AwardsBait

 

Hey everyone, Brian Dean here. And welcome to Lesson 5 of Module 2. In this lesson you’re going to learn all about the AwardsBait Content Framework. So let’s jump right in. Despite all our differences, there’s one thing everyone on Earth likes: Recognition.

Think about it. Think back to a time in your life when a teacher, coach or client recognized that you did something special. It probably felt pretty good, right? Here’s a quick story to illustrate what I mean. In high school I was on the tennis team. And after the last game of my junior year, the team voted me captain of next year’s squad. In other words, I was recognized for my leadership and hard work.

Needless to say, I was pumped. It felt great! But more importantly, I told everyone. In a span of hours, my Mom, Dad, girlfriend, neighbors and dozens of friends heard the news from me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there were two extremely powerful Share Triggers behind my little spread the word campaign. The first was Social Currency. Obviously, telling people about my accomplishment made me look good in the eyes of friends and family. 

Also, the news got me all pumped up with excitement. As we covered in the first lesson in this module, Positive Emotions motivate people to share. You might be thinking, that’s a nice story, but how can we use Social Currency and Positive Emotions to get more traffic?

The answer? AwardsBait. Before I get into the step-by-step details, let me show you an example of an AwardsBait Power Page that an SEO That Works Graduate published a while back. This Power Page was a HUGE success. It got shared and linked to like crazy and brought literally thousands of visitors to his site. Fortunately, like all of the other Content Frameworks in this Module, you can use AwardsBait in pretty much any niche. This is an AwardsBait Power Page from another SEO That Works graduate.

Even though this student is in a niche without a large blogging community, his Power Page got a handful of quality backlinks from sites in related industries. And of course, from the bloggers that he featured. So you can probably see the potential of the AwardsBait Content Framework. And now it’s time to break it all down, step-by-step. Step 1 is to choose your topic. This is key. Like any piece of content, the topic of your AwardsBait makes a HUGE difference in how well it performs. But unlike the other Content Frameworks in this module, you don’t need to stick to a topic that your Linkreators have already shared. That’s because AwardsBait is automatically about the most Linkreator-friendly topic on the planet: THEM! Fortunately, choosing an AwardsBait topic is pretty darn easy. 

Your AwardsBait topic just needs to have 2 things going for it. It needs to be specific and it needs to be in a niche with at least 100 blogs. Let’s break these down. For your AwardsBait content to get traction, it should be on a topic that stands out and grabs attention. Which means you want to get VERY specific. Believe it or not, but according to research by Jonah Berger, people are more likely to share content about a super specific topic even though there may not be as many people that want to see it. 

That’s because the people that DO want to see it will happily share it with everyone they know. For example, let’s say you just read an article about the NFL free agent offseason signings. Even though a good chunk of your friends and family may follow the NFL, you’re not that likely to forward the article to any of them. That’s because the topic is too broad. On the other hand, let’s say you read an article about the New England Patriots offseason free agent signings. Immediately you think of your Uncle Joe in Boston who’s a huge Pats fan. That’s an article that’s MUCH more likely to get shared...even though it has a smaller potential target group. Make sense? 

And Linkreators are the same way. Bottom line: your AwardsBait needs to cover a specific topic. For example, let’s look again at the Power Page I mentioned earlier. See how he featured 50 blogs that write about interior design? Now he would have had a lot more blogs to include and sites to reach out to if he went with “150 design blogs” or “Top 95 home blogs”. But he knew that he’d get better results with a specific topic. And there’s a bonus benefit from choosing a specific topic for your AwardsBait: it makes your award look more legit. After all, it takes a certain level of expertise to give out awards. And unless you’re a huge site like Time.com or Forbes.com, it’s unlikely that you’ll have the authority to get away with crowning the top 50 fitness blogs on the web. 

