How to Get High DR Links with Digital PR w/ Stacey MacNaught

Seos often view digital pr as the holy Grail of link building Getting hundreds of links from dr90 plus Sites is a surefire way To improve your seo and today’s guest Has done this for hundreds of sites Her name is stacy mcnaught and she does Intelligent digital pr campaigns With the explicit goal of building links I first saw stacy speak At the chiang mai seo conference back in 2019 and i was blown away by her talk So if you want to seriously level up Your link building game Then today’s episode is going to be a Good one [Music] Today’s guest is stacey mcnaught from Stacymcknot.co.uk Welcome to show stacey hey okay Uh just so people can get an idea of the Kind of Link building you do can you tell us About some of the sites you’ve gotten Links from over the years Yeah i mean the last few weeks Independent.co.ukrd.com Uh mashable uh so we you know we We’re after the big ones really so these Are some of the absolute Cream of the cream top tier one sites That that you’re building Links from and can you give us an idea Of how much

You pay when you factor in all the Campaign costs and Time uh in some of these campaigns yeah Over the last year the average for us Was 35 35 i’m sure most people listening Agree that that absolute steal for these Kind of tier 2 Everyone will be will be eager to to Learn how Exactly you do this just to put this Into perspective um i think our average Cost per link and not the the dr we’re Getting At the moment you know in the in the 50s On on average We’re paying sort of 40 to 60 dollars And that’s for outreach based Lower quality stuff so i i’m also i’m Here to learn today Too hopefully uh can you just before we Get into the tactics though can you Tell us how you got into this and and Maybe tell us a bit more about your your Journey Yeah absolutely so in 2009 i was Freelance copywriting And that’s kind of what i really enjoy To be honest is content creation Writing that’s that’s my thing and Tons of my clients were starting to ask About seo so i was like Better figure this crap out uh Self-taught a little bit

I thought there’s quite a lot to this And then i went and took a trainee role With an agency in manchester And i think if i’m being honest my Intention was probably A year or two figure it out and then go Back to the freelance copywriting Um but within a couple of weeks i was i Was having the time of my life to be Honest I thought this is quite a lot of fun uh The One of the co-founders kevin who trained Me actually um Is still one of the smartest people i’ve Ever worked with Uh you know even as of today and he had Number ones in like really competitive Insurance and finance spaces in the uk Granted pretty pretty black hat stuff um But pretty much just threw me straight In the deep end Like just go figure this out go do it Here’s some basic information that you Need now go make it happen And it’s exactly the kind of training That i needed and Fell in love with like the competitive Side of it and thought yeah absolutely Definitely see myself making a career Here and ended up with that agency Actually for Nine years and was on the board at the Point in which

I resigned and went solo but yeah uh Pretty much from copywriting and then Accidentally into seo And what what’s your role today do you Still get involved in some of the Copywriting or are you just overseeing Everything Not as much as i would like so i’ve got A small consultancy now there’s six of Us Um and we work from just outside Manchester Office fairly rural location away from The city centre And my first hire actually was my mum Who’s now doing seo for us so About still probably about two-thirds of What we do is client work And we’re gradually moving over to doing More of our own affiliate and lead gen Projects So i’m a little bit more hands-on with Things like the copy on some of those But in reality now most of the copy we Do we’ve got in-house copywriters who Pick most of that up for clients Um i’m involved heavily in the strategy Side We’ve got some freelance support where We need it definitely don’t do as much Of the copy These days as as i would like to be Honest You mentioned you you hired your mom as

Your your first employee that that’s Really interesting Do you think that’s that means that it’s Easy for people to Learn this stuff or do you have to have A certain mindset or A way of thinking to to get good at this Type of link building Uh well i probably didn’t plan to hire My mum first i think what happened is When i first went freelance Sort of like very very early in 2018 When it was just me And i was obviously doing all the copy Most of the outreach myself My mum was giving me a hand like Shooting some emails out and stuff like That And we then went To um i went to my mum one day and just Said Yeah i could do a bit more help with This really you know just fancy picking Up a little bit of extra So she’s like well i’ll i can do it for You informally just tell me what i need To do went through it with her she was Sending emails out And she messaged me one day saying like I’ve just changed the wording on that a Little bit just made it sound a bit Friendlier i was like All right and she started getting better Response rates than me with

