] figures is super small.
[114:26] If I put "fallout 4 intelligence bobblehead"
into Google, it will return 1,500 results only.
[114:32] That is nothing!
[114:34] It means that only a few pages on
the entire internet mention this thing.
[114:38] Try other topic, like "keyword research" for
example, and you'll get 450,000 results.
[114:44] Secondly, the top ranking pages don't
have any backlinks pointing at them.
[114:48] Let's put "fallout 4 intelligence bobblehead"
into Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer and see how
[114:52] many backlinks the top 10 ranking results have.
[114:55] The "SERP overview" report shows me that 8
of the top 10 ranking pages have 0 backlinks.
[115:01] Which means that a quality relevant page has
a good chance at ranking for this keyword
[115:05] even without any backlinks pointing at it.
[115:08] And finally, third point.
[115:10] All top 10 ranking results
have high Domain Rating.
[115:13] See that DR column?
[115:15] It stands for Domain Rating and reflects
the strength of the overall backlinkprofile
[115:19] of each website.
[115:20] So the top ranking pages don't have
any backlinks pointing directly at them.
[115:24] But the websites that they belong
to do have a lot of backlinks.
[115:28] And in this particular case, the weakest DR is 68.
[115:32] Which means that these top ranking
pages all belong to very strong websites.
[115:37] And if the Domain Rating of your own website
is a lot weaker than that, it is very unlikely that
[115:42] you will be able to outrank them.
[115:44] Unless, of course, your page has a few
good backlinks pointing directly at it.
[115:49] Like that outlier that I'm sure you've noticed.
[115:51] The Domain Rating of this website is just 59,
which is much weaker than 68, especially
[115:56] considering that Ahrefs DR scale is logarithmic.
[115:59] But that page has 9 backlinks coming from
4 different websites, which allows it to rank
[116:04] among the sites with a much higher Domain Rating.
[116:06] And besides, that page is not even
perfectly- relevant to our search query.
[116:11] I mean, the search query is asking specifically
about the "intelligence bobblehead" while that
[116:16] particular page talks about
"bobblehead locations".
[116:19] So how come a page that is not perfectly
relevant to the search query ranks so well?
[116:23] Well, that's because it has more backlinks
than other pages which sends a signal to
[116:28] Google that this page must be very important.
[116:30] And I think this is a pretty good illustration
of how backlinks help you rank in Google
[116:35] and get search traffic.
[116:36] So let's wrap up the whole thing real quick.
[116:38] For your page to rank in Google without
backlinks, three requirements should be met:
[116:44] First, there should be a lack of
pages on that topic in Google.
[116:47] Second, the top 10 ranking pages for that keyword
should have 0 backlinks pointing at them.
[116:52] Third, the Domain Rating of your website should be 
higher or at least comparable to the Domain Rating
[116:57] of the top ranking websites.
[116:58] Obviously, I'm oversimplifying things quite
a bit, but you get the general idea, right?
[117:03] And in fact, it almost never happens that
a popular search query with good business
[117:07] potential would meet all
three of these requirements.
[117:10] So in the absolute majority of cases you will
need backlinks pointing directly at your page,
[117:15] in order for it to rank high in Google.
[117:17] And in case you decide to target some "unpopular"
topic where the top-ranking pages don't have any
[117:22] backlinks pointing at them, you still
need a decent Domain Rating.
[117:26] This indicates that your website has
accumulated enough of the so-called
[117:29] "link juice" that can be transferred
to other pages via internal links.
[117:34] And the natural question that
comes up at this point is:
[117:37] How do I grow the Domain Rating or Domain
Authority of my website, so that the pages
[117:41] that don't have backlinks would still rank
well in Google and generate search traffic?
[117:46] Well, all you need to do is create content
that will attract a lot of backlinks so that
[117:51] you could then funnel the "link juice" from
these pages to the pages that you struggle
[117:55] to get links to via internal links.
[117:57] In SEO we call this kind of content "linkable content,"
or "linkbait," or "link-worthy pages," or "linkable assets."
[118:04] All these terms mean more or less the same.
[118:06] And the next section of this
lesson is just about that.
[118:11] Part #2. How to create content
that attracts backlinks
[118:14] The entire Lesson #6 (the previous one)
was devoted to the topic of "great content."
[118:19] I showed you that making your
content great is uber-important.
[118:22] Mainly because great content promotes itself,
while awful content will always flop, no matter
[118:28] how hard you promote it.
[118:29] Well, great content also tends
to attract a lot of backlinks.
[118:33] Great content = linkable content. End of lesson.
[118:37] No, I'm just kidding.
[118:38] Great content doesn't always attract backlinks.
[118:41] There are a few more requirements
that need to be met.
[118:43] At its core, Linking is just a form of sharing.
[118:46] But just because a piece of content is "great",
this doesn't necessarily mean you will share
[118:50] it with others, right?
[118:52] Let's say you were struggling to tie your
tie and found a great video that solved
[118:55] this problem for you.
[118:56] Would you then go ahead and tweet it?
[118:58] I don't think so.
[119:00] Linking to that video is even more unlikely as it
requires a lot more effort than a simple tweet.
[119:05] And besides, in order to link to a piece of
content, you have to own some kind of web
[119:10] property where you can link from.
[119:12] Which the vast majority of people don't have.
[119:14] This is why link acquisition
is a hard nut to crack.
[119:17] If you want your article to attract backlinks,
you need to make your readers want to share
[119:22] it with others.
[119:22] Luckily, there has been a ton of research
along the lines of how word of mouth works"
[119:27] and what makes people want to share
something with their social circles.
[119:31] Generally, the things that people enjoy sharing
will fall into one of the four categories:
[119:36] Emotion, Utility, Numbers, and Stories.
[119:39] In the first group we have content
that will spark an emotion in you.
[119:42] For example, news will often take us by
surprise, make us angry or make us upset.
[119:47] In very rare cases, it may also cheer us up.
[119:50] And once you feel that emotion, you
naturally want to share it with others.
[119:54] Humans are social creatures and we tend to
pass our emotions on to each other, rather
[119:59] than keeping them inside.
[120:01] The second group is all about utility.
[120:03] If we discover something particularly useful,
we'll be inclined to share it with others.
[120:08] This is a way to earn the so-called "social currency."
[120:11] If you provide value to the society by helping them
solve their problems, the society will love you back.
[120:16] The third group is all about numbers.
[120:19] Numbers help us make a point and
add credibility to what we say.
[120:22] That's why we like to reference
research to solidify our argument.
[120:26] And finally, stories.
[120:28] We love them because they're easy to relate to.
[120:30] It's one thing to read some general
advice on how to lose weight.
[120:33] But it's a totally different thing to read
a real story of how someone has lost weight,
[120:38] and learn from their first-hand experience.
[120:40] So these are the four general types of content
that people like to share and some basic
[120:45] psychology behind them.
[120:46] At this point I have to disclose that I don't
have a Phd in Psychology and the advice
[120:51] I just gave you is quite basic.
[120:53] But it should be enough to get
you thinking in the right direction.
[120:56] And should you decide to go beyond that advice
(which I actually suggest you do) there's a great
[121:01] book that I can't recommend enough.
[121:03] Contagious by Jonah Berger - an absolute
must-read for any content marketer out there.
[121:08] So that was the theory.
[121:10] Now, how about some practical tips?
[121:12] I just gave you four types of content that should
attract backlinks, but how do you know which
[121:16] type will work best in your specific industry?
[121:19] You may decide to test everything
and see what sticks.
[121:21] But usually, you don't need to do this.
[121:24] Why?
[121:24] Because chances are your competitors
have already done the hard work for you.
[121:28] All you need to do is analyze their content and
find out what brought them the most backlinks.
[121:33] Let me show you how it's done
using Ahrefs Blog as an example.
[121:37] I'll copy our blog URL and
put it into Site Explorer.
[121:40] The report I need is called "Best by links."
[121:43] This report will give me a list of all articles
at Ahrefs blog ordered by the number of links
[121:47] that they have.
[121:48] By looking at this report I can see that six of our
top 10 most linked articles are research studies.
[121:54] Which means that in our industry people
prefer to link to data-driven posts.
[121:58] The most successful among our research
studies is the one that gives a numeric
[122:02] answer to an extremely popular SEO question:
"How long does it take to rank in Google"
[122:07] This study has links from almost 500 websites.
[122:10] What about the other four of our
top 10 most linked articles?
[122:14] These ones fall under "Utility" group:
[122:17] A guide to keyword research, a guide to link
building, a guide to outreach, and a collection
[122:21] of actionable SEO tips.
[122:23] These are very detailed and very actionable guides
that teach people different aspects of SEO.
[122:28] And because of their utility they
brought quite a few links to our blog.
[122:32] This is how you analyze what tends
to attract backlinks in your industry
[122:35] by studying your competitors.
[122:37] Just plug their site into Ahrefs Site Explorer,
go to Best by links report and look for patterns.
[122:43] Go try it now!
[122:44] I'm sure you'll get a ton of ideas for link-
worthy content in less than five minutes.
[122:49] And this wraps up the section
on creating link-worthy content.
[122:52] I guess you won't be surprised if I say that
we have covered this topic at Ahrefs Blog.
[122:56] The article is called "Deconstructing Linkbait"
and I highly recommend you to check it out
[123:01] for some additional insights.
[123:02] But don't let the terminology fool you.
[123:05] Linkbait, linkable assets, link worthy content -
these things sound like they generate backlinks
[123:10] out of the thin air.
[123:12] Which is obviously not true.
[123:13] If you want your content to get links, you
need to get some eyeballs on it first.
[123:18] Because people cannot link to
things that they don't know exist!
[123:21] In other words, even link-worthy articles
require a ton of promotion in order to get links.
[123:27] And before I give you a list of the best content
promotion strategies, here's one "secret"
[123:32] to acquiring backlinks that 
marketers rarely talk about.
[123:38] Part 3. The rarely mentioned
"secret" to acquiring backlinks
[123:41] I hope you've noticed that I'm using the
quotation marks around the word "secret."
[123:45] That's because it's not really a secret that
someone would be purposefully hiding from you.
[123:50] It is rather an "unsexy" topic that marketing
experts are unable to pitch to their audience.
[123:55] And you're about to learn why.
[123:57] Let's look at another poll that
I did at our Facebook group.
[124:00] I asked what percentage of backlinks our customers
were proactively building, as opposed to acquiring
[124:06] them naturally.
[124:07] And over ~30% of responders said that the
majority of their backlinks come naturally.
[124:13] But let's define the term "natural backlink."
[124:16] The definitions may vary from person to person,
but in my opinion, a backlink can be called "natural"
[124:21] if you didn't make any effort to connect
with the linking website or any person
[124:26] associated with it.
[124:27] Let's say you sent someone a personal outreach
email with a heads up about your article.
[124:32] You didn't ask for a link directly, but they
have linked to your article anyways.
[124:36] According to my definition - 
that's not a natural backlink.
[124:40] You made a targeted effort towards acquiring
a link from that specific website, so that link
[124:46] is considered manually built.
[124:47] But let's say you tweeted your newly published
article, and one of your Twitter followers
[124:52] linked to it from their website.
[124:54] In that case, it is a perfectly natural link.
[124:56] This time you didn't direct your efforts towards
that specific person and their specific website.
[125:02] This was a broadcast message
to your entire Twitter following.
[125:06] And we have arrived to that link acquisition
"secret" that I wanted to share with you.
[125:11] You can aquire tons of natural backlinks by
broadcasting your content to a big audience
[125:16] of your fans.
[125:17] Here at Ahrefs we only build around
20% of our backlinks manually.
[125:21] While 80% of the come naturally as a result of
broadcasting our content to a large audience
[125:27] of people.
[125:28] We have an email list of nearly
50,000 blog subscribers.
[125:31] We have built-in notifications in our
software which is used by tens of
[125:35] thousands of people daily.
