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What the experts have to say
Matt Seabridge, Digital PR Manager, iProspect
“The average number of links for B2B content is refreshing to see in terms of benchmarking the performance of your content against the rest of the industry.
So often we compare our results to the top 1% of campaigns that go “viral”, so it’s reassuring to see that even a handful of links for B2B content is actually performing well above average and should be massively celebrated.
It’s also nice to see that some of the more old fashioned bread and butter content types are the ones that still perform the best.
A good industry report with insightful statistics may not become the talk of the industry but it will still get you good results.
A lot of people seem to think that B2B clients are harder to do Digital PR for, but everything is relative and this is proof that you don’t need 30-50 links per campaign to be outperforming your competitors.
Sometimes just a small number of links from the right sites can be the difference if your competitors aren’t also investing in content.”
Paddy Moogan, Co-Founder, Aira
“The average number of links to each piece of content is a little lower than I’d expected, but still not completely surprising.
The SEO and digital PR communities tend to share viral successes which often generate dozens or hundreds of links and, whilst these are great to see, they are typically the exception rather than the rule when you look at the bigger picture of content.
At Aira, we do typically find that link volumes for B2B clients are lower, but that the links are usually far more topically relevant.
On statistics content being so high on the list for link generated: This fits with some trends that I’ve been seeing over the last 12-18 months which is an increased volume of content that is statistics focused and that generally, this type of content generates a good number of links.
This type of content can rank pretty well compared to things such as infographics and data visualizations, which means that they can generate links passively too – removing the need for ongoing outreach.
Content that doesn’t require ongoing outreach to generate links is far more sustainable than one-off campaigns and despite never going “viral”, can still provide a high return on investment for brands.”
Helene Jelenc, Founder, Wallflower Studios
“The fact that educational content received the highest engagement definitely confirmed a few suspicions, but also shows me that this is an excellent opportunity for a human to reach out and connect directly with those engagements.
I did not expect converting content to gain more links than the other customer journey stages. Arguably this is one of the more difficult stages of the journey for content creation. It says a lot about the perceived value of that content from a reader’s perspective.”
Debbie Chew, Global SEO Manager, Dialpad
“I’m not surprised to see that ‘free tools’ and ‘statistics’ get the most links — both of which are link building tactics that I advocate for.
Going forward, I think “survey”, “report”, “study”, and “research” will be increasingly important types of content that get links.
When you’re able to uncover new and interesting data points about topics people are curious about, that information is more likely to be shared and linked to.
We’ve seen success with this for Dialpad’s video conferencing report, where we analyzed how video conferencing has changed from before the pandemic until now.”