We’ve said it over and over again: One of the best ways to get your website ranking high in search results is to create great blog content that prompts people to link to it, share it in social media, and comment on the blog post itself.
I’m about to blow our own trumpet here, and I hope you’ll forgive me. We’ve just experienced the magic of great content right here on our own website - and it’s such a good example of why content matters, I had to share.
On April 16, Kristina Weis – our community manager and most active blogger – published a blog post about how to avoid an unnatural links penalty from Google. The post hit a nerve with people: It has been tweeted (on Twitter) 149 times, shared on LinkedIn 77 times, and on Google+ 26 times, as of this morning. In addition, there are now 79 comments on the blog post itself. Admittedly, 18 are responses from us, but that’s still 61 comments from people who found the article valuable. And what’s especially heartening is seeing people answering each other in the comments – now that’s community!
Here’s the magic: I checked Google last night to see how the article was ranking. (I used a different computer and browser from my work machine, to avoid getting personalized search results.) I found the article in the No. 9 position for the search term “unnatural links.” That means Kristina’s article now ranks as high as unnatural links articles in some of the top SEO blogs that we hold in high esteem.
I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to see the strategy we advise people to follow – cascading your content into social media for more visibility – working for our own website. We’ve certainly seen it work for other people, but there’s a real thrill in seeing it work for AboutUs.com, which is a fairly new website for us. (We still own and operate AboutUs.org, the world’s largest editable directory of websites.)
Why did the Unnatural Links post get such a big response?
There are a few reasons. No. 1 & No. 2: It’s a timely topic, and one that scares website owners. As you can see in the comments, people are asking all kinds of questions about what kinds of backlinks are okay, how to get spammy backlinks removed, and what to do if they get a penalty notice.
So if you can write a blog post on your own site that’s timely and addresses your audience’s hot buttons, do it! You don’t have to know the whole story to write a post, if there’s enough information to make it interesting right now. You can always update the post itself, or write a later post with more of the story, and link the two. (And by the way, internal links are great for SEO. They tell search engines that the content on your site is rich, that different articles relate to each other, and that you believe in helping your site visitors find the content they’re looking for.)
The Unnatural Links post also got a lot of response because we promoted it in social media, as we do with all of our blog posts. We do that in our AboutUs accounts, and most of us promote AboutUs content in our own personal accounts, too.
Promoting our blog posts this way works because we have a very engaged following in our social media accounts, especially Twitter. People ask us questions, we respond, and we solicit people’s opinions and feedback in our social media accounts. We’ve been doing this for years, so our following is a genuine one: People who really want to read what we post.
There’s one other factor that really helps: We have an email list that people have opted into because they want SEO and social media tips. We send out teasers to our blog posts when we think our email subscribers will be interested in them, and that helps promote our content, too.
You can get great results, too.
It won’t happen overnight – but if you write great content, get engaged in social media, and give people the opportunity to sign up for informative, interesting emails, you too can get your best blog posts ranking high in Google search results.
Aliza Earnshaw is vice president of business development at AboutUs. A former business reporter and editor, Aliza still indulges her love of great writing and working with creative writers while pursuing business opportunities for AboutUs.
“unnatural links” has 0 exact local and 91 exact global searches as reported by the keyword tool. Why even try to rank for it? There are no advertisers, either and Google doesn’t even quote a CPC average.
I get the point you are making, but try it again with a more competitive term with 1000+ exact local searches and see if the same social activity produces the same 1st page ranking. Now THAT is something i’d REALLY be interested in!
I have to agree with Mike on this; it’s great to have those rankings but I can easily say that your social mentions have little to do with the ranking; AboutUs.com is a trusted top level domain, so naturally interior pages will rank for low competition terms.
I write blog posts almost daily and find that many of them rank on page 1 with 0 social mentions, simply because its a no competition keyword and my domain is viewed as trustworthy by Google.
I would love to see you guys repeat the test with a competitive keyword, try to get 100+ mentions on various social sites, and check rankings. I don’t want to be a negative Nancy but I don’t think the results will be anywhere near the same.
Hi, Brendan,
Your perspective on blog posts that rank well for low-competition keywords is really valid. I think both you and Mike are right – repeating the experiment (which was not really an experiment, but a surprise) really would be valuable. We may actually try that.
I would like to point out that AboutUs.com is a very new website. It’s been live for only about five weeks. You are probably thinking of AboutUs.org when you say our site is a trusted domain. AboutUs.org is the world’s largest editable directory of websites, and has been online since 2006. Today, AboutUs.org is ranked at No. 2,340 internationally by Alexa.com – truly a highly trafficked and authoritative site.
What thrilled us was to see that AboutUs.com, a relatively new site, got placed on the first page of Google search results for “unnatural links” – a topic that was covered by some of the top SEO blogs. We’re also excited because AboutUs.com is now ranked in the top 100,000 sites (international) by Alexa.com, and is No. 15,430 in the United States. Again, we feel this shows the value of publishing good content, directing one’s email subscribers to that content, and promoting it meaningfully in social media.
Hi, Mike,
I searched exact match and got 36 local and 91 global monthly searches. When I did broad match, I got 1,300 global and 390 local monthly searches. Of course, compared to some terms, this is very small, so I take your point.
For me, the point of showing the activity on Kristina’s post – and the results – wasn’t that we’re advertising on the term “unnatural links,” nor that we base our business around that term. The point was that our new site, AboutUs.com, has been live for only a few weeks, and here we have one blog post ranking very high for its primary keyword, up there with much older, very reputable websites that rank for the same term. That means writing something good enough to earn all those comments, retweets and shares really can get results. Small companies really can make an impact, if they hit a nerve.
That said, I’d hate to be in a rankings war for the term “get rich quick”…!
I don’t understand how blogging helps the separate website with ranking or am I missing something? Or do you have to put lots of links back to the website in the blogs?
Hello, Andrew,
You raise an excellent point. Your blog should not be separate from your website. If it’s on a separate domain, it will be very difficult for your site to benefit from the blog, even with lots of links back to your site. And frankly, those links could end up looking a bit spammy, as if your blog exists solely to add inbound links to your site’s link profile.
Yes I agree with mike because after Google penguin updates Google consider only relevant page that in use unique content and keywords..for getting ranking again so focus on social media more then other website.
Submit your site with organic proceeds with relevancy. Mentions a little changes to do with the ranking; AboutUs.com page is a trusted top level domain.
Johny Gav
Yes I agree with mike because after Google penguin updates Google consider only relevant page that in use unique content and keywords..for getting ranking again so focus on social media more then other website.
In social media? It only helps to increase site traffic. But how about article and guest blogging? which actually can bring good backlinks. Anyway Social media also can help.
Personally I think writing articles and press releases, then creating backlinks with keywords is the most important way to go. I do not get much actual “customers” on my site from social media. I do see some traffic. How about everyone else? Interested in hearing how valueable social media really is to you as a website owner.