[125:37] And we have a decent following
on Twitter and Facebook.
[125:40] These three channels alone allow us to reach
a rather substantial number of people without
[125:45] spending a single dollar.
[125:46] And then there's also paid reach.
[125:48] For every article that we publish we have a decent
advertising budget, that we can use to reach
[125:54] relevant people on different platforms:
Facebook, Twitter, Quora, LinkedIn,
[125:57] Pinterest, Instagram, etc.
[125:59] The more money we pour into our ads,
the more people we're going to reach.
[126:03] So with every article that we publish at Ahrefs
Blog we can easily reach a relatively large
[126:08] amount of people.
[126:09] And if your article is link-worthy, some
of these people will naturally link to it.
[126:14] That is how almost every article that we publish
ends up in Google top 10 without any manual
[126:19] link building done by our marketing team.
[126:22] That is the "unsexy" secret to acquiring backlinks.
[126:26] Big audience of fans plus
a solid advertising budget.
[126:29] I'm sure now you see why I called it "unsexy."
[126:32] Because most people don't have a big audience
of fans or any budget for content promotion.
[126:38] Well, I've been there too back when I was
running my personal blog and bootstrapping
[126:42] my own projects.
[126:43] And back in those days my link building was
exactly the opposite of what it is today at Ahrefs.
[126:48] I was building 80% of all my backlinks manually,
and only about 20% of them came naturally.
[126:55] That was tedious as hell.
[126:57] So if you're only starting out with your
blog, I have some bad news for you.
[127:02] Up until you grow a large audience to broadcast
your newly published content to, or allocate
[127:07] some money to pour into ads, you'll have
to build most of your backlinks manually.
[127:12] The takeaway: start building your
audience as soon as possible.
[127:16] The sooner you build a large audience of people
who you can easily reach with your newly published
[127:20] content - the sooner you can let go of all
of those tedious link building tactics.
[127:25] Speaking of which.
[127:26] The topic of our next lesson is content promotion.
[127:29] Sounds good? Then I'll see you in the next lesson!
[127:34] Welcome to the lesson #8. How to promote
your content and make it rank high in Google.
[127:39] Here's what we're going to cover in this lesson.
[127:42] Four common content promotion mistakes.
[127:44] The best content promotion strategies.
[127:46] And how to compete with the "big
guys" in Google's search results.
[127:50] So let's go!
[127:51] Part 1. Four common content promotion mistakes
[127:54] Let me ask you a question: what goal do you
have in mind when promoting your content?
[127:59] For the vast majority of people the goal of
content promotion is to get as much traffic
[128:03] as possible to their newly published article.
[128:05] And they are super happy and satisfied if
they manage to beat the traffic record of
[128:09] a previously published one.
[128:11] That sounds like a great goal to pursue,
which aligns perfectly with the goal of
[128:15] growing your blog and your business, right?
[128:17] Well... no.
[128:18] If your only goal with content promotion is
generate short-term traffic, I suggest you
[128:23] to go back and watch this course again,
starting from the very first lesson.
[128:28] Because by focusing on short-term traffic
you're focusing on the "Spike of hope",
[128:32] which as we have discussed in those first
lessons will eventually fade to nothing anyway,
[128:37] taking you back to where you started.
[128:39] If you want your blog to grow - you need to focus
your efforts on building passive consistent traffic.
[128:44] Which you get by pushing your articles
to the top of Google search results!
[128:48] And that is pretty hard to do, I must say.
[128:50] Guess how many articles reach the front page
of Google in a year after being published?
[128:55] 5.7%!!!
[128:57] And by "reach the front page of Google" I mean
ranking for at least a single related keyword,
[129:02] not even the main topic that they're targeting.
[129:04] This percentage comes from a study
that we carried out last year.
[129:07] We tracked the performance of 2 million newly
published pages and it turned out that only 5.7%
[129:14] of them were seen in Google top 10 for at least a 
single keyword within a year from being published.
[129:19] This means that a staggering 94.3% of all
newly published pages never reach the front
[129:25] page of Google and never get 
any search traffic at all.
[129:28] Can you guess why?
[129:30] That's because most people prefer to rely
on the "Publish & Pray" approach and hope
[129:34] that their pages will rank 
in Google by themselves.
[129:37] Which obviously never happens.
[129:39] In the previous lesson we have discussed that your
website cannot rank in Google without backlinks.
[129:44] Which leads us to the conclusion that the
primary goal of content promotion should
[129:48] be to build quality backlinks to your content,
so that it will start ranking in Google.
[129:53] And this brings us to the first
mistake of content promotion.
[129:57] Mistake #1: Focusing on
short-term traffic over backlinks.
[130:01] But wait a minute, didn't I say in the previous
lesson that the articles at Ahrefs Blog aquire
[130:06] 80% of their backlinks naturally as a result
of generating traffic to them and expecting
[130:11] some of these people to link to us?
[130:13] Which means that "generating traffic"
basically equals "acquiring backlinks".
[130:18] So how come I am now saying
that you should not focus on traffic?
[130:21] Well, the thing is this equation is only true for
big and established blogs and won't really work
[130:27] for those who are just starting out.
[130:28] Let me give you three reasons why.
[130:31] Reason #1: Only a tiny percentage
of all your visitors will link to you.
[130:35] From my personal experience, acquiring one
natural backlink for every thousand visitors
[130:40] is a pretty good result.
[130:42] So if you want to get just 10 natural links
to your article, you should aim for at least
[130:47] 10,000 visitors to that specific article.
[130:49] If that math doesn't scare you - go for it.
[130:52] But for most newbie bloggers 10,000 visitors
to a single article is far from achievable.
[130:58] Reason #2: People tend to link to
websites that they know and trust.
[131:02] This explains why Wikipedia has a ridiculous
amount of backlinks and their articles are
[131:07] super-hard to outrank.
[131:08] Most people would prefer to link to a Wikipedia
article over a similar post on a blog that they've
[131:14] never heard of before.
[131:15] No one wants to risk sending their readers
to some questionable website, right?
[131:19] That's why brand new blogs struggle
to acquire links naturally.
[131:23] And finally, reason #3: Most people
don't have a website to link from.
[131:28] It's easy for me to talk about acquiring natural
links while Ahrefs blog belongs to the internet
[131:33] marketing niche where almost
everyone owns a website.
[131:36] Usually even more than one.
[131:38] But in many other industries that is not the case.
[131:41] Which makes natural link
acquisition nearly impossible.
[131:44] So as you can tell, turning traffic into natural
backlinks is the kind of luxury that is only
[131:49] available to well-known established websites
and the success largely depends on the type
[131:54] of industry you're in.
[131:56] If you're not in the fortunate position of being
a well-known and established website,
[132:00] I'm afraid you'll have to
manually build your backlinks,
[132:03] rather than wait for them to come naturally.
[132:05] And I'm about to share quite a few actionable
link building strategies with you.
[132:09] But not before we discuss three
more mistakes of content promotion.
[132:13] Mistake #2: Giving up content promotion too early.
[132:17] Most bloggers have a so-called "content promotion
checklist" that they reference when promoting
[132:21] every new article that they publish.
[132:23] It usually looks like this.
[132:24] Send a newsletter to email subscribers.
[132:26] Post on social networks (Twitter,
Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc).
[132:30] Submit to Reddit and any relevant
forums and communities;
[132:33] Reach out to everyone, who was
mentioned in the article, etc.
[132:36] Some bloggers have more items
on their checklist than others.
[132:39] But as soon as that list is completed, they
forget about that article and move to a new one.
[132:44] And that is a big mistake!
[132:45] You should not quit promoting your article
just because you're out of the items in your
[132:50] content promotion checklist,
no matter how big that list is.
[132:54] Your goal is to rank high in Google and get
passive search traffic to your article, remember?
[132:59] So your content promotion should
not stop until you reach that goal.
[133:03] There's a rather famous piece of advice, which
suggests that you should put 20% of your efforts
[133:08] into creating content and 80% of
your efforts into promoting it.
[133:12] These numbers are meant to illustrate that
content promotion is uber-important.
[133:16] And while I totally dig what the author of
that advice was trying to say, I actually
[133:20] think that it is a very misleading analogy.
[133:23] So I invented my own rule.
[133:25] It's called the 110/110 rule.
[133:28] And it means that you should 
go an extra mile in both:
[133:32] creating an absolutely outstanding piece
of content that your readers will love;
[133:36] and promoting it super-hard and not quitting
until it reaches the top positions in Google.
[133:41] So why don't you do a bit of research and
throw a few more items into your content
[133:45] promotion checklist?
[133:46] Luckily, there's no shortage of different
tactics that you can use, just Google around
[133:50] a bit and you'll find a ton of ideas.
[133:53] Let me add just a few more 
items for you to consider.
[133:55] Submit your article to relevant 
groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.;
[133:59] Mention it in relevant conversations
on public Slack channels;
[134:02] Repurpose your content into different formats
(video, audio, slides, images) and syndicate it
[134:07] to proper websites with a link to the original;
[134:10] Reach out to everyone who has linked
linked to articles on the same topic;
[134:13] Reach out to everyone who has published 
articles mentioning that topic;
[134:17] Publish a guest post that references that
article and make people want to check it out.
[134:21] And here's something very important.
[134:23] Most of these strategies can only be used
once, but some of them can be scaled
[134:28] almost indefinitely.
[134:29] Like guest posting.
[134:30] What stops you from publishing more and more
guest posts that each link to your article,
[134:35] thus helping it to crawl up the Google rankings?
[134:37] Same with outreach, it scales rather well
and it's a great way to get quality backlinks.
[134:42] We're going to cover both
of these strategies later.
[134:45] And now, mistake #3: Abandoning your old content
[134:49] Imagine the following situation.
[134:51] A year ago you have published a great article.
[134:53] You promoted it a lot and got some nice
backlinks that helped it to rank in Google
[134:57] top 5 for it's main keyword.
[134:59] Ranking in top 5 is a very good result,
so you decided that your job here is done
[135:04] and moved on to creating new content,
never bothering to revisit that article again.
[135:08] That doesn't sound like a bad scenario, right?
[135:11] Well, first of all, why would you settle with
any Google position but the very first one?
[135:16] I mean, if that article brings customers to
your business, you want it to get as much
[135:20] relevant search traffic as possible, right?
[135:22] And besides, if the search query that you're
targeting has some good business value,
[135:27] you can be sure that sooner or later your
competitors will try to outrank you with
[135:31] their own articles.
[135:32] In other words, abandoning
your content is a no-no.
[135:36] But what are your options?
[135:37] You cannot just keep promoting the same article
with the same content promotion strategies,
[135:42] because you're only going
to irritate people this way.
[135:44] Well, there's a loophole that you can use.
[135:47] After your article has been live for a few
months, you should re-visit it and find ways
[135:51] to make it better.
[135:52] And once you update your article - you can
re-promote it again with the same content
[135:56] promotion strategies as if it was brand new.
[135:59] Here at Ahrefs we only spend half of our
time and efforts on creating new content.
[136:04] The other half goes into updating old content.
[136:07] Here's why we do that.
[136:09] First of all, if the article gets traffic from
Google we want to make sure that our
[136:13] visitors are getting the most up-to-date
information on that topic.
[136:16] Letting our articles age results
in a bad user experience.
[136:20] Secondly, the mere act of updating your
article with fresh information sends
[136:24] a positive signal to Google and often
leads to better rankings on its own.
[136:28] And finally, in most cases our
updates are quite substantial.
[136:32] We often re-write the entire article from the
scratch which then It allows us to promote
[136:37] it to our audience again as if it was brand new.
[136:39] In fact, when we email our blog subscribers
with a link to an updated article, we do disclose
[136:45] that it's not entirely new.
[136:46] And so far there hasn't been
a single complaint about this.
[136:49] In fact, we've found the opposite.
[136:51] The spike of traffic that we get from
promoting an updated article is almost
[136:55] always bigger than when it was first published.
