Content Marketing & Sustainable Linkbuilding - Pubcon 2021

Content Marketing And
Sustainable Linking Strategies
Erik Stafford Jake Bohall
Presented by:

#PUBCON
About Erik
• 20 years of experience…
• Working with high-traffic clients…
• Using design, copy, and brand narrative
to connect audiences to objectives.

Co-Founder at Hive Digital
#techseo #linkdev #agencylife
Jake Bohall
@jakebohall jbohall@hivedigital.com
Jake is passionate about education reform and representing companies
that change the world by providing opportunities for inspiring
entrepreneurship and improving quality of life.
@jakebohall

Why are we
here?
@jakebohall
@erikdstafford

Sustainable SEO
Strategies that ensure long-term success for your
website goals and are generally immune to typical
fluctuations within the search ranking algorithm.
@jakebohall

Crawling / Discovery
Technical SEO - Ensuring
search engines can
understand your content
and index it for users to see
Content / Relevance
Content SEO - Creating the
link between search intent
and conversion through
targeted messaging
Experience / Vitals
UX SEO - Ensuring safe,
stable, and frustration free
interaction with website
content
Hierarchy of SEO
@jakebohall
Links / Authority
Offsite SEO - Establishing
brand dominance for core
to business topic visibility

Effective Content Marketing
Messaging Targets Intent
Layout Converts The User
@erikdstafford

@jakebohall
Image credit - https://user.com/en/blog/customer-centricity-pillars/customer-centric-vs-product-centric/

@jakebohall
Image Credit: https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/offer-and-message-development/aida-model/

Market / Mindset Match
Not all prospects are created equal…
They are all at different stages of awareness.
It’s important to cater your content to meet them where they
are in the buying cycle…
And where they are mentally in terms of the problem they’re
facing, and the solution you provide.
@erikdstafford

4 Stages Of Prospect Awareness
UNAWARE: They don’t even know there’s a problem or pain-
point. (Clueless browsers/scrollers)
@erikdstafford

PROBLEM AWARE: They’re aware there’s a problem or area
for improvement, but not what the options are for fixing it.
@erikdstafford

SOLUTION AWARE: They know there’s a problem, and they
are aware of the solutions that are available.
@erikdstafford

SOLUTION AWARE: They know there’s a problem, and they
are aware of the solutions that are available.
BRAND AWARE: They know who you are, and the problem
you solve.
@erikdstafford

UNAWARE Messaging
• The Truth About…
• The Amazing Story Of How…
• The Science Behind…
• (Natural, Affordable, Different) Alternatives To…
• The (Weird, Strange, Revolutionary) (Root, Vegetable,
Product, Company) That’s (Changing Something)
Forever…
• Case Studies/Testimonials
@erikdstafford

PROBLEM AWARE Messaging
• Can You Imagine…
• 3 Common (Mistakes, Benefits, Ways) To…
• How To XYZ (In X Steps)…
• Did You Know?
@erikdstafford

#PUBCON
SOLUTION AWARE Messaging
• This vs That… (Traditional vs Your Solution)
• The Truth About…
• The Common Enemy (Cancer, Big Business etc. etc.)
• Comparison Shopping (By Brand)
@erikdstafford

BRAND AWARE Messaging
• Our Unique Process
• Our Big Why
• A Glimpse Into Our Lives
• Discounts/Promotions/Free Trials
@erikdstafford

Example: UNAWARE
“Is your home ready for summer?
Or are you and your family at risk of
suffering through a frightening heat wave
without Air Conditioning?
Preparation is the key…
Your ticket out of harms way when
temperatures soar into triple digits!”
@erikdstafford

Example: PROBLEM AWARE
@erikdstafford

Example: PROBLEM/SOLUTION AWARE
@erikdstafford

Example: BRAND AWARE
@erikdstafford

On-Page Layout Considerations
@erikdstafford

All depends on a clear understanding of what you want
people to do…
And aggressively testing different options.
• What is your optimal outcome? Do you want clicks to an
offer? Email newsletter signups? Phone calls? Form fill-
outs?
@erikdstafford

All depends on a clear understanding of what you want
people to do…
And aggressively testing different options.
• What is your optimal outcome? Do you want clicks to an
offer? Email newsletter signups? Phone calls? Form fill-
outs?
• The numbers never lie. Our philosophy: Traffic without
testing is wasted traffic, even if you’re making sales.
@erikdstafford

• Sidebar on the right? Or the
left?
• Are comments more
important that shares?
• CTA area (Newsletter signup,
banner ad) above the related
content links? Or below?
@erikdstafford

• This is what works. (Allegedly,
Hypothetically)
• Sidebar on the left.
• CTA top right (in the header) or at
the top of the sidebar. (Or both)
• CTA area (Newsletter signup,
banner ad, callout) below the main
content, but above the comments.
@erikdstafford

