Have you noticed that certain data-heavy websites are more successful at garnering backlinks than others? What I learned after looking at well-known data repositories.
You may have heard that pointing to data-heavy pages is a great way to attract more readers.
You've also noticed that certain data-related webpages are more successful than others at luring in external links.
That's why I set out to figure out what makes certain websites about statistics so widely read while others fail to attract an audience.
Based on research and personal experience, I have found that focusing on the following five areas may significantly improve a statistics article's link appeal.
In the sections that follow, I'll break down each tactic and provide you step-by-step guidance on how to put it into practice yourself.
Do not forget to include pertinent journalistic terminology.
My go-to method for presenting statistics is still the reverse outreach method that Brian Dean showed me.
As a result of his efforts, the case study he developed garnered about five thousand natural connections.
The goal is to have journalists and content marketers stumble into your work as they are looking for supporting evidence for their arguments. This means people will naturally share your content and link to you without you having to ask for it.
So, to get things off, it's crucial to recognize long-tail keywords that are data-hunting; Brian Dean calls them "journalistic keywords."
There are a few approaches to finding such keywords:
Look for long-tail keywords in the competition's analytics pages.
Please address the concerns raised by those who visited the "People Also Asked" area.
Long-tail keywords that are related to your site's content are simple to uncover. Google the main term (such "SEO statistics" or "coaching statistics"), copy the URL from the top page of results, and then paste it into the keyword tool of your choice. This will allow you to evaluate the site's responsiveness to targeted queries and long-tail keywords.
Read on for an example of this in action:
Optimal Performance through In-Depth Evaluation
In just five weeks, you might see a 70% increase in your page ranks. Over 30,000 other webmasters, business owners, and SEO specialists rely on us.
To discover what other queries are similar to yours, put your core keyword into the People Also Asked box.
Each question may be clicked on to reveal a new series of questions; this is a great method to expand your knowledge.
When adding statistical responses to the body of your post, optimize them for featured snippets by rephrasing the People Also Asked phrase as a question and answering it as a complete sentence.
Take the question of how many people in the world regularly consume fast food; specifically, how many people consume fast food on a daily basis?
Roughly 85% of the US population eats fast food at least once a month.
Finding and updating trend information is essential.
One of Ahrefs' most popular case studies describes how the company obtained 36 free backlinks to a statistics page by contacting websites that were using outdated data and offering them fresher, more accurate data, which they then included on a brand-new statistics page.
This caused the article to quickly become the most popular result for the search term "SEO statistics" on the major search engines. For over two years, it has held the number two slot.
First, enter the URL that currently holds the number one spot for your core term into your chosen keyword tool (for example, "SEO statistics").
Step two is to examine its most talked-about stats and the quality of its backlink profile. To do this, you might look for numbers that appear often in the anchor text of the page's inbound links.
The following statistic, for instance, is widely believed by many ("a third of Americans consume fast food every day").
Finally, verify that the information is current (at least 2-3 years old).
If this is the case, a more up-to-date figure should be sought out. If you require an up-to-date number and can't find it, you might want to calculate it yourself.
When I was doing research on a website that compiles statistics about chatbots, for instance, I came across some old and incorrect estimates of chatbot use in different countries.
I used Clearbit and another data extraction service to bring the numbers up to date:
Step four is to update any sites that are still utilizing old information by getting in touch with them.
To link than my statistics page because it's superior to the previous one no longer works very often.
However, most consumers are willing to swap their old statistics for the updated ones you supply since they appreciate fresh knowledge.
You may even go over and beyond and offer to redesign the entire page for them.
This strategy was crucial in bringing Ahrefs to the top of search results and gaining the firm 36 links in a couple of weeks, as was previously mentioned.
Use a skyscraper strategy, or something similar to a "hub and spoke" layout.
According to my findings, many well-known statistics sites benefit from using either a hub-and-spoke or a skyscraper layout.
HubSpot's own Marketing Statistics page is a highly refined example of a skyscraper-style statistics website.
The sections of this paper are as follows:
Data gathering and analysis may be useful in many facets of business, including but not limited to email marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, lead generation, advertising, marketing technology, and sales.
Numerous "spoke" statistical keywords on this page also have high quality scores. For "content marketing statistics," for instance, the generic page is still ranked second.
Data for a report should be organized into subsections and updated on a regular basis.
Combining Information That Has Not Changed
Producing fresh data is a great way to obtain links, as data is the lifeblood of statistics sites.
Despite the belief that developing original data incurs excessive costs and resources.
This is true if you want to do a thorough "state of the industry" research, but there are a number of low-cost or even free options for creating or extracting your own unique data (or cheap).
The following is an example of my usual working method.
Find Information in the Archives
In spite of all this data, most people still need more inspiration to properly organize it.
This method was first demonstrated to me by Andy Crestodina. He asked how long a website usually lasts, but I didn't have that information for him because it didn't exist.
So, he gathered the top 200 marketing sites (per Alexa) and had a bot look at the Wayback Machine to see when each one was last updated.
It was calculated that the appropriate time period was two years and seven months.
You can't buy connections from sites like HubSpot, Forbes, Wikipedia, the Content Marketing Institute, and countless more, yet just one figure has brought in over a thousand visitors to that page.
Gain From Your Documents
One such way is to get fresh information from within an organization.
Ahrefs features a number of noteworthy examples, including:
Sixty-six percent of connections to sites during the past nine years have expired, and 90.63 percent of material gets no traffic from Google.
What is the significance of links in the modern world? Based on Ahrefs's Research
It's important to remember that Ahrefs always publishes a blog post detailing each set of data before incorporating it into any of its other trustworthy statistics sites.
I've found that this is the best method for building networks, as it maximizes the use of a single metric.
Over eight thousand people linked to one of my older pieces, "90.63 percent of material receives no attention from google" (over 3,000 referring domains).
If the number hadn't been posted, it may have been lost in a massive data repository.
Therefore, you should think about isolating your most useful data, and then producing an article whose sole purpose is to promote that data and attract as many connections as possible.
Start Customer Surveys
If you have a significant email list, you may also poll your customers. One such widely-discussed survey is Andy Crestodina's annual blogger poll.
His assertions that it takes 100+ hours to construct are borne out by the almost 13,000 natural inbound connections (over 3,000 referring domains).
If you don't have a list, you may also do the research online using a service like SurveyMonkey or Pollfish, however this could get expensive.
Preparing Visuals
To support their assertions, content marketers need data, statistics, and images. To this end, I recommend that you also create data visualizations.
For example, a Google Lens search for the concept shows that the image below has been widely distributed over the web.
Adding your company's logo to preexisting data is one of the many benefits of using visuals (be sure to credit the source).
Oberlo likely has other similar examples:
If your company doesn't have a designer on staff, you may try recruiting one from a freelancing platform like Upwork or Dribbble.
Update those records immediately!
A great statistics website requires more than just the largest collection of numbers in the world.
The intention is to supply a resource that writers, bloggers, and other content producers may use as a reference and build their arguments around.
Try out the tips I've provided and let me know if you get any more links.