[136:58] Our "SEO tips" article is probably
the best example I have.
[137:01] We re-launched it three times in two years,
each time generating more and more traffic.
[137:06] You bet we're going to continue
updating and re-launching it in future.
[137:10] And there's one last content
promotion mistake left to discuss.
[137:13] Mistake #4: Not spending 
money on content promotion.
[137:17] As you already know, We have a decent
advertising budget for every article that
[137:21] we publish at Ahrefs blog.
[137:23] This allows us to reach a huge number of people
that we wouldn't be able to reach otherwise.
[137:27] But whenever I mention that to other bloggers,
most of them tell me that they can't afford
[137:32] to spend money on content promotion.
[137:34] Well, in psychology they
call this a Limiting Belief.
[137:38] The truth is - you can afford to
spend money on content promotion.
[137:42] You just fail to justify it.
[137:44] So let me try to help you with that.
[137:46] I have two good arguments,
that should do the job.
[137:48] Argument #1: The "free content
promotion methods" are not free.
[137:53] So how much time does it take you
to promote a new piece of content?
[137:56] One hour? Five hours? Ten?
[137:58] And your time is worth something, right?
[138:00] So why don't you multiply your estimated hourly
rate by the time it took you to complete all
[138:05] items in your content promotion checklist?
[138:07] This way you're going to get the cost of what you
think are your "free" content promotion methods.
[138:13] And now that you know the price tag, why don't
you add 10% to that sum and use that money
[138:18] to run a Facebook ads campaign?
[138:19] Think of it as an additional item in your
"free content promotion methods" checklist,
[138:24] but this time you're paying with your money
instead of paying with your time.
[138:28] And you might actually discover that putting
your money into Facebook ads has a much better
[138:32] ROI than putting your time into
some of these other free strategies.
[138:37] Argument #2: Your content 
should sell your product.
[138:40] The best way to justify spending money on
content promotion is by getting this money
[138:45] back in a form of sales or customers.
[138:47] If an article doesn't bring new customers
to your business - I can understand why
[138:52] you don't want to spend money on it.
[138:54] But why did you spend your
time promoting it then?
[138:56] And, in fact, if an article doesn't help you
to get new customers, why did you even
[139:01] create it in the first place?
[139:03] Do you see where I'm going with that?
[139:05] Paid content promotion is a litmus test for
the business potential of your content.
[139:09] Here at Ahrefs we're not afraid to pour money
into content promotion, because we know that
[139:14] our content converts.
[139:15] Check out this tweet I saw the other day:
[139:18] "Excellent content on long-tail keywords.
[139:20] It also resulted in me
signing up for a free trial.
[139:23] Great work @ahrefs :)"
[139:24] And a few weeks later Thomas also
tweeted that he became our paid customer.
[139:28] Which is a perfect illustration of how our
blog brings new customers to our business.
[139:32] And this wraps up the four mistakes of content
promotion that I wanted to warn you about.
[139:37] Here's a quick refresher.
[139:39] Mistake #1: Focusing on short-term
traffic over backlinks.
[139:43] Mistake #2: Giving up content
promotion too early.
[139:46] Mistake #3: Abandoning your old content.
[139:49] Mistake #4: Not spending 
money on content promotion.
[139:53] And now it's time to review
the actual content promotion strategies.
[139:59] Part #2. The best content promotion strategies
[140:02] I'm sure you have researched the topic of
content promotion before and have seen
[140:05] a ton of tactics, strategies and
even so-called "growth hacks."
[140:09] And just when you think you've learned it all,
you stumble on a new case study showing you
[140:13] how someone has generated a bazillion visits
to their blog with a brand new amazing tactic.
[140:18] Sounds familiar?
[140:19] Well, you're not going to get
any of that in my course.
[140:22] First of all, it is very important to understand
that there's no tactic or strategy that will make
[140:27] an awful piece of content popular.
[140:29] The quality of your content always comes first!
[140:32] And secondly, if your content is objectively
awesome, it will promote itself.
[140:36] Which is something that we have covered earlier
in this course and I showed you qute a few
[140:41] examples from our own blog.
[140:42] So instead of pitching you some super-smart-
secret-ninja-killer content promotion tactics
[140:48] that will make you a superstar by tomorrow,
I'm only going to briefly review a short list of
[140:53] the most popular content promotion
strategies and explain what they're good for.
[140:57] In fact, most content promotion strategies
can be organized in just six categories.
[141:02] Reaching your existing audience.
[141:04] Reaching relevant communities.
[141:06] Content repurposing and syndication.
[141:08] Guest blogging.
[141:09] Outreach.
[141:09] And paid promotion.
[141:11] Let's review them one by one.
[141:12] #1 Reaching your existing audience.
[141:15] Generally, you do that by sending an email
newsletter to your blog subscribers and posting
[141:20] a link to your newly published article on
Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest and
[141:24] any other social network where
you have some following.
[141:27] But if you're only starting out, your email
list is super-small and you don't have a lot
[141:31] of followers on these social networks.
[141:33] Which means you cannot expect any traffic and
backlinks to magically appear out of nowhere.
[141:38] So it does make sense to start building
your audience as early as you can!
[141:43] If you invest time and effort into building
your email list and your social following,
[141:47] they will later become your most
effective content promotion methods.
[141:51] #2 Reaching relevant communities.
[141:53] You can do that by submitting your article to
relevant groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
[141:58] You can also submit it to a proper
subreddit or any other relevant forums.
[142:02] And finally, there's a new trend for creating
Slack channels in different industries.
[142:06] So you can join those and
plug your articles there.
[142:09] In theory, that sounds like
a holy grail of traffic.
[142:12] But once you actually try it,
the harsh reality will kick in.
[142:15] The thing is most of these
communities hate self promotion.
[142:19] You might get away with mentioning
your article once or twice.
[142:22] But if you overdo it, you'll almost
certain be banned.
[142:25] So instead of joining a hundred communities
with a single goal to spam them with your content,
[142:30] I'd suggest you to pick 5 or 10 of the very best
ones and become an active member there.
[142:35] Once the moderators notice that you consistently
provide value to the community, they will pretend
[142:40] they don't notice that you plug
your own articles now and then.
[142:43] And besides, if you make enough friends within
each community, they will start plugging your
[142:48] articles into conversations without
you having to do that yourself.
[142:52] #3 Content repurposing and syndication.
[142:55] It's not too hard to repurpose your content
into different formats (audio, video, slides,
[142:59] images, etc.) and then submit
it to appropriate platforms.
[143:03] Even if no one will ever find your content
there, you still get a bunch of nice backlinks
[143:08] to your article, right?
[143:09] And besides, if the original content is awesome,
why should the repurposed version be doomed
[143:14] to oblivion?
[143:15] Back in 2016 we have published a cool tutorial
teaching people how to do SEO audit.
[143:20] To this date, that article has
generated over 60,000 visits.
[143:24] But guess what, we also created a short
15-minute walkthrough based on that very
[143:28] article and published it on YouTube.
[143:30] That video has generated 10 times more views
than the article - that's over 600,000 views.
[143:37] In fact, a lot of the traffic to our article
was actually generated by this video.
[143:42] It ranks #1 in YouTube for the keyword "seo
audit" and keeps generating more views and
[143:46] more traffic to our blog every day.
[143:48] I've also seen similar results from repurposing
your content into a slideshare presentation.
[143:53] And you might also consider repurposing the
best articles from your blog into a podcast.
[143:58] In other words, you should try a few of these
formats and see what works best for you.
[144:02] #4 Guest blogging.
[144:04] I don't think I need to explain
guest blogging to you, right?
[144:07] In my opinion, it is one of the best ways to
get high-quality backlinks and sometimes
[144:11] even a bit of nice referral traffic to your blog.
[144:13] I won't expand on this topic right now, as
we're about to have a full section on guest
[144:18] blogging in the very next lesson.
[144:20] If you have a hard time getting published
on other blogs, you can try answering relevant
[144:24] questions on Quora or any other
Q&A sites that exist in your niche.
[144:28] Or you can simply leave comments on
other blogs, referencing your own articles.
[144:33] Most bloggers hate to see comments with links,
but if the comment is genuine and the article
[144:38] you're referencing is awesome -
they might let it slide.
[144:40] Other than that, you can also
try to get cited by journalists.
[144:44] There's a nice service for that,
called Help A Reporter Out.
[144:46] And we have a nice case study
about it on Ahrefs Blog.
[144:49] And finally, if you have already achieved some
notable results in your industry you can try
[144:54] pitching yourself to podcasts and interviews.
[144:56] which often leads to quality links and
referral traffic with little time-commitment.
[145:00] #5 Outreach.
[145:02] This strategy is an absolute must.
[145:04] If you don't have outreach in your content
promotion checklist, you're seriously missing out.
[145:09] The basic rule of thumb is to send personal
heads up to everyone who was mentioned
[145:13] or referenced in your article.
[145:15] But don't ask them for links or tweets, it's your
content that should be the motivator, not you.
[145:20] An entirely different strategy is to reach out to
everyone who has linked to similar content.
[145:25] Or who has mentioned similar
topics in their own articles.
[145:29] These are very powerful outreach methods,
which deserve special attention.
[145:33] So the last lesson of this course
is fully dedicated to outreach.
[145:36] And we have one last group left.
[145:38] #6 Paid promotion.
[145:41] As discussed previously, paid promotion is
an absoute must if you consider your blog
[145:45] a business tool, not a hobby.
[145:47] Almost every major social network has their
own Ad platform - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin,
[145:52] Pinterest, you name it.
[145:54] I'm sure you're also well aware of
Google's own advertising options.
[145:57] These things are quite obvious, right?
[145:59] A somewhat uncommon advertising
option is a paid email newsletter.
[146:03] In our own niche of digital marketing quite a
few websites offer this service, but the price
[146:09] per visitor is always way higher compared
to Facebook Ads or even Google Ads.
[146:13] So we have never paid to be included
in someone's email newsletter.
[146:16] And that wraps up my review of the most
common content promotion strategies.
[146:21] I hope that now you have a much clearer picture
of how to promote your next piece of content.
[146:26] Or re-launch the old one.
[146:30] Part #3. How to compete with the "big
guys" in Google search results
[146:34] Whatever industry you're in, the best search
queries are most likely "taken" by someone already.
[146:40] And that "someone" is usually a big established
website that is better than you in every possible way.
[146:46] They have a strong brand,
full of credibility and trust.
[146:49] They have a lot of resources
for creating amazing content.
[146:52] They have a big loyal audience to whom they
can promote their content and get links from.
[146:56] They have a huge advertising budget
to reach insane amounts of people.
[147:00] And to make matters worse, they already rank
at the top of Google for all those juicy keywords
[147:06] that you wish to rank for.
[147:08] Which means that they get highly-relevant
consistent traffic to their pages every
[147:13] single month.
[147:14] Which means that some of these people
will end up linking to these pages.
[147:18] The mere fact that it ranks #1 in Google
makes their page worthy of a link.
[147:23] And then a consistent flow of new backlinks
will obviously strengthen the leading position
[147:28] of their pages in Google search results.
[147:31] That is a very discouraging cycle, right?
[147:33] I call it the "Vicious Cycle of SEO"
[147:36] Take any page that ranks in Google top 3 for
a popular keyword and put it into Ahrefs Site
[147:41] Explorer tool.
[147:42] Like this guide to keyword research from Moz.
[147:45] Does it get a bunch of new backlinks every
week because they actively promote it?
[147:49] Of course not!
[147:50] It gets all these new links on complete autopilot!
[147:53] It ranks high in Google and therefore has
a consistent flow of targeted visitors, many
[147:59] of whom will link to it afterwards.
[148:00] As you can see from the graph in Ahrefs,
the pace at which this article acquires new
[148:05] backlinks is quite high.
[148:06] It would be almost impossible to keep up with them
if you were building all your backlinks manually.