On the other hand, you don’t need a ton of notoriety to hand out awards to the top 50 running blogs. Or the top 50 fitness equipment blogs. Or the top 50 paleo diet blogs. So once you’ve picked a specific topic, quickly check to make sure that there are at least 100 blogs and websites that cover that topic. The websites don’t need to be 100% about that topic but they should cover it now and again. Obviously, there’s no need to count one-by-one to make sure that there are 100 blogs that write about your topic. It’s just a general rule of thumb. Once you have your AwardsBait topic, it’s time to gather a list of winners to include. Two quick notes before we dive in.

First, don’t worry about finding blogs that are exclusively about the topic you chose in step 1. As long as they cover that topic now and again, you can include them. For example, if your AwardsBait topic was “running blogs”, you can include health and fitness blogs that publish blog posts about running every few months. Second, you don’t need to be super picky about the sites you include. That’s because you want to include at least 25 winners in your AwardsBait campaign. 

Why? The more sites you include, the most links you’ll get. Look at it this way. Let’s say 10% of the people that you include link back to you. If you do a top 10 list, that’s 1 link. If you do a top 20 list, that’s 2 links. But if you do a top 50 list, that’s 5 links. I used to think that people would feel more special if they were on a top 10 list vs. a top 50 list. 

And you know what, they might. But the fact is: most bloggers are thrilled to be recognized at all. And they don’t mind sharing the spotlight with a few other people. That said, it gets a little crazy if you have 150+ winners. So I recommend limiting the number of winners to about 50. OK, with that, let’s dive into how you can easily find your winners using a few simple strategies. First up, we have good ol’ Google Search. 

Just search for keywords related to your AwardsBait topic (for example, “running tips”, “jogging equipment”, “sprinting vs. jogging”) and see what results come up. Most of the time, the top 20 results for each keyword will be sites that cover your topic. 

Next you can look at .edu sites. As you probably know, backlinks from .edu sites are powerful because they come from aged, authority domains. Believe it or not, but there are blogs in all sorts of different niches (fitness, finance etc.) on.edu sites. For example, when you search for site:.edu “fitness blog”, Google shows quite a few results. Obviously not all of those are fitness blogs. 

But many are. And I can tell you from my personal experience of running AwardsBait campaigns that .edu bloggers go absolutely nuts when they find out they received an award and are happy to link to you. A few times I’ve even had my .edu winners create a blog post just to announce the award and link to my site. For example, this site launched an AwardsBait campaign. And included a university in their AwardsBait list of outdoor schools. That university then created a post (with a backlink) about receiving the award. OK, so you have your AwardsBait topic and list of winners. Great work. 

The hardest part of this process is over. Now it’s time to organize the material you put together. Just like we always do, let’s start at the top and work our way down to the bottom of the page. First, we have your AwardsBait title. Here are the 3 elements you want to include in your AwardsBait headline. A number, blog description and superlative or benefit. Let’s break these down. First, include the number of blogs on your list along with a word like “best”, “top”, “world class” etc. 

For example, “Top 50” or “43 Best”. Next, you want to describe the blogs using the topic you found in step 1. So if your AwardsBait included running blogs, your title would be “Top 50 Running Blogs”. Finally, include a superlative that describes how awesome your winners are. This adds some spice to what would otherwise be a bland title like “Top 50 Running Blogs”. This also gets the bloggers on your list even more excited to be on your list. 

