On Monday, July 14th, we scraped over 1,000 articles from Inbound.org’s All Time list (which is the list of the top submissions by upvote count). We then analyzed the data to see what we could learn about the types of content and contributors that is the most successful within the Inbound community. Here’s 6 data-backed tips for getting found and doing well on Inbound.org.

1. 6 Tips on How To Get More
Upvotes on Inbound.org
(with data!)
Adam Long
Director, Product Management

2. If you’re a marketer and you’re not checking Inbound.org
every day, you’re missing out.
Inbound.org is a community where the
best marketing articles get voted on to
curate the best content.

3. So… what if you want to be a
thought leader on Inbound.org?

4. We’ve analyzed the top 1,021
posts to see what gets the most
upvotes.

5. 1. Write about
SEO… or don’t
When you analyze the primary tags
of the top 1,021 articles, you see
that the SEO tag dominates.
But, it’s a crowded space, and you
might do better by targeting the
other top tags on this list to stand
out.
22660
4289
2839
2581
2024
1929
1407
1323
1198
1047
931
915
873
667
SEO
Content
Link Building
Social
Industry News
Community
Ask Me Anything
Entrepreneurship
Inbound.org
Conversion Rate Optimization
Tool
Analytics
Blogging
PPC
Top Tags on Inbound, by Total Upvotes

6. But, avoid these tags
At the bottom of the list of tags, you
can see what Inbound doesn’t care
about — traditional, offline marketing
and old-school copywriting.
253
211
192
190
188
172
165
165
162
127
118
84
71
60
54
52
Copywriting
PR
Productivity
Local
Funny or Fun
Technology
Product Marketing
Branding
Psychology
Events
Growth Hacking
Mobile
Offline Marketing
Web Development
Startup Marketing
People and Culture
Least Popular Tags on Inbound, by Total
Upvotes

7. 2. Make guides, or talk
about Matt Cutts
The chart at right shows which
words show up most in the top
1,021 article titles on Inbound.org.
Inbound loves to obsess about
Google and its head of web spam,
Matt Cutts.
It also loves guides to marketing,
kinda like what you’re reading
right now...
181
162
154
111
89
84
83
78
78
53
51
51
48
47
42
38
32
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30
29
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26
26
25
24
24
seo
how
google
your
content
marketing
blog
link
you
building
inbound
guide
what
why
seomoz
search
hitreach
links
tools
moz
ask
new
get
page
social
experts
slideshare
matt
cutts

8. These are the two-word phrases
that appear most often in the top
1,021 articles on Inbound.org.
Unsurprisingly, if you follow the
basic tenets of content marketing
and create helpful content, you’ll
do well. As you can see, phrases
like “how to,” “guide to,” “how I,”
and “ultimate guide” do well.
…the top phrases
show how much we
love “how to” guides
81
39
35
25
23
22
21
20
17
16
16
15
15
14
14
13
13
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11
10
10
10
10
10
9
9
9
9
9
how to
link building
guide to
seomoz org
ask me
slideshare net
to get
matt cutts
interview with
inbound org
to build
how i
i am
ways to
inbound marketing
the ultimate
me anything
social media
content marketing
whiteboard friday
not provided
case study
your blog
me anything
guest blogging
why i
ceo of
google analytics
ultimate guide
Top Phrases, by Occurrences in Inbound All Time Titles

9. 3. When it doubt, list it out
Listicles (articles composed of numbered lists) and titles that are
formatted as a question do well. They account for just over 20% of all
the titles in the Inbound All Time Top 1021 submissions:
10%
11%
79%
Titles phrased
as a Question
List posts
All other posts

10. 4. Post Titles Should Be 15 to 60 characters long
Concise titles are the way to go. Make them easy to skim.
0
400
800
1200
1600
2000
2400
2800
1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29 33 37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69 73 77 81 85 89
TotalUpvotes
Title Length (in number of characters)
Total Upvotes on Inbound, by # of Characters in Article Title

11. 5. Get these people to talk about
you
These are the Inbound.org community members that
are at the crux of what gets popular and promotes
engagement.
Dharmesh Shah, one of the founders of Inbound.org
(and HubSpot) comes in at #4, while Rand Fishkin
(the other co-founder of Inbound.org, and founder of
Moz) comes in at #12. However, Rand and
Dharmesh dominate the total amount of comments.
The top ranked submitter? Jason Acidre, CEO of an
agency in the Philippines and the writer of the Kaiser
the Sage blog that also dominates Inbound.org.
3250
2638
2303
2172
2008
1918
1731
1497
1361
1149
1087
1063
1042
1023
987
929
911
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902
888
874
870
842
769
767
737
728
222
207
363
494
251
258
310
57
100
78
106
666
114
100
156
30
66
24
57
72
45
60
152
65
101
71
53
jasonacidre
VinnyLaBarbera
edfryed
dharmesh
ChrisLDyson
larrykim
victorpan
kushalshah02
marktraphagen
gorcampbell
rohitpalit
randfish
fighto
patrickcoombe
SEO
parmarkavi
connections8
venchito14
Wow_Liam
mmhemani
PeterNikolow
matthewbarby
christykunjumon
Ajayalwayscool
MUmar_Khan
Seonarendra
Backlinko
Total Upvotes Total Comments

12. 6. Study what these sites
are doing
Articles from these sites and blogs
most frequently landed in the top
1,021 on Inbound.org.
Take a look at their bodies of work
to get even more tips on how to
succeed.
93
30
26
16
13
12
11
11
10
10
10
10
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
moz.com
hitreach.co.uk
seomoz.org
quicksprout.com
kaiserthesage.com
searchengineland.com
searchenginewatch.com
digitalphilippines.net
wordstream.com
medium.com
dejanseo.com.au
blindfiveyearold.com
seonick.net
reddit.com
portent.com
pointblankseo.com
moblized.com
distilled.net
backlinko.com
seroundtable.com
seobythesea.com
seobook.com
searchenginejournal.com
matthewwoodward.co.uk
findmyblogway.com
blog.kissmetrics.com
Domains Most Frequently on
Inbound’s All Time List

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