Blogging: my 5 sources of inspiration and my 5 favorite tools
How do you come up with ideas to write content that will attract traffic to your website? That’s the $1m question every specialist in inbound marketing asks. After more than 15 years of blogging and 4000 articles, here are my 5 sources of inspiration and the 5 tools I use all the time. Summary Source n°1 : news Source n°2 : sectorial watch Source n°3 : Ahrefs Source n°4 : scientific publications Source n°5 : Google If you only have 30 seconds I have 5 channels of inspiration for my articles: news, industry information, SEO research, scientific articles, Google search engine I use 5 tools to find inspiration: Get Day Trends, Google Trends, Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Google Scholar Keyword research with Ahrefs allows me to detect topics that attract traffic and have little competition Following the daily trends allows me to react very quickly to the news and to be the first to publish an article on a particular subject Source of inspiration n°1: the news Content that is relevant to current events is the most likely to generate audience peaks on your website. Following the news closely will also allow you, if you write quickly, to be referenced first on Google. To find “hot” content, I use the following tools Twitter trends with Get Day trends Search trends with Google Trends Newspaper reading: I read 3 economic newspapers daily to feed my marketing thinking Case study: how I exploded my traffic record thanks to LIDL In 2020, between Christmas and New Year, I spotted one morning on Get Day Trends that a hashtag was exploding. It was #LIDL. The low-cost supermarket had just put its “sneakers” on sale in France, and the French twitters were going crazy. So, I wrote an article about the phenomenon very quickly. I pushed it on Twitter, allowing me to get several thousands of visits in a few days. Source of inspiration n°2: the sectorial watch Every morning I do a quick review of the latest news in the following sectors: retail, IT/digital, entrepreneurship, media. In particular, I look at the fundraising news on 3 different websites to understand the dynamics of the start-up ecosystem. Thanks to this sectorial watch I can; quickly identify essential themes in the sectors that interest me and write a blog post if necessary make links between sectors, especially regarding the use of new technologies, and propose a value-added analysis ADVICE The added value of a story comes from the crossovers you can make. Don’t try to tell a known story differently. Make comparisons, and don’t be afraid to give your opinion. Source d’inspiration n°3 : Ahrefs One of the most classic techniques is identifying keywords...
SEO: 50,000 pages analyzed and 2m of queries easily accessible
SEO research. We analyzed 50000 web pages, covering 185 keywords related to data science in 16 countries. The raw data came from Ahrefs. We used Anatella to prepare and clean the data and Tableau to visualize it. This research’s main result is that there are untapped opportunities to rank on the first page of Google on English keywords outside English-speaking countries. Here is what we learned. Some figures from our SEO research The United States is not the most competitive country in terms of SEO. Canada is the country where it is, on average, the hardest to get a place on the 1st page of Google’s results in terms of “data science.” The average cost per click (CPC) is $9.21 le domain rating (DR) to appear on the first page varies by only 5% between English-speaking countries (80.9) and non-English-speaking countries (76.3). beyond a monthly volume of 10000 visits, the Ahrefs difficulty coefficient to be on the 1st page of Google is 34 in English-speaking countries. In non-English speaking countries, volumes of up to 34,000 visitors/month can be captured with difficulty coefficients of 2. With a domain rating < 50, there are 5 times more keywords accessible in the first 3 positions of the SERP in non-English speaking countries than in English-speaking countries. on the first page of Google, only 16% of keywords are accessible to sites in English-speaking countries with a domain rating (DR) < 70. In non-English-speaking countries, it is double (31.4%). For the first page of results, the average difficulty increases with research volume in English-speaking countries. In non-English-speaking countries, the difficulty remains constant (Ahrefs 29-31), whatever research volume. Il y a seulement 5% de différence entre le domain rating moyen des pays anglophones et les non-anglophones If we look at the figures as a whole, we can see that the average domain rating is relatively close between English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries. In English-speaking countries, the average DR is 81.4; in other countries, it is 76.6. Key Learning: don’t stick to such global statistics. The average domain rating is undoubtedly an interesting indicator. Still, as we will see in the rest of this article, it is by examining the data that we will discover extraordinary opportunities. Canada is the competitive country for data science keywords Big surprise when calculating the average domain ranking (DR) of the pages ranking between the 1st and 10th position of the SERP, it is not the United States that is the most competitive country but Canada. The United States is in 6th place and is therefore at the bottom of the English-speaking countries. In other words, for all keywords related to the theme of “data science,” it is easier...
+89% traffic in 6 weeks (+ bonus backlinks): how did I do it?