Friendly hellos um so i was like okay This this kind of communicating with Journalists and website owners is Probably Her thing really asked her to do some More formal freelance for me and at the Time she was employed and she was like i Just can’t commit to it Um so in the end she kind of coincided That she was looking for a new role Closer to home At around about the same time i was Looking for a permanent hire So like let’s just give this a go So her role is very much on the outreach Desk research um for content side of Things As opposed to the technical side by our Own admission no interest in the Technical Side whatsoever probably can’t pronounce Canonical that well Um but definitely great on the outreach Side and i think that Because seo has now become so demanding In terms of a skill set there’s so many Different Areas you generally i don’t think find That many All-rounders these days people tend to Do Bits of it and then you can you can Absolutely find people with great Communication skills who’ve got

No experience whatsoever in any sort of Outreach or content creation and And give them those or give them the Knowledge basically to turn their skills To that particular task I think yeah that’s that can be done Quite effectively i think Do you think that all seos should now be Considered considering moving into this Kind of Digital pr realm as well no Um i think it’s important that as an seo Team you’ve got some of that capability Or some of that understanding But for me it’s not necessary for every Single campaign You know if your job is working with Small businesses who’ve got a local Presence and they’re competing with Other very small businesses whose Backlink profile is maybe only made up Of 10 or 20 domains then they don’t need to Be running Thousands of pounds worth of campaigns To land hundreds of pounds Like hundreds and hundreds of links on Top tier websites i think it’s all Relative So there’s definitely some cases where You need to be doing some of the pre Work but i don’t think it’s for all of Them i think we’re Actually as an industry maybe it’s a

Little bit too eager to jump into Selling pr as the answer to seo problems So where do you typically start when You’re assessing a a website when you’re Trying to decide okay What what do i want to do here yeah so i Mean we’ll obviously start with things Like Keyword research competitor analysis um Our client will give us a list of Objectives That we’ll reverse engineer into traffic That we need to reach Our audiences we need to reach um and If it’s a competitive space we know that We’re going to be very very quickly Looking at battling profiles We’ll take a look at what it looks like It’s going to take to rank based on What competitors have done and where They’re currently at and if you’ve got a Brand who’s already done a ton of pr in The past they’ve already Nailed all these big uh tier top tier Links and we see a lot of that actually Brands will come to us and say We’ve got links on all these sites and We’re still not ranking Um it’s filling in the gaps so where What have they not got yet what can we Improve Uh usually start with the on-site stuff At least the very basic on-site stuff Before we do

Tons and tons of link building but it’s Just i think it’s Mostly a gap analysis like why is Someone doing better than you are And what do we need to fill those gaps And go one further And and it’s not always pr so Specifically if you’re looking at a site That let’s say doesn’t have All of these these great links but Perhaps you think Needs to how do you where do you go from There do you have an arsenal of tactics Which you You kind of go through or what’s the Thought process we do yeah So for sites that are lagging behind in The link area We’ve got a few different tactics we’ll Use if they’re an e-com site and they’ve Got product Um that they can place then we like Product placement so going off to Journalists who’ve done gift roundups or Interiors roundups and things like that And sort of Either proactively contacting them and Saying right we’ve got this New product that our clients launched or An existing product we think could be Perfect for one of your Roundups and the success rates and that Can be really high particularly if you Can

Tailor it for a gifting season so at the Moment It’s mostly we’re finding going through Client websites and working out what Exactly can be Pitched as a mother’s day gift for march And surprising everything can be pitched To some others day gift Um so that’s always quite a good start Point for product Where there’s no product so how do you Just just as your own on that how do you Actually Find those journalists do you do you Have a system to to go through or use Ahrefs or do you have Any other tools that you you use yeah We’ll use we use some Media databases um to find email Addresses once we’ve found the names But then actually one of the simplest Ways is just to head off to google news Type in say mother’s day gifts set the Date range For six weeks before mother’s day last Year And see who did the roundups um If you’ve got say a furniture product Let’s say you’re selling Luxury beds then off you go to google News i wouldn’t type in luxury beds Because if they’ve just done luxury beds They’re probably not doing it again next Week

But something similar so you know it Could be other bedroom furniture who’s Done dressing tables And you’ll find a list of google news Websites where They’re covering roundups like that so We’ll take the journalist name from There if the email address is available Great otherwise we’ll usually run it Through a media database And find it that way but the google news Route is pretty straightforward and then Actually A lot of journalists are proactively Going out to media inquiry websites And putting out requests for what they Want so the likes of response source In the uk press plugs in the uk uh Harrow And yeah quoted harrow really i suppose In the us But there’s different databases Everywhere where journalists are putting The requests through I mean over the last four or five weeks Response source has probably sent out About 40 or 50 Requests for valentine’s gifts So that sort of thing is pretty Straightforward to reply to Five or ten minute job if you’ve Prepared uh you know a bank of images Already Um and also for e-comm sites