[148:12] So how do you break into this Vicious Cycle
of SEO and outrank those big guys?
[148:17] Well, I'm afraid there's no way to do that.
[148:19] Unless of course you're able to create a vastly
better piece of content and you have enough
[148:24] resources to reach a comparable
amount of people with it.
[148:27] This is the only way you stand a chance at
building a comparable amount of backlinks
[148:32] in a relatively short timeframe.
[148:34] So the only advice I have for you is this.
[148:37] Don't go after "big" keywords until you grow
a big enough audience and accumulate
[148:42] enough resources to effectively wrestle
with whoever currently ranks at the top.
[148:47] And besides, there's absolutely no reason
to target highly-competitive search terms,
[148:52] while there are tons of untapped opportunities
to easily grow your search traffic.
[148:56] In the previous lessons of this course I have
shared quite a few great tips and strategies
[149:01] on how to discover low-hanging content ideas
that would bring you a ton of search traffic
[149:06] with minimum effort.
[149:07] But "minimum effort" doesn't 
mean "no effort at all".
[149:10] Even those low-hanging content ideas will require
some backlinks to get to the top of Google
[149:16] and bring you the search traffic.
[149:17] And, as we have previously discussed, you cannot
just sit and wait for backlinks to come naturally.
[149:22] You need to build them manually.
[149:25] And that is exacly what we're going to cover
in the very next lesson of this course.
[149:29] Sounds good? Then I'll see you in Lesson #9.
[149:34] Welcome to the lesson #9. How to
build backlinks to your blog content
[149:38] Here's what we're going to cover in this lesson:
[149:40] The best link building strategies for blogs.
[149:43] How to get backlink ideas from your competitors.
[149:45] How to build links via guest blogging.
[149:47] And finally, a few simple guest blogging
"hacks" for better results in less time.
[149:52] So let's go!
[149:53] Part #1. The best link
building strategies for blogs
[149:56] The word "best" in the title of this section
means that I'm not going to cover every
[150:00] link building strategy there is.
[150:02] Because there's just too many.
[150:04] So I'm only going to share a few of the most
effective ways one could build links to their
[150:09] blog articles.
[150:10] Based on my personal experience.
[150:11] But before I give you my shortlist, here's a quick
refresher of what we've discussed so far:
[150:16] You're unlikely to outrank the top 10 ranking
pages for your target keyword, without at least
[150:21] as many good backlinks as they
have pointing to your own page.
[150:25] Popular blogs tend to get natural backlinks
simply by broadcasting their content to a large
[150:30] audience of fans and expecting
some of them to link to it.
[150:34] The pages that rank high in Google tend
to get natural backlinks on autopilot.
[150:38] I call this a "Vicious Cycle of SEO."
[150:41] And, finally, if you're just starting out, you
should not wait for links to come naturally.
[150:45] You have to manually build them.
[150:47] Which you can do with these four strategies:
[150:50] Leaving comments;
[150:51] Replicating your competitors' backlinks;
[150:53] Guest blogging;
[150:54] And outreach.
[150:55] Let me expand on each of them.
[150:57] Strategy #1. Leaving comments.
[150:59] You're probably rolling your eyes right now.
[151:02] But no, I'm not living in 2010.
[151:04] I do actually think that this is a great strategy
to kickstart your link building efforts and help
[151:09] spread the word about your content.
[151:11] Notice that I didn't say "blog comments"
but comments in general.
[151:15] That's because blogs aren't the only place where
you can leave comments with links to your articles.
[151:19] We also have niche forums, online communities,
Q&A sites, and even YouTube videos.
[151:25] For example, in our own niche (which is SEO)
Reddit and Quora are rather popular places
[151:30] where people exchange opinions
and link to relevant content.
[151:33] I have quite a solid comment history on both
of these sites, so you know I'm advocating
[151:37] something that I'm actually doing myself.
[151:39] But if you take a closer look at my comments
on Reddit you'll see that only a few of them
[151:44] have links to our blog articles.
[151:46] Reddit hates spammers and if you only post
there to drop links - you're going to get banned.
[151:51] But if you take time to consistently provide value
to the community - no one will have a problem
[151:56] with you linking to your own
content now and then.
[151:58] Which is exactly what I do there.
[152:00] Quora is a bit different in that sense.
[152:02] I have left well over 100 answers there and
most of them have links to my articles.
[152:07] But that's not because Quora is
suffering from a lack of moderation.
[152:11] Trust me, they're very strict with spammers too.
[152:14] But do my comments on Quora look like spam?
[152:16] Each one is unique, well formatted and above
all provides a ton of value to the conversation,
[152:22] before asking readers to click on
my link for some extra details.
[152:25] And even though I haven't been active on Quora
for quite a while, my answers still get thousands
[152:30] of views every single month, which results
in some nice referral traffic to my content.
[152:35] So I highly recommend that you find a few
popular communities in your own niche and
[152:39] start actively engaging in them.
[152:41] But what if you struggle to find any relevant
online communities in your niche?
[152:45] Well, you can still leave comments
on blog articles, right?
[152:48] As a fellow blogger, I'm sure you know how
great it is to get smart insightful comments
[152:52] on something you just published.
[152:53] But on the other hand, no one wants to get
comments from people who're only looking
[152:58] to promote their own stuff.
[152:59] So my advice with leaving comments on relevant
blogs in your industry is not much different
[153:04] from what I just said about community sites
- it only works if you add the actual value
[153:08] to the conversation.
[153:10] And now it's time to acknowledge
the elephant in the room.
[153:13] In 99% of cases the comments that you
will post online will have nofollow links.
[153:18] And since nofollow attribute means that the link
doesn't pass any SEO value to your website -
[153:23] why even bother?
[153:24] Two words: "Side benefits."
[153:27] Look at the two of my latest answers on Quora.
[153:29] One has 800 views and the other 8,000 views.
[153:33] And because both comments have links to articles
from Ahrefs Blog, I'm sure we got some nice referral
[153:38] traffic from them.
[153:39] And I have zero doubts that many people who
visited Ahrefs Blog after reading my comments
[153:44] on Quora ended up becoming our regular readers.
[153:47] And as you already know, the bigger your
audience of fans gets the more links you're
[153:51] going to acquire naturally, as a byproduct
of broadcasting your content to them.
[153:56] So did these links from my Quora answers
helps my articles to rank better in Google?
[154:00] I don't think so.
[154:02] But did my comments on Quora help me
reach a lot of people with my content,
[154:05] convert them into fans, and get some
natural links from them afterwards?
[154:09] Absolutely!
[154:10] Leaving comments on relevant
blogs has a ton of side benefits too!
[154:14] Check out the story of Ryan Stewart that he
shared in his guest article at Ahrefs Blog.
[154:18] Ryan posted a very insightful comment
on Robbie Richards' personal blog.
[154:22] And at the end of the comment, he
linked to an article on his own blog.
[154:26] Not only did Robbie not delete that self-promotional
comment but he actually tweeted Ryan's article.
[154:32] But there's more.
[154:33] Later on he invited Ryan to participate in
an "expert roundup" that was published at
[154:37] his personal blog.
[154:38] Which means that Ryan got a perfectly legit
dofollow link from a perfectly legit relevant blog.
[154:44] In other words, one simple comment with a nofollow
link set off a chain reaction of valuable events:
[154:50] referral traffic from a blog comment;
a tweet from the blog owner;
[154:53] a dofollow link from that blog; some
more referral traffic from that link, etc.
[154:58] Not bad for a simple blog comment!
[155:00] You bet, Ryan!
[155:01] I hope that was a vivid enough example to
persuade you that leaving comments online
[155:05] is not some kind of spammy old-school way
to promote your content, which does more
[155:09] harm than good.
[155:10] I honestly believe that leaving comments on
relevant blogs & communities is the best way
[155:14] to kickstart your link building efforts, put your
name out there and start making valuable
[155:19] connections with prominent people in your niche.
[155:21] But make sure you go after quality, not quantity.
[155:25] And that was the first link
building strategy in my list.
[155:27] What about the other three?
[155:29] Well, we're about to cover two
more in this very lesson:
[155:32] Replicating your competitors'
backlinks and Guest blogging.
[155:35] And as for Outreach, I decided that this
strategy requires a lesson of it's own.
[155:39] So we'll cover it in the next
lesson of this course.
[155:42] Which is the last one.
[155:43] And now let's talk about replicating your
competitors' backlinks, shall we?
[155:49] Part #2. How to get backlink
ideas from your competitors
[155:52] Analyzing your competitors' backlink profiles
can lead to a goldmine of link building
[155:57] opportunities, which you wouldn't
otherwise be able to discover.
[156:00] But some competitors have tens
of thousands of backlinks.
[156:04] So there's no way you can review them
all manually—it would take too long.
[156:08] For example, here at Ahrefs one of the
blogs we compete with for search traffic
[156:12] is Brian Dean's backlinko.com.
[156:14] We have quite an overlap in the keywords that
we're targeting with our articles, so it would
[156:18] make sense for us to learn which websites
link to backlinko.com so that we could pitch
[156:23] our own content to them.
[156:24] But if we put backlinko.com in Site Explorer, we'll
see that over 11,000 websites are linking to it.
[156:30] That's a lot of backlinks and we certainly don't
have time to manually review all of them.
[156:35] So how on earth do you analyze big backlink
profiles of your competitors without going crazy?
[156:40] Well, let me show you three great strategies
that will help you to quickly make sense of
[156:45] such a large dataset.
[156:46] Strategy #1. Find their "superfans."
[156:49] Let's continue with an example of backlinko.com
which is a competitor to Ahrefs blog.
[156:53] Brian Dean has published quite a few amazing
articles over the last few years and I know for
[156:58] sure that he has grown a big army of
fans who consistently link to his content.
[157:02] Wouldn't it be cool to know who they are?
[157:05] If someone is so eager to link to the content
of your competitor, they might be interested
[157:09] in your content too.
[157:10] So how do you find these superfans?
[157:11] You could try going to Referring domains
report, filtering by dofollow links only and then
[157:16] sorting the results by the number
of dofollow links from a domain.
[157:19] But because the web is full of trash, you're very
likely to see a ton of very strange websites there
[157:24] which don't look like websites where
you would care to be featured.
[157:27] So there's a better way!
[157:28] Go to the Best by links report
and set HTTP code filter to 200.
[157:32] This will give you a list of the pages on your
competitors' website that have generated
[157:36] the most backlinks.
[157:38] Now, take up to 10 of these pages and copy/
paste them into Ahrefs' Link Intersect tool.
[157:42] Make sure to strip the protocol from
each URL and use the Prefix setting.
[157:47] This will give better results.
[157:48] Let me do that with five of the most
linked-to articles at backlinko.com.
[157:52] After clicking Show link opportunities, I get
only 66 websites that have linked to all five
[157:57] articles of our competitor.
[157:58] If I start exploring those, most of them
would likely turn out to be legit websites
[158:03] worth getting a link from.
[158:04] And because they link to not one but all five
articles on a blog that we're competing with,
[158:08] there should be a very high chance
that we can get a link from them too.
[158:12] That's how we went from over 11,000 random
websites that link to our competitor to only 66
[158:17] that are worth our immediate attention.
[158:19] But the fun doesn't end there.
[158:21] Maybe some of these websites
have already linked to us?
[158:24] We have a cool setting for
that in Link Intersect tool.
[158:26] Just enter your own website there and all
sites that already link to you will be excluded
[158:31] from the results.
[158:32] So let's put in ahrefs.com and see how many
websites link to all five articles at backlinko.com
[158:37] but have never linked to any pages on ahrefs.com.
[158:40] And there's none except for ourselves.
[158:43] Which means that all their
"superfans" already know about us.
[158:46] But we're not finished yet.
[158:47] We can go back and change this
little setting from All to Any.
