Slides from Thierry Ngutegure, Data & Insights Manager at Rise at Seven, presented at his talk at Sheffield DM Vol#9 on Thursday 14th May 2020, titled "Proving the value of links - why you should give a f**k about brand!"

1. THIERRY NGUTEGURE:
Proving the value of links:
Why you should give a f**k about brand!
Sponsored by:

2. Thierry Alain
Ngutegure
Data and Insights Manager
Rise at Seven
@ThierryAlain

3. Proving the value of links
Why you should give a
f**k about brand!
@ThierryAlain

4. I’ve got a great website
(Super healthy technically)
@ThierryAlain

5. Excellent content
@ThierryAlain

6. A sugar tonne of relevant links
@ThierryAlain

7. So why am I not ranking?!

8. What’s above the proxy metric
glass ceiling?
@ThierryAlain

9. BRANDS!

10. They’re a safe bet

11. Trusted

12. What people expect to see

13. “It’s not even a ranking factor
you idiot”

14. The importance of brand in search
Carrie Rose:
“In 2020, links will become less about search and
more about engagement.
The responsibility will fall on SEOs to build links that
actually get clicked on and push the brand through
wider platform engagement”
@ThierryAlain

15. Winner Winner Christmas Tinner

16. In 2013 this happened...
The original launch of
the Christmas tinner
● 15,000 tweets reaching millions on social
media
● 110,000 shares
● and viral press coverage across 18 different
countries!
● Featuring on Saturday night live, This Morning
and many radio shows.
● It was a hugely successful campaign that got
pick up every single year when Christmas came
back around.
● NO SEO value - zero links back to the site
● No content site
@ThierryAlain

17. “Make our most famous campaign go viral AGAIN but this time
help us get links”
@ThierryAlain

18. Firstly where’s my audience

19. How an SEO thinks
Target by DA
@ThierryAlain

20. How we need to think
By engagement, traffic and brand
awareness
@ThierryAlain

21. So we looked at referral traffic, by
social engagement of the
previous campaign
We expected to see
TechCrunch and the
like
What we saw was
food sites and what’s
this,
Ladbible?! ….F**k
yes!
@ThierryAlain

22. But we needed a new hook and on-site relevancy
With content
supporting their
gaming chair
release
@ThierryAlain

23. People clearly wanted to see it … So we created it
@ThierryAlain

24. And then went to where their audience is
@ThierryAlain

25. The results...
154
Links
85,000
Page views
14
Countries UK, US,
CA, FR, DE
10,400
Social media shares of
the product

26. Oh and it now ranks above the publications talking about it
@ThierryAlain

27. WHAT ABOUT BRAND THIERRY!

28. Brand impression vs Social sentiment
13%
Brand uplift
@ThierryAlain

29. Brand impression vs referring domains
Referring domains
@ThierryAlain

30. No, you don’t need fancy tools or
a massive brand to start

31. Brand vs non-brand searches
This would also help measure the success of your link building
strategy
Think about ...
@ThierryAlain

32. Search volume [brand mention] + [product/ service]
Great indication of brand awareness, competitor brand awareness
and brand vs product/service association
Think about ...
@ThierryAlain

33. But, if you got the pennies

34. We track 16 brand health metrics, measured daily for continuous
visibility of performance
MEDIA METRICS BRAND HEALTH METRICS LOWER FUNNEL METRICS
Aided Brand Awareness:
Which of the following brands are you
aware of?
Buzz:
Have you heard anything positive or
negative about the brand in the last two
weeks?
Attention:
Positive plus negative buzz
Advertising Awareness:
Have you seen recent advertising?
Word of Mouth (WOM) Exposure
Have you recently spoken about the brand?
General Impression:
Do you have a positive or negative
view of the brand?
Quality:
Is the brand of good or poor quality?
Value:
Does the brand offer good or poor
value for money?
Corporate Reputation:
Would you be proud or embarrassed to
work for this brand?
Index:
Average of brand health measures
Purchase Consideration & Intent:
Which brands are you considering
purchasing?
Which most likely?
Customer Status
(Current / Former / Considerer):
Are you a current or former customer?
Would you consider purchasing?
Satisfaction:
Are you a recently satisfied or
dissatisfied customer of the brand?
Recommend:
Would you recommend this brand to a
friend or tell them to avoid it?
@ThierryAlain

35. This level of granularity allows us to overly brand impression,
marketing activity, traffic, as well as news coverage ...MINT!

36. We can even measure the impact of Love Island
(my not so guilty, guilty pleasure!)
Strong correlation between increase in brand impression and
increase in ad awareness

37. But not all links are equal

38. @ThierryAlain
This is the perfect situation - DA 90 and a link to the product page,
right?

39. Links may benefit SEO but think about their intent and impact on
long term brand

40. You don’t need a big brand name
to build brand

41. SEO value isn’t the only strategy

42. The focus now is links that actually
get clicked on - driving traffic,
engagement, brand awareness
and brand sentiment!

43. It all goes back to this

44. The importance of brand in search
Carrie Rose:
“In 2020, links will become less about search and
more about engagement.
The responsibility will fall on SEOs to build links that
actually get clicked on and push the brand through
wider platform engagement”

45. Having something (content) on site that people WANT to click on
(most people get this wrong)
Know your audience by looking at past campaign engagement (or
even competitors engagement) - GA referral traffic is a perfect start
Track this through brand vs non-brand searches to measure the
impact
Create a long term brand strategy helping your audience associate
your [brand] and [product/ service] together - unprompted!
Takeaways🍔🍟
@ThierryAlain

46. Thierry Alain
Ngutegure
@ThierryAlain
Research for the purpose of PR
Data lead news generation
Using internal data for the purpose of
SEO and PR
Tracking brand and social sentiment
Cool AF data visualisations