What you will learn
- Simple ways you can make your reviews unique
- How to leverage experts for content and links
- Why you should move away from using stock photos as much as possible
- How to use multimedia to boost user experience
So Google apparently rolled out another update after the big August change. HealthAmbition survived the first shock, however it seems like we got hit hard this time.
That being said, our other sites are doing pretty good, or better than before.
Word on the street is since everyone has link building figured out by now, we’ll have to start focusing our attention on other areas of our websites. So in this episode, we want to talk about 5 things you can do to take your content to the next level.
#1 – Real Life Tests / Original Data
Examples:
- Vacuum cleaner – real life suction tests – like Modern Castle.
- Email marketing – real deliverability results from a real email list (we did this on AuthorityHacker)
- Juicer – test how much juice each one produces from the same weight of input vegetables
Super-high quality content is great, but any efficiency gain in your purchase is massively outweighed by your massive time investment. For example The Wirecutter spends upwards of $10k/page and a month of work to generate this content.
Fewer but better pages is the only way to make this happen. These tests are not super scientific, but that doesn’t matter, they don’t have to be. Just do it.
#2 – Expert Quotes
Incorporate expert quotes into regular articles.
- You can do this at any time.
- In our article about buying/selling websites, we had comments from people at Empire Flippers and FE International.
Why This Is Good
- It shows you have done research + gone the extra mile
- It gives you new/unique insights
- It adds balance to an article
- It builds relationships in a giving way with influencers in your industry
#3 – Complementing Media (Video, Audio, Custom Images….)
Custom Images
- Used to explain an interesting topic
- Mini-infographic
- $20-50 from a designer
- Source of link building if other people use them
You can do this with people from Fiverr. You can literally just draw on a paper, take a photo, and give them that as a brief.
Behold, Gael’s artwork for reference:
Illustrated Screenshots
- Popular in IM / Tech niches
- Over the shoulder feel
Photos
- Recipe – step-by-step photos
- How to build a wardrobe – step-by-step
Audio
- We have 119 podcast episodes now
- We can embed these where relevant
- In an article about starting an Amazon site, if we mention domain names, we can embed a podcast about domain names
- Doesn’t have to be your podcast, you can embed anyone else’s from Soundcloud without people leaving your site
Video
- Embed other people’s video from YouTube
- Same principle as audio
- Or make your own video
- A video of You using a product, giving a quick overview of it
- Your face / you talking about the topic and giving your views
- Adds time on site and makes people engaged in multiple mediums
#4 – Cover All Related Sub Topics
Think about sub-groups of users, particularly with roundup reviews.
I.e. Best multivitamin:
- Age
- Sex
- Life event (pregnancy)
- Financial constraint (budget)
- Form (pill, powder etc)
By all means have a best overall. But don’t be afraid to split your recommendation into multiple categories. Think about whether it’s worth having a top 5, or 5 different recommendations:
- Best for over 50s
- Best for women
- Best for on a budget
- Best for men
- Best overall
On HealthAmbition we split these subtopics into multiple articles. But we never really tried to hit that one big keyword. To target it we’d need a killer article that addressed all sub-groups. Almost like a hub page.
If you look at AuthorityHacker, we have a whole hub for specific niche reviews for affiliate marketing, but we also have a podcast episode on niche selection in general.
#5 – Better Formatting
Less Is More
- Makes the elements you do create stand out more
- Less of a ‘sales page’ impression
- Easier to upload/produce
- Easier to make responsive
Consistency Is Key
Build a couple of elements and reuse them again and again. If you look at some of our more recent articles, we’ve been trying to streamline our formatting and minimize the fancy stuff.
- Quotes
- Tables
- “Pro tips” boxes
- Pros & Cons
Teach your writers about elements that can be used. Get a password protected page with all elements on display. Also, build elements for mobile first, desktop second.
Conclusion
We live in a world where the bar for content is going higher and higher.
A lot of of money can be made with websites, but the investment needed is starting to get closer to potential earnings.
A lot of the things we talked about are easy to add to existing articles.