Press loft is pretty good so with press Loft you just upload all your products Images all your products spec put the Links onto your website And journalists will either contact you There or even sometimes just download Your images and you find That the product is turned up in a Roundup somewhere so yeah i think But for me a good starting point even With all the tools in the world It’s great to have the likes of response Source and press plugs and people Emailing you Um it’s competitive if they’ve emailed You know if i’ve got the email through Response source so have the 93 gazillion Other people who subscribe to receive Them So your replies have got to be really Quick you know that you’re not Guaranteed To get in there the proactive stuff Of actually rounding up the journalists That have talked about similar sort of Things to you and going to them I think can be really effective um and Even if they’re not planning to do the Exact thing right now we’ve had plenty Where they’ve said You know we’re not doing that for a While however here’s a list of things That we have got coming up If you’ve got clients that meet those

Needs And i imagine journalists maybe get a Lot of these kinds of Emails do you have a specific way you Approach them So that you you stand out or how do you Get noticed Main thing is going to be the subject There really so i tend to get straight To the point And i think with journalists there’s Never really a right or wrong answer There’s probably 10 million things i’ve been told by one Person i should do and by somebody else I shouldn’t do And there’s journalists who’ll say Please don’t send us attachments they Just clog my inbox Others are like just attach a small Image um You get people who say don’t give us a How are you doing intro and others who Are like let’s make some small talk Um personally i think i hope you’re well Is is pretty harmless Um and you know most of the time i Genuinely do hope they’re well So um i think the subject is the main Thing and i’m i’m a fan of get to the Point So if it’s like i’m looking for a Placement in mother’s day gift roundup I’d be like

Premium product suggestion for mother’s Day gift roundup and it’s it is That it’s like you know what you’re Going to get when you open the email Um i use mail track to Track open on emails and i think if we Find after the first sort of 20 or 30 That opens look a little bit lower than We’re used to then you can go and tweak The subject but it’s all in there And then what we do as well is we’re Quick so if a journalist has something That’s If it’s for mother’s day fine we know It’s going to be a while if it’s going Live but We do sometimes contact people who’ll Say well actually yeah this is going Live but i need it like Yesterday so we already at the start of The campaign we’re preparing Google drive folders with headshots of The business founders Biographies high spec imagery of all the Products that we need so we can Literally just send that Ready to go all in one so i think it’s The email subject Straight to the point in the email body For me and all the assets ready to go so There’s as little back and forth as Possible Okay so that’s product placements then What what else have you got in your

Arsenal So you can do people placement an expert Comment and that’s That can apply whether a client’s got or Your website’s got product or not So again response source press plugs They’re all really useful here Um journalists are not medically Qualified they’re not legally qualified Uh they’re not financially qualified Generally so if they’re writing content Where it will probably almost certainly Fall into that your money your life Category Uh you know good journalism practice is That you get the expert On board to give you the information That you need and the credibility So you’ll see tons of requests through These media inquiry sources for A doctor to comment on this or a Pharmacist to comment on this Or we want a lawyer to comment on this Some of them are as simple as we want Somebody who’s had a really crap Time due to brexit to talk about their Business um So i subscribe to those place people all The time And again proactive people placement so When we’re talking to The start of a campaign talking to Clients about product at the same time We’re talking about people

Back stories you know schools they’ve Come from the universities the towns Local press love a little bit of A good success story on the business and Again proactively pitching so off to Google News find somebody who has Written an article recently that just Says according to Plus doctor or something like that and You know these people Are using um third-party sources So sometimes it’s practically getting in Touch with an introduction just saying That we’re representing this person here Um this is their area of expertise You know if we can help just give us a Shout we’ve got everything prepped and Ready to go Um and the aim there really for us is Actually To have people coming to us in the end Looking for this comment which happens Quite a lot And reasonably quickly i think with Journalists if You can give them what they want quickly And they’re familiar with getting Exactly the information they need at the Time they need it no faffing no messing No missed deadlines They’re not having to try and budge Imagery together themselves because you Failed to deliver

I think if you could be quick and Efficient actually it’s easy for them Just to come back to you next time So that’s the point we’d like to get to Is that there’s not coming to us saying This is going live Can you can you help i think a lot of Seos are maybe a little bit fearful About talking to To journalists uh can you maybe you Obviously do this a lot can you give us A bit of an insight into What what does the mindset of a Journalist look like what are their Constraints and What what do they really want from from People like us Yeah well here’s a variable again i Think you know i speak to some I guess it also depends on their Freelance or whether they’re staff Journalists Um but you know we speak to some staff Journalists who’ve got seven or eight Pieces of content in a day to get out Um as standard you know a pretty normal Day so actually From you what they want is to make that As easy as possible So if you’ve got a story they want or You’ve got a comment that they want Generally it’s turn it around fast all The information or we tend to send Slightly more information than they