89%. That’s the increase in traffic I managed to generate on our blog during the lockdown period. I’ll explain how in this article. A mix of SEO, time investment and automatic promotion, the results were beyond my expectations. Only for our subscribers: exclusive analyses and marketing advice Email address * Subscribe By signing up, you agree to our Terms of use and privacy policy. "I thought the blog was good. But the newsletter is even better!" Esteban Hendrickx, art director If you only have 30 seconds During the lockdown, traffic on all my sites increased as a result of my actions. In English, this increase was 89% I created very long (3000-4000 words) feature articles on particular topics related to the COVID crisis. The publication lasted from 13/04/20 to 11/05/20 I used LinkedIn to promote my articles to my contacts I used my articles to make new contacts on LinkedIn Traffic figures from LinkedIn in Google Analytics seem highly unlikely (too low) a gain of 26 back-links, of which ten with DA > 30 and 1 with a DA of 91 Summary Introduction The results The method Step1 Step 2 Step 3 The LinkedIn contribution Introduction 13 years of blogging. 3500 blog articles written. I might as well tell you that I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I’ve learned from them. The lockdown period has been, despite its difficulties, conducive to reflection on my mistakes. And I’m quite happy with the result. Indeed, I managed to increase the traffic on the site. In particular, the traffic on the English blog has increased by 89%. The results I think the graph speaks for itself (monthly average at the top, weekly in the middle, daily at the bottom). You can see the increase as of April 15. It is reflected in the daily, weekly and monthly average. It is due to the implementation of a series of articles particularly optimised in terms of SEO which allowed me to collect many backlinks and to rank in less than 48 hours, 1st place on Google in many countries. This increase is perennial, and I still see it today in my statistics of frequentation. They are certainly lower than during the confinement, but 50% higher than before. The method The method I used to obtain these results is simple, but I doubt that it is readily reproducible in a context other than that of COVID. Let me explain. Lockdown has created particular information needs. Also, the lockdown has freed up a lot of time to read and research this information. I tried to understand what people wanted in terms of information and to provide...
How to turn a podcast into a business
Over 500 episodes. This is the record that David Shriner-Cahn can be proud of, a podcaster from New-York whom I had the pleasure to interview. David started his podcast in 2014 and has a lot to teach us about his secrets of longevity and success. Not only has he never missed a single deadline for his publications, but he has also managed to turn them into a business. In this article that I dedicate to him, I would like to highlight 2 crucial lessons for all the entrepreneurs who read my articles, but also for all those who are passionate about search engine optimisation (SEO). These lessons complement the feature article I devoted to my own experience of podcasting. Lesson 1: The process for being more efficient David began his entrepreneurial adventure on the Internet through a blog, which started in 2012. It was only 2 years later that he began podcasting and gradually gave up writing. In this interview, he explains how the implementation of processes has allowed him to produce more content without increasing his working hours. At a time when everyone is trying to make a place for themselves on the Internet, I think this is a fundamental lesson. Writing is costly (a good blog article can be negotiated in big agencies up to 1000€). Unfortunately, entrepreneurs have little time to devote to their online promotion—those who do inevitably benefit in terms of long-term visibility (SEO). But the process is gruelling and requires discipline. Back when he was a blogger, David produced written interviews that allowed him to set up automatisms in terms of form. The requests he received for more in-depth content prompted him to move into audio interviews (i.e. podcasts). His previous automatisms will have inevitably helped him. Lesson 2: What is the purpose of a podcast? The feedback of David Shriner-Cahn also refers us to the usefulness of the podcast as a tool for inbound marketing. If you want to make podcasting an activity in its own right, building a broad audience and traffic is essential. And to achieve this, you will need to make sure you have topics to cover (implying you will need to convince guests to spend time with you) and you will need to be good at promoting your podcast. On this subject, David gives us an interesting lesson: I’ve discovered that people who are not known are the ones who most want to be invited for a podcast and who are the best at promoting it. At first glance, this seems somewhat counter-intuitive, and yet it also corresponds to my experience. I have interviewed a few reasonably well-known people, and they...
Update your content and boost your SEO in an ultra-efficient way
Updating your website is essential to improve its SEO. But how can you do it when you don’t have much time? In this article, I explain my method to update your content quickly while decreasing the rebound rate and increasing the time spent on your pages. I know, it sounds too good to be true. But if I’ve made it into an article, it’s true, and it works—the word of a blogger and the word of an SEO enthusiast. Summary Updating content and the impact on SEO My method: recycling podcasts Mix the formats for a better performance Disadvantages Conclusion The opinion of the SEO experts on my method Updating old content: the best way to boost your SEO What I’m about to say is entirely empirical, but since I have been taking the time to update my content, the performance of our entire site is increasing; and not just a little! +17% in French and up to +68% in English (read this article for more information). I had additional metadata added in my WordPress interface: the updated date. And we made sure that this metadata is sent to Google. The problem is that when you have more than 3000 articles like me on your site, updating them requires almost a full time. And as I try to manage by compressing costs, I had to find solutions. This is what I have done. Content recycling: the most efficient way to do it Since December 2019, I publish once a week a podcast on a specific topic. Marketing, artificial intelligence, innovation, start-up everything goes as long as the guest is impressive, if possible well-known, and wants to share his business experience. So, I use these podcasts to update my old content. I write a small text of about a hundred words describing the podcast, I insert the player, I put the whole thing in an insert, and I paste the HTML code in all the articles related to the subject of the podcast. This is what it looks like in practice. As you can see, I’ve separated the podcast from the rest of the article. I also made sure that the link between the podcast and the article in which it is inserted is obvious. Mix formats for improved performance The method described below allows you to mix two content formats: text and audio. A user who likes your article will, therefore, have a particular interest in prolonging the experience and delving deeper into the subject by listening to the podcast. You see me coming, don’t you? Listening to a podcast takes more time than browsing an article diagonally. The...