[158:51] This will expand our results by including
websites that link to any four of these articles,
[158:55] any three of these articles, any two of these
articles and even any single one of these articles.
[159:00] Let's see how that looks.
[159:01] And now we get 34 hundred results.
[159:04] These sites have linked to articles by our
competitor but have never linked to us.
[159:08] Which makes them perfect outreach targets.
[159:10] Clearly, there will be some trash here too but
many legit websites can be easily identified
[159:15] just by looking at their domain names alone:
[159:17] bestitpoint.com, ezmarketing.com,
ecomtuning.com, futurecontent.co.
[159:23] These four look good, and when I open them,
I can see that they're digital marketing agencies.
[159:27] Each of them has a blog from which they
were
linking to articles at backlinko.com.
[159:31] And because our content overlaps so much it
should not be too hard to connect with these
[159:36] guys and find a way to get featured on their blog.
[159:38] Now, 34 hundred websites is quite a lot to go
through, even if you're just quickly scanning
[159:43] them for good-looking domain
names, like I just did.
[159:46] But if we look at the intersect column, we'll
see that it drops to 1 as early as page #7.
[159:51] Which means that we have slightly over 300
websites that link to 2 or more articles by
[159:56] our competitor but have never linked to us.
[159:59] The rest of them only link to a single
article, so they're not really superfans.
[160:03] Now, 300 is a totally manageable number.
[160:05] You can scan through this amount of websites
in less than one hour and find quite a few good
[160:10] link opportunities.
[160:11] And then you can take five more articles from
the blog of your competitor and analyze them
[160:15] with link intersect.
[160:16] Then you can do this with some
other competitor of yours.
[160:19] Strategy #2. Find the "power linkers."
[160:22] I just showed you how to use Link Intersect tool
in Ahrefs to identify "superfans" who consistently
[160:27] link to articles of your competitor.
[160:29] But there's another cool
way to use Link Intersect.
[160:31] You can find websites that link to a few blogs
that you're competing with, but they have never
[160:36] linked to your own blog.
[160:37] Sounds good?
[160:38] So let me put five well-known blogs in our own
industry and see how many websites have linked
[160:43] to all five of them but
never linked to ahrefs.com.
[160:46] And we have over 200 results!
[160:48] Now, this is a real goldmine of
link building opportunities.
[160:51] All these websites have mentioned content
from all five of our competitors but have
[160:56] never linked to us.
[160:57] This has to be fixed!
[160:58] I'm sure if we send a personal outreach email
to all 200 site owners and introduce them
[161:03] to Ahrefs Blog, many of them
will end up linking to us.
[161:05] I know this for a fact, because we regularly
reach out to these kinds of sites.
[161:09] And once you're done with all websites in
that list you can repeat with five other blogs
[161:14] that you compete with.
[161:15] Or, you can play with that "All/Any" setting
to expand the list of results the same way
[161:19] we did when looking for "superfans."
[161:21] All in all, with the help of Link Intersect
tool in Ahrefs you should be able to discover
[161:25] a ton of great link opportunities
with just a few hours of work.
[161:28] And we have one last competitor
research strategy left to discuss.
[161:31] Strategy #3. Analyse their latest backlinks.
[161:35] While taking action on the previous two strategies
you should always pay attention to the date
[161:39] when each of the linking
websites was last updated.
[161:42] Chances are many of the websites who are
linking to your competitors probably did so
[161:46] quite a long time ago, but they're not
actively updating their website anymore.
[161:50] While there's still a chance to persuade
them to link to you, the likelihood drops
[161:54] rather significantly.
[161:55] So why don't you look at the most recently
acquired links of your competitors.
[161:58] In Ahrefs we have a report just for
that and it's called New Backlinks.
[162:02] So let's see who has linked to
backlinko.com in the last few days.
[162:05] I usually just skim through a list of backlinks
and look for domain names that look good.
[162:09] So here's one cool name that caught
my attention: marketingninjas.com.
[162:13] If I do a site: search in Google, I will see
that they have never mentioned Ahrefs
[162:18] on their website.
[162:18] I can also go to the Referring Domains report
for ahrefs.com and look for marketingninjas.com
[162:24] among them to verify that they
have never linked to our website.
[162:27] And they haven't.
[162:28] So that's the kind of a link
opportunity that I was looking for.
[162:31] By browsing their website I can see that it's yet
another marketing agency which has an active blog.
[162:36] So all we need to do is reach out to them
and pitch them some of our own content.
[162:40] If they enjoy articles from backlinko.com,
I have no doubts that we'll be able to impress
[162:45] them with our own blog.
[162:46] And they might link to some
of our articles later on.
[162:49] So that's how you mine great link opportunities
by researching who links to your competitors.
[162:53] In just a few hours of browsing their latest
backlinks you can find enough opportunities
[162:58] to keep you busy for weeks ahead.
[162:59] Here's one last tip.
[163:01] With Ahrefs you can receive email alerts every
time your competitors get new backlinks.
[163:06] Just go to Alerts section of Ahrefs,
the Backlinks tab, and click New alert.
[163:10] But most likely your competitors are getting
hundreds of new backlinks to their blog every
[163:15] week, or even every day.
[163:16] So if you setup a backlink alert for their
entire website, or even entire blog you will
[163:22] quickly get overwhelmed with the amount of
backlinks that Ahrefs will be sending via email.
[163:27] What I suggest you do instead is setup alerts
for a bunch of individual articles from their
[163:31] blog that you care about the most.
[163:33] For example, these could be the articles that
are currently outranking your own ones
[163:38] in Google search results.
[163:39] This way you're only going to receive email
alerts with new backlinks pointing directly
[163:43] at these few articles.
[163:44] Which would make these email
reports very insightful and actionable.
[163:48] Go try it with a few best articles of your
competitors and see how it works.
[163:55] Part #3. How to build links via guest blogging
[163:58] I'm about to teach you a few guest
blogging tactics that someone might
[164:01] even call "advanced."
[164:02] But let's not forget about the very basics.
[164:05] The quality of your content always comes first.
[164:08] I actually think we should start calling it
"the fundamental rule of content marketing."
[164:12] If your content is weak, even the smartest
tactics and strategies won't work for you.
[164:17] But if your content is top notch, you'll get
astounding results with little to no effort.
[164:22] So that aside, let's address two of the most
common challenges in guest blogging.
[164:26] How to never run out of blogs to guest post for.
[164:29] And how to create more quality
guest articles in less time.
[164:32] Without further ado, challenge #1.
[164:34] How to never run out of blogs to guest post for.
[164:37] Most guides to guest blogging will suggest
you to use advanced Google search operators
[164:41] for finding blogs to guest post for.
[164:43] Like your_topic "guest post," your_topic
"guest article," your_topic "write for us,"
[164:47] your_topic inurl:submit, etc.
[164:49] And then you're supposed to somehow scrape
Google search results for all these search queries,
[164:54] save them into a spreadsheet, run de-duplication
and maybe even pull some SEO metrics
[164:59] which would help you vet them.
[165:00] If you ask me - that is too troublesome.
[165:03] So here's how you get a huge list of guest
blogging prospects in five minutes or less.
[165:07] Go to Content Explorer and put your topic there.
[165:10] In fact, you can use any keyword that you know
blogs in your industry are likely to mention.
[165:14] For example, blogs in the SEO industry will
often talk about things like link building,
[165:19] keyword research, SEO audit, anchor text, etc.
[165:22] So let's take the keyword "link building"
and put it into Content Explorer.
[165:25] And I get over 120,000 pages that mention
this keyword somewhere in their content.
[165:31] But I don't need a list of pages, I need
a list of blogs to guest post for.
[165:35] So I put a checkbox next to "One
article per domain" setting.
[165:38] And from 120,000 results I go down to 39,000
pages that belong to unique websites and mention
[165:46] my target keyword.
[165:47] Next, I need to use the Language filter, because I'm
only going to write my guest articles in English.
[165:52] And finally, if I don't feel confident writing
articles for top blogs in my industry, I can
[165:56] use Domain Rating filter from 30 to 50, so
that I only see results from mildly popular
[166:01] blogs, where I have a much higher
chance of getting published.
[166:04] And we're down to slightly over 5,000 unique
websites that mention my target keyword in
[166:09] one of their articles.
[166:10] And because their Domain Rating is not too strong,
I know they're likely to accept my guest article.
[166:15] 5,000 is more blogs than you'll be
able to write for in your lifetime.
[166:19] But should you need more guest blogging
prospects, you can always loosen up
[166:23] the Domain Rating filter and
you'll get vastly more results.
[166:26] And of course you can always start
fresh with some other seed keyword.
[166:30] For example, you could try searching for keywords
that are not so closely related to what you do.
[166:34] I started with keywords like "link building,"
"keyword research," "seo audit," "anchor text," etc.
[166:39] because they're highly related
to what we do at Ahrefs.
[166:42] But I could actually go much broader than that:
"startup marketing," "growth hacking," "website
[166:47] promotion," "online business," etc.
[166:49] As you can tell, by playing with different seed
keywords you will end up with an almost never
[166:53] ending supply of blogs to guest post for.
[166:55] And this time we have two elephants in one room.
[166:58] Elephant #1. How do you know
these blogs allow guest posts?
[167:02] I don't. But is that even an issue?
[167:04] If a blog doesn't have a "Write for Us" page, or
any other signs of guest posts being accepted,
[167:09] why not just email them and ask about it?
[167:11] Here at Ahrefs we don't have a "Write for Us"
page and we never advertise an opportunity
[167:16] to publish your guest articles.
[167:17] But we do publish guest posts from time to time.
[167:20] It all goes back to "the fundamental rule of
content marketing" that I mentioned earlier.
[167:24] If you have a compelling idea and your writing is
of an exceptional quality, you might get accepted
[167:29] even by the blogs that don't
normally allow guest writers.
[167:32] Let's face it, the vast majority of people
who pitch guest articles are only willing
[167:36] to invest 30 minutes-or-so to crank
out something barely readable
[167:40] and hope it will land them a backlink.
[167:42] But most bloggers are too polite to say "Your
content is awful," so instead they say "Sorry,
[167:47] but we don't publish articles on our blog."
[167:50] And even if your content is top notch and you
still get a "no," well, it didn't hurt to ask, right?
[167:55] Next time that might be a "yes".
[167:57] And besides, even if you were turned
down, you still put yourself on the radar
[168:01] of a prominent person in your industry.
[168:03] By the way, remember what I said earlier about
the side benefits of leaving blog comments:?
[168:08] If you really want to publish your guest article
on some popular blog in your niche, try to get
[168:12] the attention of the blog owner via smart
insightful comments first, and only then
[168:16] reach out offering to write a post for them.
[168:19] Works almost every time.
[168:20] Elephant #2. Why should I publish
articles at low-DR blogs?
[168:24] Doesn't low-DR mean that a link
from them has little value?
[168:27] Technically, from Google's own perspective,
you're not getting a backlink from a domain.
[168:32] You're getting a backlink from a specific page.
[168:34] That is just how their PageRank formula works.
[168:37] That said, a highly popular website can have
a ton of weak pages, while a small new website
[168:43] can have a few very strong ones.
[168:45] And besides, some of the small websites will
eventually grow into big and popular ones, right?
[168:49] So you shouldn't shy away from guest writing
for a blog, just because their DR is low.
[168:54] A better question to ask would be "Do I think
this blog will still be around in 3 years from now?"
[168:59] If the answer is "yes," go for it.
[169:01] If it's "no," leave it, because you clearly
don't want to spend time writing quality
[169:06] guest articles that will eventually
disappear without a trace.
[169:09] Obviously, you should aim to publish guest
articles on the very best blogs in your industry.
[169:14] But if you pitched them a few times and got
rejected, you'll have to work your way up,
[169:18] writing for low-DR blogs in order to build
your skill and portfolio of published articles.
[169:23] Up until the big guys will start to recognize
you and let you write for them.
