There's been a trend toward *earning* links, and for good reason. When you're creating newsworthy content that is actually worthy of being linked to, you have a much better chance of scaling up your link building in a sustainable, high-quality way while simultaneously providing much more value to your audience. In this presentation, I'll explain how to start earning links and how this approach can have a massive impact on your organic growth. Key Takeaways: - Why earning links is better than building links- How to create content that is link-worthy- How this approach can impact your organic growth

1. KEYNOTE
Amanda Miligan
HEAD OF MARKETING
STACKER
How to Improve Your
Organic Growth: Stop
Building Links and Start
Earning Them
WASHINGTON D.C. ~ JULY 7 - 8, 2022
DIGIMARCONWASHINGTONDC.COM | #DigiMarConWashingtonDC

2. Building links

3. Building links

4. Earning links

5. Earning links
Useful
Content
Entertaining
Content
Unique
Content

6. Amanda Milligan
Head of Marketing at Stacker Studio

7. What’s the
difference?

8. Amanda Milligan
Building Earning
● Focused only on the
result and not how
you get there.
● Means less value
provided to your
audience.
● Typically leads to
SEO results that
don’t meaningfully
last.
● Focused on what
you’re creating
that’s valuable
enough to deserve
links.
● Usually earn much
better links in
addition to trust and
affinity from your
audience.

9. Amanda Milligan
“Build” One Link “Earn” One Link
Best-case scenario,
one of your pages gets
a slight boost.
You have a high-
authority link, a logo
you can showcase on
your site, a piece of
content that lives on
your site and that you
can re-promote forever.

11. Poll #1 Who are you working with to
earn links right now?
With an in-house team
No one else - you’re solo
With an agency/consultant
You’re not earning links yet

12. How to
earn links

13. Stacker is the world’s
leading data-journalism
newsroom, publishing
ngaging research features
across a network of the
world’s most authoritative
news outlets.

14. Stacker Studio Grants Brands Access To Our Newsroom,
Allowing Them To Reach New Audiences & Drive Organic
Growth
2,500+
Local and national news
outlets with access to
Stacker stories
200M+
Global readers across our
publisher partner sites
DR 62
Average Domain Rating
across Stacker network
4,500+
Stacker stories published
and syndicated to our
network yearly

15. Newsworthy
Approach
Strategy
=
High-Quality News
Pickups
Brand Authority
Top-Tier Follow
Links

16. Newsworthy
Approach
Strategy
Tangential Data-Focused Contextualized

17. Tangential
Product/
Service
Industry
Company
Culture
General Audience
More Topical More Tangential

18. Traditional Digital PR
Targeted audience
Branded tone
Style guide
Niche keywords
High value pages
Your Brand’s
Mission
Content
You
Should
Create
Newsworthy
Elements
Tangential

19. Tangential
1. How can I be of service to my
audience?
2. What greater context can I add to
trending topics or longstanding
challenges?
3. What data can I analyze/present to
provide a new perspective?

20. Tangential
✓ Not specifically about
internal business
communication
✓ Still interesting to their
target audience
✓ Appeals to a more
general readership

21. Tangential

22. Data-Focused
✓ Tells an original, novel story
✓ Generally unveils new trends
✓ Often adds context to a greater
story
✓ Can often be broken down
demographically
✓ Adds immediate credibility

23. Data-Focused

24. Data-Focused
✓ Based on a third-party data set
✓ Calls out citation in the headline

25. Data-Focused

26. Contextualized
❏ What’s the history of this?
❏ How does this compare to
other similar things?
❏ How does it compare to
other different things?

27. Contextualized
✓ Comparing each generation with the other
✓ Added more nuance to the conversation

28. Contextualized

29. Search Love
Elizabeth Miller, founder and editor
of the Auburn Examiner
“Much of Stacker's content can tie directly to current issues
we are covering, bolstering our original content. For
example, our state legislature is considering a bill related to
the use of Narcan and the broader issue of opioids in our
communities… A recent Stacker article listing 10 opioid-related
documentaries will be an ideal companion to that story, and
I expect the conversation to heat up again. ”

31. The
results

32. Poll #2 What is the hardest part
about link earning?
Earning high-quality links
Measuring the impact
Scaling up link earning
Allocating enough budget

33. Overview

34. Impact

35. Link results

36. DR results

37. Organic pages

38. Traffic results

39. Technical SEO On-Site Content Link Earning
The SEO Puzzle

40. Questions?