The Challenge of Enterprise Link-Building in a Content Marketing World
It's no secret that there have been a lot of changes in the SEO industry over the last couple years that have dramatically changed the way that companies approach link-building. It's been pretty clear to most SEO professionals for a long time, even before we knew what a Google Penguin was, that link-building at the enterprise level (and really at every level) would have to go beyond old-school tactics like directory submissions, blog and forum comments, and other tactics that many folks historically used to create low-value links from a search engine perspective.
But as search algorithms have advanced and are becoming increasing adept at filtering out this "link noise," it has become apparent that most scalable link acquisition should be centered on high-quality content marketing activities that produce a return on investment (ROI) or accomplish a core business goal regardless of how many links they produce. This can be a difficult process to execute effectively, especially in an enterprise environment.
The basic outline of this type of content marketing process with an eye toward attracting links goes something like this:
Now, granted for most folks this is an oversimplification, but for the purposes of this article it allows us to identify the most important steps in the process, what the major obstacles are for execution, and some potential solutions for the problems that enterprise companies have in execution.
This is a critically important step because it's the foundation of the campaign. It answers the question: "What are we going to produce that people will link to because it has such a high value to our customers or audience?" Additionally, this new content needs to be focused on meeting our own business objectives and be consistent with our brand image. In other words, if you are McAfee Internet Security, you most likely are not going to produce a document about the top 10 most effective ways to set up a phishing site, even though it would get a ton of links. Conversely, you might produce a document that details the most common ways that phishing sites are fooling people and how to best protect yourself. It's very important that you consider all the ramifications of the content ideas that you are considering, especially from a brand perspective.
One of the biggest challenges in working with (or for) enterprise companies is suggesting content ideas that will be approved by all relevant members of the digital marketing food chain. Typically these folks include corporate branding, the business unit that you are suggesting the content for, the individual owner of the page or content segment that the new content would apply to, social media, and of course any executives that might have veto power or who control budget to fund such an initiative. It is critical that you identify all potential stakeholders in the entire content marketing process prior to even starting the content ideation process to understand the feasibility of conducting such a campaign, as well as identify any issues or road blocks that might exist. As with anything enterprise, collaboration and stakeholder buy-in are crucial for success.
During this process you may find that there are already plans to produce content that might be suitable for attracting the kinds of links you are targeting. If this is the case, you can shift the focus of your efforts to ensure that content gets marketed in such a way that it has the highest potential for generating the kind of visibility that attracts links.
However, most often you will find that the majority of content that is being produced is really focused on marketing products or services and is not necessarily the type of content that is going to attract many new links. Typically (although not always), the kind of content that attracts links is content that solves problems, provides some utility, or provides a unique thought leadership perspective. Again, this is a huge oversimplification. However, it illustrates the point that the majority of the content that is being produced for products and services at the enterprise level is typically not the kind of content that attracts links, even though the pages that detail those products or services are the pages that companies want to attract links to.
Therefore, in order to identify potential content ideas that will attract links, it's important to do your homework. A good place to start is in the social media sphere. Reading industry leading blogs to see what topics are getting the most traction and viewing those topics through the eyes of your company (or your client) can produce a number of excellent ideas. Bouncing those ideas off your social media team and especially your own bloggers is an important next step. This will give you a clearer picture of the type of content you should be creating (or are capable of producing) as well as increase the likelihood that your ideas will be appreciated and approved by those teams. Additionally, applying some competitive backlink analysis to similar content that ranks in search engines can give you additional audience perspective as well as some potential targets for your content marketing activities.
One of the big challenges with content that attracts links for enterprise companies is that it isnt always focused on the end consumer. For example, sometimes it is more specific to thought leadership versus marketing or customer acquisition. Or it may be applicable to a wider group of people than the companys traditional target audience. Getting buy-off on the production of such content typically requires some education as to the potential benefit that the content will provide to executive stakeholders who may not recognize the value in SEO terms. This is why its very important to have SEO education for executive stakeholders be part of your ongoing SEO program.
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The Challenge of Enterprise Link-Building in a Content Marketing World