Let’s dive right in. I recently published a Power Page that generated over 1,000 backlinks in just under 8 months. And those 1,000 links came from some pretty solid authority sites, like Forbes and the AMEX small business blog. But what’s interesting about this Power Page is that, unlike most of my content, I didn’t need to do a whole lot of outreach and promotion to get these links. In fact, the vast majority of these links came from people proactively finding my content and linking to it.
The secret? A Content Framework that I call The Industry Study. It’s a strategy that’s working so well right now that I plan on making it a focus for us this year. And scaling it up. With that, let’s get into how this content framework actually works. And how to get started on your first industry study. So, when it comes to building backlinks, a lot of people see link building as this sleazy, pushy thing where you email people and twist their arm for a link.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, in Module 3 I’ll show you a handful of highly-effective link building strategies that don’t require any arm twisting at all. But for now, the big idea here is that most people need to be pushy with link building because their content isn’t worth linking to in the first place. Specifically, it doesn’t appeal to Linkreators. So it might be “great content”. And it might be “really valuable”.
But if it’s not something Linkreators WANT to link to, that content is going to struggle to get links. Well, you know all this already. The reason I’m bringing it up again is that The Industry Study is the exact type of content that Linkreators LOVE to link to and cite in their articles. In fact, many bloggers and journalists are actively looking for sites to link to.
Specifically, they’re seeking out sources that they can use to back up what they’re writing about. And when you publish an Industry Study, you have the exact kind of original research that Linkreators love to link to. For example, with the voice search post I mentioned earlier, I give people writing about voice search specific data points that they can reference in their content.
And when you become the source, you can find yourself getting links on autopilot from authority sites in your niche. Obviously, industry studies aren’t new. They’ve been around for years. But what makes this content framework unique is that you strategically engineer the study in a way that maximizes the links that you get. For example, lots of people publish their industry study results in the form of a whitepaper or PDF. And it’s a HUGE mistake.
Yeah, you might get a few more email subscribers and leads by doing this. But very few Linkreators (myself included) would ever link to an opt-in page. For example, SEMrush published their ranking factors research as a PDF. Even though their study was well done and had some interesting findings, it got linked to WAY less than my similar Google ranking factors study.
In fact, last I checked, our study got 3x more links than the SEMrush study. Part of this is due to the simple fact that I made my findings public. And SEMrush didn’t. But that’s not the only reason. Over the years I’ve picked up a few simple tactics that you can use to easily double or triple the number of backlinks that you get from your industry study. And these are the main reasons that my industry studies get linked to so often. Needless to say, I’m going to share all of these tactics with you in this lesson. Now, there are three main types of Industry Studies that you can create.
All three have their pros and cons. So there’s no “best” type. It really depends on your topic. And which type makes the most sense for you. The first type of Industry Study is Original Research. In my experience, this is the most effective type of Industry Research content you can produce. The only downside of this approach is that original research can be A TON of work.
I have more details on how to pull these things off later in this video and in the worksheet. But even with steps to follow, industry studies are HARD. That said, they’re often well worth the effort and the ROI can be off the charts. Next up, we have surveys. Surveys are a relatively easy way to generate data for Linkreators to reference. For example, this Unbounce study surveyed about 1,000 people about website loading speed.
That type of survey is 10x easier to pull off than analyzing 1.3 million YouTube search results. And at the end of the day, with a survey, you still have data that people can link to in their content. Which is the whole point. For example, we published this survey on the Backlinko blog a while back. It did well in terms of links and shares. But more importantly, it was really easy to put together. Especially compared to original research. In fact, I plan on doing more surveys in the future. Finally, we have case studies. Yup, case studies (like The Trademark Technique) can also work as Industry Studies. The key is to
highlight a specific result that people will WANT to reference. And frame the entire thing as an experiment.
For example, I knew that my Linkreators were having trouble writing anything new around the topic of “how to build your email list”. So I published this case study that gave them something new to talk about. Note how I go into extreme detail of how the whole thing went down. That helps position this case study as more than a fluff piece that brags about my results. Instead, I approached things scientifically. And documented every little detail. Which makes the content feel more like an industry study than your traditional hyped up case study. According to Ahrefs, this single case study has been linked to over three thousand times. With that, let’s dive right into the step-by-step process. Step one is to find the right topic.