[169:27] So that was the challenge #1: how
to find the blogs to guest post for.
[169:31] And here goes challenge #2.
[169:33] How to create more quality
guest articles in less time.
[169:36] I'm sure you can easily come up with
a great topic for a guest article.
[169:39] Maybe two, or three.
[169:40] But try to brainstorm at least
20 unique article ideas.
[169:44] I bet you'll start to struggle somewhere after #7.
[169:47] Which is why I'm happy to share two awesome
techniques that will solve this headache for you.
[169:51] #1. The Splintering Technique
[169:53] In the previous lessons of this course I was
advising you to create epic in-depth articles
[169:58] which would cover a certain topic
better than anyone else.
[170:00] Well, why don't you think of this big awesome
article as a collection of smaller ones, like
[170:05] a piece of wood that can be
broken into many splinters?
[170:08] Here's an example.
[170:09] Take a look at this guide to link
building at Ahrefs blog.
[170:12] Right away you can see that
it consists of 6 chapters.
[170:15] Well, this means that we can easily write six
unique articles, each talking about a separate
[170:19] chapter from this link building guide.
[170:21] When creating this guide we had to make these
chapters fairly short, because we didn't want to
[170:26] overwhelm our readers with unnecessary details.
[170:28] But if we were to create a dedicated article
for each of these chapters, we could go as
[170:34] deep as we wanted without
the fear of making them too long.
[170:36] I think this is a perfect way to come
up with ideas for guest articles.
[170:40] You create a single awesome resource that
would target a general topic, and then you
[170:44] break it into smaller "splinters" and submit each
of them as a guest article on a different blog.
[170:48] Which would link back to that big awesome
resource and help it rank in Google.
[170:52] And the thing that I like the most about this
technique, is that you can produce these
[170:56] splinters in little to no time, because you did all
the hard work educating yourself on that topic
[171:02] and all it's aspects while writing that big
awesome article for your own blog.
[171:06] Go look at your past articles and see
if you can find any potential splintering
[171:10] opportunities in them.
[171:11] #2. The Perspective technique
[171:13] Let's say we used the Splintering technique
to turn chapter #6 of our link building guide
[171:18] into an awesome guest article
about the future of link building.
[171:21] Does that mean that we cannot use this same
topic again for writing another guest article?
[171:25] Of course we can!
[171:26] All we need to do is change
the perspective slightly.
[171:29] We could talk about the future of link building for
startups, ecommerce sites, small businesses,
[171:34] local businesses, non-profits, etc.
[171:36] I know these topics sound a bit clumsy, but
you get the idea of how "The Perspective
[171:41] technique" works, right?
[171:42] For every unique guest article idea that you
have in your list it is possible to create a few
[171:47] nice variations, by changing
the perspective slightly.
[171:50] That said, by applying the Splintering technique
and the Perspective technique just to our
[171:55] single guide to link building, we could easily
come up with nearly 20 unique guest article
[172:00] ideas in less than 20 minutes.
[172:01] So these are two of my favourite ways to easily
come up with unique guest article ideas.
[172:06] But don't limit yourself to these two only,
google around a bit and you'll find quite
[172:11] a few more great techniques that will help you
brainstorm cool ideas for your guest articles.
[172:18] Part #4. Simple guest blogging "hacks"
for better results in less time
[172:22] Here at Ahrefs our content marketing team
has published a rather solid number of guest
[172:26] articles in the last few years.
[172:28] And we have discovered a few simple
"hacks" that I'll be glad to share with you.
[172:32] Some of them might seem obvious, but
I still think that they deserve a mention.
[172:36] Hack #1. Pitch more blogs than you can handle.
[172:39] Negotiations take time.
[172:41] Blog owners might not reply to your
emails for days, or even weeks.
[172:45] You shouldn't worry about this
but you should factor that in.
[172:48] Your guest blogging should not
suffer from these long wait times.
[172:52] And hence the first hack: send more
guest post pitches than you can handle.
[172:56] There's a great book, called
"Oversubscribed" by Daniel Priestley.
[172:59] It teaches you that It's always good
to have more demand than supply.
[173:03] Imagine dozens of bloggers queuing
to get a guest article from you.
[173:06] This way you actually get to pick and choose
which blogs you want to write for and which
[173:11] ones can wait.
[173:12] So come up with two or three awesome
article ideas and pitch them to 10-15 blogs.
[173:17] Just don't send all your pitches in one day.
[173:19] Send the first few and give
them a few days to respond.
[173:22] Then send the next batch.
[173:23] This way, if one blogger is slow to respond,
just reply them with something like
[173:27] "Sorry, you weren't responding for a few days,
so this article idea was taken by another blog.
[173:32] But don't worry, I'm sure I'll be able to suggest
something else for you that would be just as good.
[173:37] I'll be in touch with more article ideas shortly."
[173:40] This is how you create a queue of
bloggers waiting for your guest articles.
[173:43] Hack #2. Link to multiple 
articles from your guest post.
[173:47] This sounds like a no-brainer, but many
people simply forget that they can do that.
[173:51] And no, I'm not talking about filling your
guest article with links to your own stuff
[173:55] top to bottom.
[173:56] Make it relevant and make it natural.
[173:58] If the link doesn't quite belong
there - don't try to squeeze it in.
[174:02] These days most bloggers are very sensitive
to any self-promotional links, so quite often
[174:07] they will only allow a single link to the homepage
of your website coming from your author bio.
[174:12] So if you send them an article full of links
to your website - this might get them pissed
[174:16] and they won't publish anything at all.
[174:18] From my experience, you shouldn't put more than
two self promotional links in your guest article.
[174:23] But that largely depends on the blog owner.
[174:26] Hack #3. Link to other guest posts of yours.
[174:29] This is a nice loophole for when the blog
owner is hyper-sensitive to having you link
[174:33] to your own website.
[174:34] Linking to your other guest articles
is good for two reasons:
[174:37] Reason #1: According to Google's PageRank
formula, by linking to a page that links to
[174:42] your website you're increasing 
the power of that link.
[174:44] Reason #2: You can reach out to this other
blog owner and let them know you just landed
[174:49] them a quality backlink.
[174:50] They will be super happy about this and they
might return this favor sometime in future.
[174:55] This is a simple but very powerful hack.
[174:58] Make sure you put it to action.
[174:59] And finally...
[175:00] Hack #4. Write guest articles for blogs
that have never linked to you before.
[175:04] It is a well known fact that the number of
unique domains that link to a page correlates
[175:09] well with the ranking position 
of that page in Google.
[175:11] Correlation is not causation but the experience
of many thousands of SEO professionals confirms
[175:17] that the more unique websites you have linking
to your page - the higher it usually ranks in Google.
[175:22] So when building links via guest blogging
it's in your best interest to pitch blogs that
[175:27] have never linked to your website before.
[175:29] In Ahrefs' Content Explorer we
have a cool feature just for that.
[175:32] Remember we had a list of 5,000
potential guest blogging targets?
[175:36] Well, we can click a button called Highlight
unlinked domains and see which of these
[175:40] websites have never linked
to our own website.
[175:42] Then we can go ahead and export them
using the Export only highlighted checkbox.
[175:47] As easy as that!
[175:48] And if you're looking at a random blog and you
want to know if they have linked to you before,
[175:51] just go to the Referring Domains report for your
own website and search for that domain there.
[175:56] That's it!
[175:57] But how strict should you be about this rule?
[175:59] Should you say "no" to every blog owner who
gives you the opportunity to write another
[176:03] guest post for them?
[176:04] Well, as we just discussed, Google's PageRank
formula counts backlinks between pages,
[176:09] not websites.
[176:10] But clearly every subsequent link from
the same website will have less value.
[176:14] Otherwise it would be too easy to manipulate
Google by creating just one website with a million
[176:18] pages that link to you.
[176:20] So here's what I think.
[176:21] You should only write a second or third
guest article if it's a really good blog.
[176:25] Or if you don't have any better guest
post opportunities at the moment
[176:29] but have a few finished articles that
you need to publish somewhere.
[176:32] And that was my final guest blogging tip.
[176:34] We have one last link building
strategy left to discuss.
[176:37] That is outreach, and I'm going to share everything
I know about it in the last lesson of this course.
[176:42] Sounds good? Then I'll see you there!
[176:46] Welcome to the lesson #10. How to build links
and promote content via blogger outreach.
[176:51] Here's what we're going to cover in this lesson.
[176:53] How to use outreach for content promotion.
[176:55] How to find thousands of high-quality
outreach prospects.
[176:58] And how to write ridiculously
effective outreach emails.
[177:01] So let's go!
[177:02] Part #1. How to use outreach
for content promotion.
[177:06] First of all, outreach is not
a digital marketing strategy.
[177:09] Influencer marketing, guest blogging, broken link
building - these are the strategies in digital marketing,
[177:14] or tactics, whatever you prefer.
[177:16] And outreach is just a tool that you
use in order to execute on them.
[177:19] If you want influencers to promote your
content, you need to reach out to them.
[177:23] If you want bloggers to publish your guest
articles, you need to reach out to them.
[177:27] If you want website owners to fix their
broken backlinks, well… you get the idea.
[177:31] That said, there's no such thing as
an "Ultimate Guide To Outreach."
[177:35] It simply cannot exist because there's
just too many use cases to consider.
[177:39] So in this lesson I will not teach you all
possible applications of outreach, which
[177:43] in fact go way beyond marketing and into
business development and networking.
[177:47] We're only going to focus on using outreach
for spreading the word about your content
[177:51] and landing some high-quality
backlinks along the way.
[177:54] And before I tackle the two common outreach
issues - where to find outreach prospects
[177:58] and what to say in your outreach emails -
I want to address three things that people
[178:02] often get wrong when promoting
their content via outreach.
[178:05] And the first thing that many people fail
to understand is that outreach is in fact
[178:11] content promotion.
[178:12] Imagine the situation:
[178:13] You emailed 100 people with
a link to your article.
[178:16] 80% of them opened your email, 30%
clicked your link and read the article
[178:21] 10% emailed you back with their feedback
but non of them tweeted or linked to it.
[178:26] Most people would conclude that their outreach
has failed and would probably never bother
[178:30] doing it again, because "it doesn't work."
[178:32] But think about it, by sending 100 emails
with 80% open rate, you're putting yourself
[178:38] on the radar of 80 awesome hand-picked
people from your industry.
[178:41] 30% clickthrough rate means that 30 of these
awesome people have actually visited your
[178:46] blog and read your content.
[178:48] And a 10% reply rate means that you've just
made a connection with 10 awesome people
[178:53] from your industry.
[178:54] Which, as we learned in previous lessons,
can often lead to a ton of additional benefits.
[178:58] Yes, you didn't get any tweets or backlinks.
[179:01] But it would be wrong to say that your outreach
has failed, as long as your emails get opened,
[179:06] your links get clicked, and people reply to you.
[179:08] That's why I said that outreach
is content promotion.
[179:12] Obviously, 30 people visiting your blog is
far from a life-changing amount of traffic.
[179:16] But you've only sent 100 emails.
[179:18] What if you send 1,000 or even 10,000 emails?
[179:21] That will translate into 300 or
even 3,000 people visiting your blog.
[179:25] And I have no doubts that many of these visits
will eventually result in tweets, backlinks
[179:30] and all sorts of other "side benefits."
[179:32] "Tim, but isn't sending 10,000
emails called SPAM?"
[179:35] That is a great question and it brings us to
the second thing that people often get wrong:
[179:40] #2. There's a fine line between outreach and SPAM
[179:43] Yes, if you send 10,000 emails in a week,
or even in one month - that is SPAM.
[179:48] There's no way to properly research this many
people and send each one a personalized email
[179:53] in such a short timeframe.
[179:55] So when I talk about reaching out to 10,000
people, I actually refer to a long term strategy,
[180:00] that would be executed in the course
of a year or maybe two.
[180:03] Which gives you enough time to do
it right and not be a SPAMmer.