@jakebohall
Funnel View: Content Type
MOFU
Webinars
Whitepapers
Customer Stories
Targeted Blog Posts
Product Feature Pages
Product Comparison Pages
3rd Party Comparison/Review Sites
BOFU
Promo Pages
Pricing Pages
Support Pages
Checkout Pages
Documentation Pages
Consideration
Decision
TOFU
Events
Videos
Podcasts
Infographics
General Blog Posts
Tools (Viewer/Analyzer)
Social Media Updates
3rd Party Press/Coverage
Awareness

@jakebohall
MOFU
Email Campaigns
Social Display
Retargeting Campaigns
Organic Search
Paid Search
Paid Display
BOFU
Sales Rep
Email Nurture
Social Display
Retargeting Campaigns
Organic Search
Consideration
Decision
TOFU
Organic Search
Organic Social
Paid Social
Paid Search
Paid Display
Paid Influencers
Awareness
Funnel View: Promotion
Driving traffic to content in order to test/measure/optimize

@jakebohall
Internal Linking: Content King

@jakebohall
Internal Linking: Content Clusters
Review holistically how you are covering each topic and how your
content is linked together.
● Pillar Pages are comprehensive pages for focus topics that
provide depth.
● Supporting Pages provide breadth of coverage.
● Internal Linking completes the cluster and establishes topical
authority.
Having many strong clusters also contributes to domain authority and
the performance of new and existing content.
Art
Artists
Themes
Product
Types

@jakebohall
Internal Linking: Botify

@jakebohall
Content Doesn’t Sustain Itself
All content managed as
part of a constant cycle
to measure, review,
improve, and promote

@jakebohall
Key Takeaways
1. Improve content strategy based on awareness
stages, user needs, and social proof
2. Ensure content moves users through awareness
stages (effective CTAs and internal linking)

Sustainable Linking
Strategies Support Business Goals
Outreach Creates a Conversation
@jakebohall

@jakebohall
The best links:
- Add value to the
users (relevant)
- Are difficult for
competitors to
emulate (earned)
External Linking

Great Linkbuilding
is Indistinguishable from
Great Marketing
~ Eric Ward aka LinkMoses
@jakebohall

@jakebohall
Links from major news/publications…. You are worthy
Links from old content…. You are an improvement
Links from fresh content…. You are present/timely
Links from broken link building… You replace old authorities
Links from resource link building…. You are useful
Link Personality Traits

@jakebohall
1. Link exchanges/networks
2. Blog Spam
3. Xrumer Spam
4. Press Releases
5. Article Syndication
6. Anchor Text Spam
7. Anything easy…
Image Credit | LinkDevelomentConstructionServices.co.uk

@jakebohall
Legacy tools that
prospect based on
keywords result in
subpar results…
This is not a great
place for “window
installers”

If you were
going to rob
a bank…
@jakebohall

@jakebohall
Maybe not a good idea to stand out…

@jakebohall
Rule #1 of Link
Building … don’t
be obvious!
External Linking: Being an Outlier

@jakebohall
Manipulated link profiles might
be obvious in places you aren’t
expecting…

Competition Creates More Opportunities
@jakebohall

Example: eCommerce CBD Website PureKana.com

@jakebohall
Example: eCommerce CBD Website

@jakebohall

@jakebohall
External Linking: Mining Competitor Backlinks

@jakebohall
Lots of tools.. Great list here - https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/
https://github.com/paypal/AATT

Accessibility Link Building
1. Review site and ensure compliant with W3C standards
2. Identify competitor pages that don’t meet W3C accessibility
3. Contact linking sites & drop a mention of your version
@jakebohall

Plan Your Strategy
Broken Link Dev - Cleaning up web, previous resources.
Accessibility Link Dev - leveraging accessibility standards to poach links
Resource Link Dev - using resource pages to drive content strategy and then
prospect off competitor page links
Be Awesome!
@jakebohall

Simple, Effective Outreach
Starts a conversation...
@erikdstafford

The Unfortunate Truth
Bloggers, journalists, and influencers couldn’t care less
about you, your product, or offer.
They get bombarded with requests on a daily basis.
To get results, you need to break the pattern.
@erikdstafford

Simple, Effective Outreach
@erikdstafford

@jakebohall
Webmasters who
don’t respond just
need a nudge.
Send a “complaint”
from another email.

Ethics Please!
Don’t Spam
Don’t Commit Fraud
Don’t Steal Content
@jakebohall
@erikdstafford

@jakebohall
Key Takeaways
1. Ensure backlink profile falls into “norm”
2. Utilize backlink strategies with purpose beyond
links

@jakebohall
@erikdstafford
Stable
consistent
growth
requires
alignment
Discovery
Messaging
Conversation

@jakebohall
@erikdstafford
How can we help you?

Thank You!
Erik Stafford
www.staffordmarketing.com
www.staffordmarketing.com/pubcon
Jake Bohall
www.hivedigital.com
@jakebohall
@jakebohall
@erikdstafford

Content Marketing & Sustainable Linkbuilding - Pubcon 2021

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