Like anything you write, you want to focus on topics that your Linkreators are likely to share and link to. For example, with my voice search study, I noticed that more and more marketing bloggers were publishing stuff about optimizing content for voice search. Was I particularly interested in voice search? Not really. Did my audience want content on voice search?
I had no idea. But I knew that my Linkreators would eat it up. So I went with that topic. Step two is to choose your format. As I mentioned earlier, your Industry Study can be in the form of original research, a survey or a case study. There’s no “best” format as they all have pros and cons. I personally like original research because it tends to stand out a bit more.
But I’ve had success with surveys and case studies too. So the “best” format really depends on your topic. For example, when I wanted to do an Industry Study on visual search, we decided to use the original research approach. But we could have also done a survey of how many people use visual search. Both formats would have worked in this case. But let’s say you want to do an Industry Study about the keto diet. Well, original research probably doesn’t make sense as it’s tough to run a double blind placebo controlled trial in your home office.
But a survey of how many people eat keto. And how many people stick to it could totally work. You could also do a case study of how someone used the diet to lower their cholesterol or blood pressure. Moving on to step three, collect your data. This step depends a lot on which industry study format you choose (original research, survey or case study). My one tip here is to document everything in detail. This proves to people that your data is legit.
For example, I included a PDF that included our methods and dataset at the bottom of the voice search study. Which added a ton of credibility to our results. The last step is to write everything up. And publish your results as a Power Page. If you go with a case study, then you can use the basic Trademark Technique outline from this module. The only difference is that here you’d probably want to tone down some of the results. And really focus on the details of how the whole thing went down.
For example, check out this case study of how Etsy tested different title tags. Yes, it’s still a case study. Which means it’s not analyzing huge amounts of data. Or surveying thousands of people. But you’ll notice that it really focuses on the process. And it presents the results in an objective, non-hypey way. For lack of a better term, the whole thing feels very scientific.
That’s not to say that your case study Industry Study has to be dry or boring. The takeaway here is that if you want your case study to be seen as research, it’s important to document all the steps. And mention flaws and limitations that may have skewed your results. And if you’re going with Original Research or a Survey here’s the exact top-to-bottom process for creating your Industry Study Content.
First, you have your introduction. I recommend writing an intro that describes what kind of study you did. And some of the things that you analyzed. Again, you want the writing style to be kind of toned down. Here’s an example. Next, it’s time to summarize your results. Specifically, Include a summary of the 8-12 most interesting findings at the top of your post.
Right after your intro. Journalists are busy. And when you highlight the most interesting stuff for them at the top of your content, they’re MUCH more likely to link to you. After that, you want to outline and describe every finding. There’s really no secret sauce here. Just outline what you found. And why it’s important. Here’s an example. Your next step is to add visuals to your content.
Specifically, charts and graphs that visualize your results. These visuals really don’t need to be anything fancy.For example, the visuals I used in this industry study were tweaked versions of what the data program created automatically. So yeah, visuals make your data easier to understand. Which is nice. But the main benefit is that people will embed your visuals in their content (and link back to you when they do). A quick pro tip about your industry study visuals: you don’t want to use charts and visuals that ONLY look good on your site. Instead, use visuals with a neutral look.
That way, people will be more likely to embed them on their site. For example, check out this chart. That chart looks cool. But it’s going to clash with most site designs. Which means that Linkreators will be less likely to embed it on their site. On the other hand, an example from one of our studies. See how that visual looks good on pretty much any site? That’s how you want yours to look. Last up it’s time for your conclusion. Your conclusion simply needs to link to any other data that you may have lying around, like a PDF of your methods or a spreadsheet with raw data.
And a call to action to encourage people to share the finding that was most interesting to them. Here’s an example. And with that, your Industry Study is complete. To quickly recap, you learned that industry studies are GREAT for building links. That’s because they give bloggers and journalists something that they desperately want: data to cite in their articles. And as you might expect, there’s a worksheet below this video that will help you get started on your Industry Study content.
Then, in lesson 7, you’re going to learn all about The Crowdsourced Manual content framework. But for now, download the worksheet for this lesson. And I’ll see you in the next video.
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