[180:06] Think of outreach and SPAM
as two ends of one spectrum.
[180:09] This spectrum represents the amount
of effort that you put into each individual
[180:13] email that you send.
[180:14] This includes finding the person
you want to get in touch with;
[180:17] researching them, to make
sure they're a good fit;
[180:19] and, obviously, writing a personalized
outreach email to them.
[180:22] On one end of this spectrum we have an auto-
generated list of people which you never bothered
[180:26] to manually review.
[180:28] Plus a generic outreach template which you
copied from some popular "guide to outreach"
[180:32] and barely even customized.
[180:34] This approach is pretty much
the definition of the word SPAM.
[180:37] And on the other end of this spectrum we
have a small list of people who you took
[180:41] time to thoroughly research, which gives
you the opportunity to write a unique and
[180:44] very personal outreach email to each of them.
[180:47] That is how outreach should
be done in the ideal world.
[180:50] But in all honesty, both ends of this spectrum
are nothing but extremes, that you should
[180:54] stay away from.
[180:55] You don't want to send 10,000 nearly
random people a generic email template.
[181:00] Especially if you care about
your reputation in that industry.
[181:03] That would be an equivalent
of shooting yourself in the foot.
[181:06] But at the same time, you don't want to spend
weeks researching a handful of people and
[181:10] crafting the most perfect
outreach emails possible.
[181:12] Just to realize they're too busy right
now for whatever you're sending them.
[181:17] The right approach is somewhere in the middle
albeit leaning more towards the "Ideal Outreach"
[181:21] end of the spectrum.
[181:22] Each industry is very different and I recommend
that you experiment with the amount of effort
[181:27] that you put into each outreach email before
deciding where on this spectrum is right for
[181:31] you to settle.
[181:32] And just in case you're reluctant to give
up on the quality of your outreach, I have
[181:36] one last piece of advice for you:
[181:37] #3. Perfect outreach doesn't
guarantee any results.
[181:41] I just mentioned a situation where you spend
weeks thoroughly researching a handful of
[181:45] people and sending them the best
outreach emails they have ever received.
[181:48] And then it turns out they're too busy to reply.
[181:51] In all honesty, this is quite a common scenario.
[181:53] If you tried outreach before, I'm
sure you will agree with me on that.
[181:56] And the reason why it
happens is painfully obvious.
[181:59] Life gets in the way.
[182:01] Your "perfect outreach email" may flop due
to a hundred different reasons that you're
[182:05] not even in control of.
[182:07] What time of the day the person
will see your email.
[182:09] Will they open it on their mobile
phone or desktop computer.
[182:12] Are they in a good mood.
[182:14] Is their schedule full right now.
[182:16] How many other emails they have
received today, etc, etc, etc...
[182:19] So yeah, perfect outreach
doesn't guarantee any results.
[182:23] You need to mentally prepare yourself for
this and not get discouraged when people
[182:27] don't reply your emails.
[182:28] Here at Ahrefs we rarely get Open rates above
80% and the Reply rate almost never crosses 30%.
[182:34] And we consider these numbers to be quite good.
[182:37] If your own numbers are way lower
than ours, here are a few quick tips.
[182:41] If your open rate is low, make sure you're
sending to the right email address.
[182:45] Especially if you're using some automated
software to pull these email addresses for you.
[182:49] We have a great post at Ahrefs blog that should
help you with that: "9 Actionable Ways To Find
[182:54] Anyone's Email Address."
[182:55] Also experiment with your email subject.
[182:58] If you're using a generic email subject like
"something you might like," don't expect
[183:03] people to open it.
[183:04] You should create subject lines that would
somehow reflect your outreach excuse.
[183:08] More about this later.
[183:09] Now, if your clicks rate is low, invest more
time into vetting your outreach prospects.
[183:13] It can be that you're simply
reaching out to the wrong people,
[183:16] or they are no longer interested in that topic.
[183:19] Or make sure to clearly specify what's so
unique and awesome about your article
[183:23] that would make them want to
click the link and check it out.
[183:26] And finally, if your reply rate is low, 
make sure you ask for their feedback.
[183:30] A simple request like "Let me know your thoughts"
actually works quite well in terms of getting replies.
[183:35] Also make sure you're not asking for a favor.
[183:38] Most people prefer to not reply emails
because they don't want to say "no."
[183:42] As you can tell, these tips are mostly based
on common sense and might even seem obvious.
[183:47] But I get so many awful outreach emails that
I felt I had to include this advice in my lesson.
[183:51] And we're done with the basics.
[183:53] Now, let me show you how to find thousands
of high-quality outreach prospects.
[183:59] Part #2. How to find thousands
of high-quality outreach prospects
[184:03] Let's go back to the very beginning and
read the title of this lesson once again:
[184:07] "How to build links and promote
content via blogger outreach."
[184:11] I placed "build links" first so that to remind
you that this is the primary goal of your
[184:16] outreach efforts.
[184:17] As for "promoting content," we just discussed
that it's a natural byproduct of your outreach
[184:22] efforts rather than the primary goal.
[184:24] So who should you reach out to?
[184:25] Who are the people, that are likely
to link to your piece of content?
[184:29] How about the people who have already
linked to existing articles on the same topic;
[184:33] or have already published 
articles mentioning that topic.
[184:36] Do I even need to explain why these two groups
of people are the perfect outreach targets?
[184:40] Nevermind, I'll be fast.
[184:42] They clearly have websites to link from and
they clearly have a certain interest in your topic.
[184:46] Sounds fair?
[184:47] Now, let me show you how to
easily find these people.
[184:50] Group 1: People who have linked to
existing articles on the same topic.
[184:53] The logic here is painfully obvious..
[184:55] If these people have previously linked to
some other articles on the same topic,
[184:59] they might as well link to your articles too.
[185:01] That is of course if your article is somehow
better than the one they're already linking to,
[185:05] or offers a unique perspective.
[185:07] Otherwise they just won't care.
[185:09] So how do you find people who
have linked to similar content?
[185:12] Well, the best place to start is of course by doing
a few Google searches for the topic that you want
[185:16] to rank for with your article, see who ranks at
the top, and then look up who's linking to them.
[185:20] I usually use Ahrefs' Keywords
Explorer tool to do that.
[185:23] So let's see who ranks at the top of
Google for the keyword "seo audit."
[185:26] There's our own article from Ahrefs blog ranking
at position #1 with over 80 websites linking at it.
[185:32] And there's an article from Moz blog that ranks at
position #2 with almost 300 websites linking at it.
[185:38] Even though we already rank at the top, it
wouldn't hurt to get a few more backlinks
[185:42] to our article, so that to
secure it's #1 position.
[185:45] And those 300 websites that link
to Moz article are the perfect targets.
[185:49] Let's see who they are.
[185:50] All I need to do is click on that number of
referring domains and I'll be redirected to
[185:54] a proper report within Site Explorer
tool listing all 300 of them.
[185:58] From here I usually turn on the "dofollow"
filter and re-order my list to see sites with
[186:02] the least dofollow links at the top.
[186:04] Then I use my сlassic link research approach that
is called "look for domain names that make sense."
[186:10] Works for me every time.
[186:12] In this particular situation Platinumseoservices
looks interesting.
[186:15] By clicking the Backlinks dropdown I can
see that they have linked to Moz article
[186:19] from their own blog.
[186:20] If you ask me, that is
a perfect outreach prospect.
[186:23] And I'm sure that by reviewing all of these
250 websites that link to Moz article with
[186:27] dofollow links I'll be able to find quite a few
more awesome websites to reach out to
[186:32] and pitch our own article.
[186:34] And that is just a single one of the top-ranking
articles for the topic that we want to rank #1 for.
[186:39] Just look at the Domains column that shows
how many websites are linking to each of
[186:43] these search results.
[186:44] I'm sure if I review all of them, I'm going
to find a lot of great outreach opportunities
[186:48] for promoting our guide to SEO audit.
[186:51] And once I'm done with the search results for
the keyword "seo audit," I can brainstorm a few
[186:55] other relevant search queries like "how to find seo
issues," "analyze website seo," "find SEO issues
[187:01] on a website," "diagnose seo problems," etc.
[187:04] These extra searches might help me discover
a few more relevant articles that have links
[187:09] from cool websites that I could reach out to.
[187:11] And I know what you're thinking.
[187:13] "Tim, that is very cool but how do you actually
persuade all these people to link to your article
[187:18] when they're already linking to your competitors?
[187:21] No worries, the entire next section of this
lesson is devoted to answering this very question.
[187:26] And now let me show you another cool way
to find articles on the same topic as yours,
[187:30] that have a lot of backlinks to piggyback from.
[187:32] And this time I'll be using
the Content Explorer tool.
[187:35] Let's find all articles that have
the words "seo audit" in their title.
[187:39] And there are over 2,000 of them
in the Content Explorer database.
[187:43] Now let's see how many of these articles
have backlinks from at least 20 websites.
[187:47] And we're down to only 100 results, which I can
then order by the number of linking websites.
[187:53] And immediately I see a cool article by Distilled titled 
"Technical SEO Audit Checklist for Human Beings".
[187:58] It has links from over
a hundred different websites.
[188:01] Here's another one from Entrepreneur.com
which also has a ton of websites linking at it.
[188:06] I didn't see these articles when I was browsing
the top 10 Google search results for some relevant
[188:10] keywords just a minute ago.
[188:11] Which makes Content Explorer an awesome
source of unique outreach opportunities that
[188:16] you most likely wouldn't be
able to discover otherwise.
[188:19] But that's not all!
[188:20] If these articles have generated so many
backlinks, there's a good chance that someone
[188:24] is going to link to them again in future.
[188:26] That especially applies to the articles
that rank well in Google for their topic.
[188:30] Remember the "Vicious Cycle of SEO?"
[188:32] Let's take this article that
ranks #5 for "seo audit."
[188:36] According to the Site Explorer tool, it has been
attracting new backlinks quite consistently
[188:40] over the past few years.
[188:41] So wouldn't it be cool to know whenever
some new website will link to this article?
[188:44] Because I can easily keep an eye
on that with Ahrefs Backlink Alerts.
[188:48] I can setup alerts for a bunch of articles that
get consistent traffic from Google and get
[188:52] an email notification whenever
they get new backlinks.
[188:55] That is pretty cool, right?
[188:56] But let's move on to group #2: People, who
published articles, mentioning your topic.
[189:02] Let's rewind back to my example of some
Australian blog that was linking to SEO audit
[189:06] guide published at Moz.
[189:07] By the context of this link I can tell that
the author simply wanted to reference
[189:11] a good guide to performing SEO audit.
[189:13] I mean, they don't really mention anything
specific about that Moz article - just SEO
[189:18] auditing in general.
[189:19] In other words, they could be linking
to any other article just as well.
[189:23] Now, where am I going with this?
[189:25] The chances are there are a ton of people who
have mentioned "seo audit" in their articles
[189:29] but didn't bother to link anywhere at all.
[189:32] Let's see if that is the case using
our Content Explorer tool.
[189:35] I'll search for "seo audit" again but this
time not in the Titles but in the actual
[189:39] content of the pages.
[189:40] And I get almost 14,000 results.
[189:43] That's a ton of articles, mentioning "seo audit."
[189:45] But let's see how many unique
websites they belong to?
[189:48] We have One article per domain checkbox for that.
[189:51] And we're down to slightly over 6,000
articles that belong to different websites.
[189:55] I can also filter by language to
focus on English articles only.
[189:59] But that is still 5,000 results.
[190:01] That's not a number that you would
be excited to review manually, right?
[190:04] But If you were watching my course from the
very beginning, I'm sure you're now well familiar
[190:08] with the functionality of Content Explorer
and how to narrow down your list of results
[190:12] using it's awesome filters.
[190:14] For example, I can use Domain Rating
filter to focus on popular websites only.