SEO: 8 outstanding article designs to boost your blog performance
Choosing a good article design is essential for a good SEO: The longer the time spent on the website, the lower the rebound rate, the higher the satisfaction. We have analysed eight designs that stand out and deliver all the best practices to make your website a model of its kind. Detailed explanations in this guide that will inspire you and complete our post on updating old articles. Summary Why good article design is essential for your SEO in 2020 The magic recipe for a successful blog article Example 1: The New York Times (US) Example 2: The files of La Libre (Belgium) Example 3: VRT (Belgium) Example 4: Fig Data (France) Example 5: Neil Patel (US) Example 6: Brian Dean (US) Example 7: C-marketing (Belgium / France) Example 8: IntoTheMinds (France / Belgium) Why good design is essential for a blog article I’ll leave the technical aspects aside (this is not my cup of tea) and try to explain SIMPLY why it’s vital to stylise your blog posts. Do you know how your ranking in Google is determined? So, of course, there is the authority of your website, the length of your content, but there is also the bounce rate, the backlinks, the time spent on the site. Maybe you don’t realise it, but the design of the item (its format,) is a factor that plays a role in all this. Imagine a breathless piece of text. Who wants to read this? 100% rebound rate guaranteed, and no one will want to recommend it to other readers (so no backlinks). A suitable article format is an assurance of satisfying the visitor by: allowing him to find the information he is looking for quickly (google will reward you for that) entertaining him with a different (but effective) presentation keeping him on your site for more extended periods 80% of Internet users do not scroll For 13 years, I have written more than 3500 articles on this blog and have optimised my practices as I go along. My blog articles have, therefore become more productive. In today’s article, I analyse eight designs of articles that I find terrific. The 8th is our ?, and as you can see, there has been quite an evolution in 10 years. The magic recipe for a winning article In the years that I have been writing (myself) and being deeply involved in the SEO of my blog, I have learned a lot. I hope my competitors don’t read this because I’m going to tell you my little secrets: Use numbers: people love numbers, stats. It’s easy to digest and will make your article credible....
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SEO: why update your old content [advice from an experienced blogger]
it is clear that from the outside one might have the impression that we are publishing less at the moment. It’s just an illusion. I am leading a campaign of rewriting and major updating to further improve our SEO. This has led me to write a few thousand words in a few days. So that inevitably leaves a little less time to write new blog articles, but it’s just as important for SEO. I will try to explain everything in this short article. Table of contents Different positions in the search results make all the difference Update your old content: an SEO strategy that pays Four areas of activity to improve your content and boost your SEO How to choose the right content to update A concrete example of rewriting Ranking differences change it all You might as well know right away; several positions of difference in Google’s rankings can help you make a massive difference in terms of organic traffic. And that is precisely what I’m trying to achieve. The 1st position collects 31% of the clicks, and the deeper you get into the ranking, the lower the click-through rate (CTR). Only 0.8% of Internet users go to the 2nd page of results. I have used research from Backlinko to illustrate the CTR gains from one position to another. You can see that you lose roughly one percentage point of CTR at for each position lost up to the 7th position. Then the CTR remains about the same. Why is updating content important for SEO? Google likes fresh content. That is a fact. If you start a blog, your performance will be much better if you regularly update your old content. To convince yourself, read, for example, this post published by Neil Patel. Four essential points to update your blog check the links and eliminate all broken links (errors 404) rewrite at least 20% of the content add links to recent pages check your metadata and SEO title By updating old content on your site, you “show” Google that you are taking care of your website and that it is “worthy” to be included in search results. The question is what to update. What should I update in my online content to boost my SEO? It’s hard to look back at an article we wrote years ago (more than ten years ago for some of my posts). To be effective, you need a plan of attack and know in advance on what you are going to work. Update axis 1: the hyperlinks If you should only update one thing, it would be the external links. First, make sure...
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