Learn the 8 key success factors for building links using data storytelling based on an analysis of over 500 data visualisation content pieces I've launched. Find out how to build a successful data story from scratch. This includes tools that will find data stories worth telling, tactics to make it newsworthy, resources to scale up your data and best practices for using data visualisation. Originally presented at SEODay.dk in January 2019.

1. kaizen.co.uk@kaizen_agency
How to Build Awesome Links
Using Data Storytelling

2. kaizen.co.uk@kaizen_agency
We land top tier links on these websites every day
https://www.kaizen.co.uk@kaizen_agency

3. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
By using data storytelling..

4. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
I’ve learnt a few things after
launching 500+ campaigns
in the past 5 years

5. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
The 3 basic ingredients to building links
with data storytelling

6. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Let’s talk about 2 campaigns
I made with this approach

7. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Which do you think got
more links?

8. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
One I loved making,
the other I hated..

9. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
The celebrity dating universe

10. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell

11. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Which got more links?
7 domains 423 domains

12. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
I wanted to figure out why..

13. kaizen.co.uk@kaizen_agency kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell

14. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
I knew the ingredients
But I didn’t have the recipe
for success

15. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
The recipe for successfully build links
with data storytelling
Trigger an emotion
Effective visual communication
Quality / quantity of data
Have multiple stories
Answer questions worth asking
Appeal to broadest audience
Newsworthy angles
Make it evergreen
1
2
3
4
6
7
5
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16. kaizen.co.uk@kaizen_agency kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
DATA STORIES
DATA STORIES

17. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
How to pick a data story
worth telling
1

18. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Answer questions that help people make a decision
“How much does it cost to start
a business?”

19. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Or inform people on subject they care about
“Where can I take my pet on
holiday?”

20. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell

21. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Finding topics and themes

22. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
https://keywordtool.io/google-suggest
Use search tools to find
questions with search volume

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https://buzzsumo.com/solutions/question-analyzer/
Could data provide a better
answer to this question?

24. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Boring topic? Try identifying
the recurring news themes
Property / DIY Advice
Brexit L
Investment

25. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Appealing to the broadest
possible audience
2

26. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Stories with global reach get more links
Global
International / Non-English
National
Regionals
Niche
NUMBER/TYPEOFNEWSSITES

27. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
“Best places in London to start a business”
Global
International / Non-English
National
Regionals
Niche
NUMBER/TYPEOFNEWSSITES
MSN
Børsen.dk
DailyMail.co.uk
London Evening Standard
Startups.co.uk

28. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
“Best cities in the world to start a business”
Global
International / Non-English
National
Regionals
Niche
NUMBER/TYPEOFNEWSSITES
MSN
Børsen.dk
DailyMail.co.uk
London Evening Standard
Startups.co.uk

29. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
We get the majority of links from global / non-English sites
301
116
6
Links by Country
Global English Non-English UK

30. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Find the broad topics related to your product or service
Product /
Service
Related
Topic
Related
Sub-Topic

31. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Credit
Cards
Spending
Money
Cars
Homes
Holidays
Find the broad topics related to your product or service

32. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
A global piece on holidays for a credit card brand

33. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Making it newsworthy
3

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A. Use existing data and
create a new story from it

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Use open-source data and combine it to answer a question
Decide Question
Pick Metrics
Find Sources
Weight Importance

36. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
B. Take an old news story
and scale it up

37. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Find a story you can make bigger and better
Newsworthy data story
22 airlines + 3 metrics
3 year old data

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Interesting..

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The 44 most reliable airlines in the world
5 metrics

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Before you get any ideas..

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We made it evergreen
4

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The 100 most reliable airlines in the world

43. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
This is why evergreen content is important..
You can outreach it again
and again and again..

44. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Create a bank of reusable & evergreen formats
Best [city] for [families] The most {reliable} [airlines]
The [cost] of [weddings] Top X tips for [home buyers]
[eSports] statistics [Employees] vs [Employers]
Change the {adjective} or [noun] for your own content ideas

45. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
And re-use the same look & feel (if it gets links)

46. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
And re-use the same look & feel (if it gets links)

47. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
How to ensure quality /
quantity of data
5

48. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
https://www.statista.com/

49. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Grab a copy of our open-source data-bank
(I won’t be sharing this outside of this room)
http://bit.ly/kaizendatabank

50. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Creating a weighted index
http://bit.ly/kaizenindex

51. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Creating a weighted index
u Indexes can be negative as well as positive;
u “Unhealthiest Cities”
u “Most Dangerous Locations”
u Weighting is more important than the data itself.
u Too much importance on beaches makes it a beach piece – too
little and you lose the seaside factor.
u Using more data can refine your index. Trying to visualise all your
data can cripple it.

52. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Trigger an emotion
6

53. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
We like to make divisive content

54. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Saying you live in the most dangerous city causes a stir

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Is it more expensive to raise a boy or a girl?

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Is it more expensive to raise a boy or a girl?

57. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
DATA STORIES
VISUALS

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How do you effectively
visualise data to tell a story?
7

59. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
We use this template to create a data story
Data £ Metric % Metric Numeral Metric
Visuals X/Y/Z-Axis Chart Type Colour
Stories
• Who/What/Where/When/Why/How
• Top X Adjective Noun!
Question Being Answered: “Best [X] for [Y]”

60. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Data Storage
Format
Capacity
Year
Introduced
Cost Per
GB
Relevance
Example
3.5in
Floppy Disk
1.44mb 1986 £2,400
10-20
Years
How has data storage changed over time?
Visuals Label
Bubble
Charts
X-Axis Y-Axis Colour
Example
3.5in
Floppy

61. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Stories
• Physical size has decreased yet capacity has increased to almost infinite
• Cost per GB of storage has also decreased as technology improved
• Over time, physical formats have had exponentially shorter lifespans
• You’d need 10,416 floppy disks to watch Star Wars in HD

62. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
LOCATION
Map
QUALITY
Heat
RATIO/PERCENTAGE
Pie
RELATIONSHIP
Tree
TIME/DURATION
Temporal
UNITS
Bar
VOLUME
Bubble
WORD
Word cloud
The best type of data visualisation by metric

63. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Location / Map
Alternative Route Word Cloud Proportional
Symbol

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Quality / Heat
Circular Matrix Tree Map

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Ratio/Percentage / Pie
Donut Half Moon Coxcomb

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Relationship / Trees
Mindmap Decision Network

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Time/Duration / Temporal
Stacked Area StreamGantt

68. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Units / Bar Charts
Bi-Directional Circular Barplot Radial

69. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Units / Bar Charts
Polar Area Stacked Bar

70. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Volume / Bubble & Square Charts
Square (Nested) Bubble Compare Cartogram

71. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
DATA STORIES
LINKABILITY

72. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
How do you maximise the
potential links a campaign
could get?

73. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
1 BIG IDEA
MULTIPLE
STORIES
8

74. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
u We needed a big idea for a web security client
u “40% of Wi-Fi networks can be easily hacked”
u “Amazon has sold 50+ million Alexa devices”
u Could we hack someone’s Alexa?
u Actually, could we hack an entire house?
“How Safe Is Your Smart Home?”STORY

75. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
So we hired ethical hackers to
hack 6 smart home devices..

76. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
And made a video about it..

77. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
https://www.vpnmentor.com/how-hackable-is-
your-smart-home/personal-assistant-device/

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“How Safe Is Your Smart Home?”
“Mission: Home Hack” Video
HERO
CONTENT
STORY
“Used Smart Tech Is Dangerous”ANGLES

79. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
We wanted to have multiple
news stories

80. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
1 BIG IDEA +
MULTIPLE
STORIES =

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MULTIPLE
LINK OPPORTUNITIES

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MINIMISES
FAILURE

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MAXIMISES
POTENTIAL LINKS

84. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
So we created a bunch of
supporting assets

85. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
3 x Tip VideosWhitepaper Infographics

86. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
To launch 1 idea
with maximum linkability

87. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
“How Safe Is Your Smart Home?”
“Mission: Home Hack” Video
HERO
CONTENT
STORY
SUPPORT
ASSETS
Tip VideosWhitepaper Infographics
PRESS RELEASE
“Hacked Alexa’s
Can Spy on You”
PRESS RELEASE
“Ethical Hacking
Firm Hacks Home”
PRESS RELEASE
“6 Most Hackable
Smart Devices”
WEEK #1 WEEK #2 WEEK #3
ANGLES

88. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Coverage we’ve earned (so far..)

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90. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
TL;DR

91. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
The recipe for successfully build links
with data storytelling
Trigger an emotion
Effective visual communication
Quality / quantity of data
Have multiple stories
Answer questions worth asking
Appeal to broadest audience
Newsworthy angles
Keep it evergreen
1
2
3
4
6
7
5
8

92. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
So, why did the “simpler” piece succeed?
7 domains 423 domains

93. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Here’s why..
Criteria Epic celeb dating viz J Dumb bitcoin thing L
Question worth answering
Informs / influence decision
Broad audience (bitcoin bubble era))
Has multiple stories
Triggers an emotion
Newsworthy
Quality / quantity of data
Effective visual comms

94. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
But there is one more factor
that can’t be defined by logic

95. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
9

96. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
I wanted to make something
that’d help me buy my first home
BEST COMMUTER
HOTSPOTS

97. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
My creative gut KNEW it’d work.
So I kept iterating on it.

98. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Even after we launched it,
I knew it could be better.

99. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Even after we launched it
I wanted to evolve it
4 years and 300+ links later,
I think I figured out

100. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell
Even after we launched it
I wanted to evolve it
4 years and 300+ links later,
I think I figured out
Where I live J

101. kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell kaizen.co.uk@petecampbell

102. kaizen.co.uk@kaizen_agency
@petecampbell
THANK YOU!
Grab the slides
http://bit.ly/kaizendata