Here are a few examples: “Top 35 Climbing Blogs That Rock The Web” or “Best 40 Knitting Blogs That Are “Sew” Awesome” or “Top 23 SEO Blogs That Really Know Their Stuff.” If you prefer, you can use a benefit that someone would get by reading the blogs on your list. Here are two examples: “Top 25 Running Blogs for Amazing Runs” or “Top 37 Paleo Diet Blogs for Building Muscle and Burning Fat”. OK so your AwardsBait intro should have 4 elements. Quickly introduce what the awards are, mention how many amazing blogs on that topic are out there, emphasize that this is an exclusive list and go into some of the things these blogs bring to the table. Let’s break these 4 elements down in detail. First, you want to quickly tell people what the awards are all about. Again, don’t bury the lead here. Here’s an example. Then talk a little about how there are a MASSIVE amount of blogs and websites in your niche. Then, contrast that with the fact that the blogs on your AwardsBait list are the best of the bunch. This makes the winners feel like they’re on a super exclusive list. They think: “That’s true. There are hundreds of blogs about running. It’s amazing that I made the list!”. Here’s an example of how that might look. Finally, talk a little bit about the value that these blogs provide. Do they help people get more fit? Build their email list? Learn a language faster? Emphasize that here. Here’s an example. With the intro out of the way, it’s time to list your winners. First, you want to order them. I recommend NOT listing the winners in an official order. This is definitely a “everyone’s a winner” deal. However, you DO want to put authority sites at the top of your list. That way those hard-to-please big shot Linkreators will be happy to see themselves at the top. And the less authoritative sites are happy to be included at all. That way, everyone is happy. That said, don’t sweat the order too much. It doesn’t have to be perfect. As long as the more authoritative sites are at the top, you’re set. Finally, it’s time to create a listing for each person or blog on your list. To maximize the chances that the Linkreators on your page will share your AwardsBait, your listing should have 4 elements. Their name or their blog’s name, a flattering bio, an image and a link to their site or social media profile. These are pretty straightforward. I just want to quickly touch on the bio, because that’s the only semi-complicated part. The goal of your bio is to quickly describe what makes them and their blog unique. Do they cover marathons or interval training? Do they focus on Javascript or Rails? Again, let’s look a look at this SEO That Works graduate’s AwardsBait. As you can see, there’s a brief bio for each person that describes what each winner brings to the table. 

These bios don’t have to be perfect. As long as they’re complementary and descriptive, you’re set. Once you have your list of winners all set up, it’s time to create a unique logo and badge for your AwardsBait page. Remember, the more legit your AwardsBait page looks, the more likely people are to share it. Fortunately, you can easily create a page that looks nice and official. How? By creating a custom banner for your AwardsBait page. This custom banner will go right below the title of your post. And when people see it, they think to themselves (subconsciously), “this looks official”. 

For example, every year, Saveur.com does an AwardsBait campaign that lists the top food blogs. As you can see, they have a simple banner that goes between the title and intro. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You can get this done on Upwork for about 25 bucks. Or if you have design skills, you can make it yourself in Photoshop. Next, you want to create a badge that bloggers can put on their site to show off that they won. This badge makes it easy for your winners to spread the word. I’ve found that giving the winners an embed code for the badge works really well. 

Why? Well as you may have guessed, this badge will have a link to your AwardsBait page. So when someone adds the badge to their site, you get a link. Here’s an example from an SEO That Works student’s AwardsBait campaign. See how the winner embedded the badge in their sidebar? That’s what you’re looking for here. Again, you can get a badge made at freelance sites like Upwork. Moving right along to step 5, reach out to the winners. 

As you know, you’ll get access to my step-by-step content promotion and link building strategies in Module 3. And just like the other Content Frameworks in this module, those strategies work great for AwardsBait. But AwardsBait is unique because it has promotion built right into it. So even though we haven’t got to Module 3 yet, I want to quickly cover how to get started on promoting your AwardsBait Power Page. So here’s what you do. Send every winner a heads up via email about their award. 

This email should also give them the embed code for the badge. As you send these out, keep one thing in mind, there’s no need for a hard sell here. The people you reach out to will be VERY happy to be on the list. The point of this email is just to get them to see your AwardsBait. The rest will take care of itself. Of course, I have a word-for-word email script that you can use in the worksheet for this lesson. 

But for now, to quickly recap, in this lesson you learned that the AwardsBait Content Framework is effective because it has two Share Triggers: Social Proof and Positive Emotions. I also showed you exactly how to plan, organize, and create your first AwardsBait Power Page. And in the worksheet below this video I have everything you need to get started on your AwardsBait. Then, in the next lesson you’ll learn all about how to create Industry Studies. But for now, go ahead and grab the worksheet. And I’ll see you in the next lesson.