[190:18] Or vice versa, I may target smaller sites
because there's a higher chance to impress
[190:22] them with my content and
persuade them to link to me.
[190:25] Alternatively, I can filter by the Search traffic.
[190:27] And I see that there are 40 articles that
are getting over 1,000 visits per month
[190:32] from search while mentioning my topic "seo audit."
[190:35] I would totally go an extra mile to persuade
these people to link to our SEO audit guide.
[190:40] Their articles get some decent search traffic,
so if they link to me, some of that traffic
[190:44] will eventually land on my blog.
[190:46] And finally, I can use my favorite Highlight
unlinked domains feature to differentiate
[190:50] between websites who have already linked to
our own website and those who have never
[190:53] linked to us.
[190:54] The people who have linked to our website
before should probably know us fairly well.
[190:58] So when reaching out we can use
this "connection" to our advantage.
[191:01] But those who have never linked to us
will require a more careful approach.
[191:05] More on this in the final section of this lesson.
[191:07] So that's how you find people who have
previously mentioned your topic in their articles.
[191:11] Guess what I'm going to say next?
[191:13] You can easily keep an eye on the newly published
articles that mention your topic with the help of…
[191:18] Drumroll please!
[191:19] Ahrefs Alerts.
[191:21] Just go to Mentions tab and
click the New alert button.
[191:24] Put your keyword there, maybe even use
the OR operator to specify a bunch of them
[191:28] in quotation marks.
[191:29] Select where you want to look for it - in
title of the article, in content, or both.
[191:33] Exclude domains that you
don't want to get results from.
[191:36] Like Youtube, for example, 
or perhaps your own domain.
[191:39] And pick the frequency of updates.
[191:40] I suggest you to set this one to "Daily."
[191:43] Think about it.
[191:44] Being a blogger yourself, you're hardly excited
when people reach out to you about the articles
[191:48] that you wrote months ago.
[191:49] But when you publish a new article and people
reach out about it within days or even hours,
[191:53] you're very open to a conversation, right?
[191:55] That's why it is so important to use
all sorts of alerts in your marketing
[191:59] and act on new outreach opportunities
as soon as they land in your inbox.
[192:03] OK, so we have just covered two groups
of people: those who have linked to similar
[192:07] articles and those who have mentioned
your topic in their articles.
[192:10] But if you have studied outreach before, you
might say that I'm missing out one more group
[192:15] of people that you could reach out to.
[192:17] That is group #3: people who
tweeted articles on that topic.
[192:21] Let's search for "seo audit" in
Content Explorer once again.
[192:25] This article from Moz was tweeted
almost 400 times.
[192:28] The one from Entrepreneur.com
was tweeted almost 200 times.
[192:31] I can click on these numbers and it will redirect
me to a Twitter search for the article URL
[192:36] showing me who has tweeted it recently.
[192:38] Or I can click the Who tweeted button right
in the Content Explorer and get a list of these
[192:42] people straight from Ahrefs' own database
which I can then easily export.
[192:46] I know that a lot of blogging and marketing
experts suggest that you should be reaching
[192:50] out to these people, who have tweeted
content that is similar to yours.
[192:53] Yet I'm not a big fan of this strategy.
[192:56] Do you memorize everything you tweet?
[192:58] I certainly don't.
[192:59] I hardly remember what I tweeted
yesterday let alone a week ago.
[193:03] So when I get outreach
emails saying something like
[193:06] "Tim, you tweeted this article three months
ago and I have a similar one which I thought
[193:10] you might be interested to check out..."
[193:12] I just click "delete."
[193:13] In my opinion "you tweeted a similar article"
is a super-weak outreach excuse for anyone
[193:18] to care about.
[193:19] Especially if that tweet was sent a long time ago.
[193:22] Yeah, you could start monitoring Twitter for
fresh mentions of your topics or when people
[193:26] tweet articles that are similar to yours.
[193:28] But why send these people an outreach email
when you can simply tweet them back?
[193:33] "Hey, that's a great post! You might
want to check out this one too...
[193:36] It talks about this&that which wasn't
covered in the article you tweeted."
[193:40] So in my opinion, this is more of a "social
media engagement" strategy rather than
[193:45] an email outreach strategy.
[193:47] But you don't have to trust me on that.
[193:49] Try it both ways and see
what works best for you.
[193:51] And now, onto the final piece of the puzzle
— writing insanely effective outreach emails.
[193:58] Part #3. How to write ridiculously
effective outreach emails
[194:02] Let's go back once again to that article from
Platinumseoservices.com.au that is linking
[194:07] to Moz SEO audit guide.
[194:09] What's the point of reaching out to these
guys with our own guide to SEO audit?
[194:13] I mean, what do I tell them?
[194:14] "Hey there! The Moz article is bad,
our article is awesome!
[194:18] So you should swap that link to us."
[194:20] Pretty sure this kind of outreach
email will go directly to Trash.
[194:23] But I think I see a pretty
decent outreach excuse here.
[194:26] This article from Moz is freaking six years old!
[194:30] In other words, by linking to this article they're
giving their readers an outdated resource.
[194:34] Isn't that a compelling enough
reason to send them an email?
[194:37] Now, in all honesty, our own SEO audit
guide is not super-fresh either.
[194:41] It's 2 years old as of today.
[194:43] So we'll have to update it first to be able
to effectively pitch it as a better replacement
[194:48] to that outdated article that they're linking to.
[194:50] And my outreach email would
probably look like this:
[194:53] "Hey Ghan, I've noticed that you're linking to SEO
audit guide by Moz from one of your articles.
[194:57] But I'm afraid that Moz guide is dated 2012,
which means it's 6 years old and, therefore,
[195:03] massively outdated.
[195:04] We've just published an awesome guide to
SEO audit at our own blog and I invite you
[195:09] to check it out!
[195:09] It talks about some new tech that is being
used in SEO audits as of today and gives
[195:13] people rather clear instructions on
how to audit and fix their websites.
[195:17] And If you happen to find our guide useful,
perhaps you would consider linking to it
[195:21] from your article.
[195:22] Thanks, Tim"
[195:23] I'm sure you agree that it's a pretty decent
outreach email, that feels personal
[195:26] and doesn't look spammy.
[195:28] All because I'm using a good outreach excuse
- the reason why I am reaching out them.
[195:33] This is uber important!
[195:34] If you don't have a compelling reason to reach
out to a person, don't reach out to them!
[195:39] Other than that, did you notice that my outreach
excuse is focused around them, and not on myself.
[195:45] They are linking to an outdated resource while
they could be sending their blog readers to
[195:50] a fresher and much better piece of content.
[195:52] So your outreach email should be
focused on the recipient, not you!
[195:57] Why would anyone care about a random person
who's reaching out to them out of the blue?
[196:01] So you have to find a way to make
your outreach email about them!
[196:05] Just like I did in the example that I just shared.
[196:07] And to fuel your thinking process let me
give you three common outreach excuses.
[196:11] #1. You know they are interested in the topic
and your article provides a fresh angle that they
[196:17] can't afford to overlook.
[196:18] #2. You know they have a strong opinion about 
something and your article has some new and
[196:23] unique proof that further reconfirms their stance.
[196:26] #3. You've actually mentioned them in
your article and featured their work.
[196:31] As you can tell, the first two outreach
excuses are very much alike.
[196:34] And they rely on the "Fundamental Rule of
Content Marketing" that I can't stop rehearsing
[196:38] again and again.
[196:40] If your content is awesome and unique, many
people would be happy to get a personal heads
[196:44] up about it.
[196:45] You can use the first outreach excuse if you're
100% sure that your article talks about something
[196:50] that your recipient doesn't know.
[196:52] Just make sure to articulate that something
in your outreach email, don't make them read
[196:56] the entire article to find out what it is.
[196:58] And the second outreach excuse is all about
sending them some additional details or
[197:03] arguments about the things
that they already know.
[197:06] This could be a new case study that proves
their point, or maybe some relevant news.
[197:10] Now, the third outreach
excuse is entirely different.
[197:12] This time you're not appealing to
their knowledge, but to their ego.
[197:16] Who doesn't like when others say good
things about them and feature their work?
[197:20] If you ask me - I surely do!
[197:22] And whenever people reach out to me saying
that some of my work was mentioned in their
[197:26] article, I feel like a total ass if I don't check it
out and reply them to at least say "thanks."
[197:31] In marketing we call this strategy "EgoBait."
[197:33] So whenever you mention the work of other
people in your article, you should always
[197:37] give them all the credit and you should always
send them personal notes of appreciation for
[197:42] doing such amazing work.
[197:43] But like with any other strategy that I've
shared in this course, it won't work unless
[197:48] it's genuine.
[197:48] If you try to shoehorn dozens of people in
your article with a sole goal of EgoBait'ing
[197:53] them, trust me, that won't work.
[197:55] OK, so these were the three general outreach
excuses that I recommend you to use when
[197:59] reaching out to people.
[198:00] But what about backlinks?
[198:02] So far we only discussed how to make people
care about your outreach email and reply to you.
[198:06] But how do you actually persuade
these people to link to your article?
[198:10] Well, I'm afraid there's no way to do it.
[198:12] Unless of course you offer them
money or... kidnap their cat.
[198:15] Which is something that I don't really endorse.
[198:17] But I just showed you a nearly
bulletproof outreach excuse, right?
[198:21] Linking to a six-year old outdated article is
clearly a big issue that these guys would
[198:26] care to fix, right?
[198:27] Eh, not really.
[198:28] There's a good chance that they
don't really see this as a problem.
[198:31] And even if they do, they might not use
the replacement that we're offering them
[198:35] and swap that link to something else instead.
[198:37] I'm afraid there's no magic outreach excuse
or a selection of words that would persuade
[198:42] these guys to link to our article
right there right now.
[198:45] That's why I didn't even ask them to do it.
[198:47] At least not in a direct way.
[198:49] Remember how I framed my request?
[198:51] "And if you happen to find our guide useful,
perhaps you would consider linking to it from
[198:57] your article."
[198:58] I didn't say "could you
please link to our article?"
[199:01] That kind of request would cancel everything
I wrote earlier to make my outreach about them.
[199:05] And they would obviously ignore it.
[199:07] Which is why I'm not being
pushy with a link request.
[199:10] Remember the "Fundamental Rule
of Content Marketing?"
[199:12] Well, I'm hoping that my content will do
the job of persuading them to link to it.
[199:17] Not my direct request.
[199:19] And besides, based on my own experience, most
people are very reluctant to go back and update
[199:24] their old articles.
[199:25] But if you manage to impress them with your
content, many of these people will gladly
[199:29] link to it from one of their future articles.
[199:31] So this is how you write ridiculously effective
outreach emails without being pushy or
[199:36] ruining your reputation in the industry.
[199:38] One last tip: follow-ups.
[199:40] I don't know who was the first one to say
that it's a good idea to send follow ups,
[199:44] but from my own experience
they do more harm than good.
[199:47] So I don't advice you to send follow ups!
[199:49] OK, maybe just a single one.
[199:51] I mean, have you seen any case studies
where people got a lot of positive replies
[199:55] on their third of fifth follow up?
[199:57] I haven't.
[199:58] But I've seen quite a few cases where people
publicly ridiculed bad outreach emails and
[200:03] those nagging automated follow ups.
[200:05] And that was my last outreach tip.
[200:07] But in all honesty, I could easily record another
long lesson about outreach because I have
[200:12] quite a bit of experience being both
the sender and the recipient.
[200:15] And I actually published two articles on the
topic of outreach which I highly recommend
[200:19] you to read.
[200:20] And that's the end of this lesson as
well as the end of this entire course.
[200:23] I sincerely hope that you enjoyed it and that you're
going to put all those tips, tricks, and strategies
[200:28] into action and grow the traffic of your
blog and the revenue of your business.
[200:33] That's it!
[200:34] Signing off now and hoping to hear from you soon!
[200:36] Bye!

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