How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal |
| How I Got a Link from the Wall Street Journal Posted: 22 Oct 2012 02:06 PM PDT Posted by larry.kim This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc. Want to know how to get a link from the Wall Street Journal? No ... I'm not talking about dropping some dopey, no-followed article comment or some black-hat trickery - those schemes don't count for anything and will probably land you in the Google SEO jail. I'm talking about landing a real, legitimate editorial link from one of the most trusted and highest authority websites on the planet – it's an SEO's (or any marketer's) dream come true!! Sounds impossible? It's not! In my content marketing case study today, I’ll describe in detail exactly how my team and I recently did just that! But first - this post reads best with the mission impossible theme song playing in the background, so, cue the Mission Impossible music! 1. Begin With the End in MindEvery great content marketing operation starts with an objective. For this mission, I set a high bar. I wanted to try to acquire:
With these seemingly impossible mission goals clearly defined, we realized that we'd need super-viral-grade content – something new and exciting, as well as a methodological plan to succeed! Your Mission, should you choose to accept, is to acquire an editorial link from the Wall St. Journal! 2. Intelligence GatheringThe Wall Street Journal is not just any old news organization – it’s the finest business news organization on the planet!! Therefore we would need to create a story more powerful than the typical 'how to' or 'X ways to succeed at Y' kinds of articles that we usually run on our blog. Those angles are great for daily blog content, but are hardly newsworthy of the Wall St. Journal, and just not the right tool for this ambitious content marketing mission! We started our intelligence gathering effort by closely analyzing the objectives and by reviewing the kinds of articles the Wall St. Journal had covered in the past, in order to get a clear idea of the kind of content that we’d need to develop. To achieve our lofty objectives, it was determined that we would need content that was:
Planning our Content Marketing Operation... 3. Gear-Up!In order to achieve our mission we would need the right gear for the job. Our big idea was to conduct original research into what industries contributed to Google Revenues. We thought that this idea was both relevant to our core business (search marketing) yet sufficiently generalized to be relevant to the business readers of the Wall St. Journal. Last year, Google made $37.9 Billion in revenues, of which 95% came from advertising. But Google doesn’t provide detailed insight into exactly what industries and companies make up all that money. So, we thought it might be interesting if we could provide an answer! But how the heck are we supposed to know where Google made their money from if they don’t share that information?! At WordStream, we have access to a ton of search marketing data that nobody else does, for example:
Using this data, along with our proprietary keyword classification technologies, and other data available on the internet (such as spyfu, etc.), it would be possible to develop a fairly sophisticated data model to figure out what people were searching for in 2011, and how much revenue Google generated for clicks on searches in different industries, such as “Travel and Tourism” or “Finance and Insurance” and many other industries. But our content was still in need of a newsworthy angle. Since Google was announcing their 2011 year-end financial results on January 19th, it was decided that we would have to conduct and publish our data analysis within a day or two of the official Google 2011 earnings announcement. Our content would explain where all Google's money came from! Finally, we partnered with my colleague, Mr. Brian Wallace of NowSourcing and his crack team of infographic design aces to convert my data into a nice infographic that illustrated the Google Earnings data, in order to make it more visually appealing and easily sharable. Here's what it looked like (Click to Enlarge) In a nutshell, we had developed content that was easily understandable to business readers, unique, newsworthy and sharable –perfect for our mission! Using the Right Gear (Content) for the Mission! 4. Mission ExecutionHaving set our goals, put a plan in place, and developing the right tools for the job, all that was left was to execute! We published our infographic just days after Google’s 2011 year-end earnings announcement. And, as you probably expected, we were indeed successful in getting coverage of our story in the Wall Street Journal!! Here's a snapshot of what that looked like: And we also got crap-ton of coverage from many other leading news organizations, including coverage in: Wired, CNET, Fox Business, The New York Times, Business Insider, Inquisitr, The Guardian, Inc Magazine – too many to list out. In total we counted over 600 of the world's leading news sites linked to our Google Earnings article, thanks in part to a domino effect of link building! And the article spread internationally, too. We found pick-ups from news organizations in Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, and dozens of other countries! The story went viral on Social Media Networks – our article and infographic racked up a combined:
We think that from an SEO perspective, the social shares are just as valuable as the link haul that we made off with! All in, we estimate that nearly 1 million people saw our story, and we were fortunate to have achieved our all the goals that we set out to achieve. Content Marketing Mission Accomplished! 5. Mission DebriefingEvery time we do a content marketing project it’s a learning experience, so I’d like to share with the SEOmoz community, a few key ideas we learned from this time around! In my example, I was using interesting data that we had at WordStream to develop some unique content. Now you might be thinking to yourself: what the heck do I do if I don’t have access to a trillion-keyword database or other proprietary ideas to draw original ideas from? Here’s what you do: Think about what’s unique and differentiating about your business and/or your customers – what kinds of trends are you seeing, what’s changing, then try to measure that. Every company must have something unique about themselves – start brainstorming ideas from there! Another big learning we stumbled on was that the big media outlets really love brands! The more you can mention major companies in your story, the more likely you will succeed. For example, we included paid search advertising spend data for big name companies in each industry (see screenshot below) and this greatly broadened the appeal of our content. The reporter at the Wall St. Journal and many other news outlets reported on rivalry between brands. Finally, don’t feel bad if you put in a lot of effort and your plan doesn’t quite come together. I definitely have had my share of content creation efforts that went absolutely nowhere. And sometimes you get incredibly lucky. Just keep at it, try to figure out what went wrong and plan to do things better the next time! So there you have it. You can get a link from the WSJ, or New York Times, or whatever big news outlet you can dream of. No special tricks or hacks, just a lot of hard work, including planning, research, real content development, and executing on a plan, and of course, a bit of luck! Copyright Notice: Mission Impossible is property of Paramount Pictures. About The AuthorLarry Kim is the Founder & CTO of WordStream, a provider of software & services for managing PPC. Larry helps out in both the Product and Marketing departments at WordStream. He can be found on Twitter or Google+. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
| Posted: 22 Oct 2012 03:43 AM PDT Posted by Joel Day Howdy SEOmoz fans! Do you know what time it is? It's time to learn... How to draw Roger!
We sat down with everyone's favorite Art Director, Derric Wise, and had him show us (and you!) how to draw Roger. It was truly a life-changing and inspirational time for everyone involved. We can't think of a better way to celebrate our newfound knowledge than giving you the chance to draw your own Roger, along with the chance to win some awesome SEOmoz swag. The rules:
Once you have your drawing scanned or photographed, send it in to DrawRoger@seomoz.org. You may need a few things to follow along with the totorial below, including: Step by step drawing tutorial1. 2. 3. 4. I know I'm practically an expert now, so the process should look something like this: I'm very excited to see your submissions. Feel free to share your excitement in the comments below. Happy drawing, Mozzers! Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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