Might need and they can take the bits That they need All the images immediately um and Kind of making sure i think a bug bear That i’ve consistently been told is when Someone Pitches an expert he’s like yeah yeah Yeah we’ll get all this done We’ll sort out a telephone interview With you all we’ll sort out the comment Today And then actually you know come five O’clock the journalists Chasing and saying i really need this There’s a deadline and that’s an Absolute bug bear i think of everybody’s But if you’re pitching an expert for That sort of comment it’s just make sure You’ve got everything quickly If you’re pitching content and i think It’s just make sure that actually you’ve Got the right journalist i think There’s plenty of examples you’ll see Journalists tweeting about getting Irrelevant Press releases and if you’re only using A media database and you’re not doing Any manual Uh checking or filtering it’s really Easy to end up sending somebody Something irrelevant Uh best case scenario if you send Someone something irrelevant they just Delete it

And what you don’t want is the arty Response but i think ultimately with new Content ideas Is it something relevant and a question That we tend to get More frequently i think lately Particularly with data Driven studies and things is can we have Some sort of exclusivity on this Um i hate that question That comes up quite a lot can can i have This uniquely and actually exclusivity Sometimes just means that they can run It before You do your press release even if it’s Just minutes before so Do you recommend do you recommend other People Allow sites to do that or allow Journalists to do that or do you try and Get out to as many people as possible The thing is like once you see all the Time with like the daily mail the daily Mail runs something and everybody copies It anyway You know loads of other press then just Come in and copy this so i think it can Be It can be a way that you can be Confident if the outlet is big enough You can be pretty confident that there’s Going to be coverage off the back of That Um as well so i think there’s definitely

A benefit to doing so if you can almost Guarantee that First top tier piece there’s there’s a Little bit of comfort that comes from That On the flip side if what you’ve got is Really time sensitive Very very newsworthy but needs to go out On a given day Then on at that point i would be Inclined to say yeah no sorry It’s going to everybody um but take it On a case by case And for me i generally don’t have too Much of a problem with it we don’t tend To do too much stuff where This has to be today it’s got to be Today i don’t like that Pressure if something goes wrong your Internet goes Down or you know we had a case where a Friend of mine was about to launch a Campaign On um stillbirth and whatnot and She just happened to have a launch date In a diary of the same date that kate Middleton went into labor And there’s there’s nobody covering Stillbirth While kate middleton’s in labor so it’s The whole thing like that i’m not really Keen on Um campaigns where it has to be a Certain day

I like i like a backup shot to go again And if you have a list of journalists do You go for the The bbc the the tier one journalists the Tier one publications first or do you Generally Go for the lower like local sites maybe Local papers And try and kind of get the story out There so it spreads that way Go top tier first generally um if we’ve Got something that’s only of local Interest then Local press first but there’s also that There’s a lot of if you go to the bbc And you look in their local news Sections and read the stories there You’ll see loads of links at the bottom That refer to where something was first Covered Quite a lot um you know source sources And external links and things And there’s plenty of nationals that are Taking their news From local press that are finding news From local press So sometimes reverse engineering that a Little bit and go and taking a look at Actually if you’re struggling with these Top tiers Where are they getting their news from If you’re convinced the story is Definitely right but you’re just Knocking on the wrong doors

Then sometimes hitting those locals First can be a way to To get through um and i think that There’s It is a case it’s always variable Project by project and i think that’s Probably one of my biggest frustrations With The pr centric link building tactics Actually is There’s a little bit of a lack of scale It’s always going to be quite bespoke And There’s can be a lot of back and forth With journalists and a lot of reverse Engineering where Certain journalists seem to get their News from um but it You know it can and often does pay off You mentioned a little while ago about Data-driven studies Can you tell us a little bit more about That yeah so i mean For us the first the first time i Started doing anything like this was About 2010 And the agency i was at at the time and It predates any publicly available Google data on mobile usage and mobile Web Traffic we did um a very very Primitive study Which was basically we combined all of The analytics data that we had access to

Across all of our clients And went back a few months to look at The proportion of web traffic that was Coming from mobile And to look at the the growth of that And you’re talking to 2010 2011 at which Point obviously The iphone was just sort of starting to Pick up some real popularity and Obviously web traffic from mobile was Hugely on the rise So we got some quite nice stories put it Out optimize the thing for things like Mobile web traffic statistics and Whatnot And started getting did a little bit of Outreach got some really good coverage And then started finding competitors Linking to our site and Links from people who buy rights should Definitely not come to link to us Just because they’d found the stats Piece and then we updated it a few Months later And then not long after that google gave Us loads of absolute Millions of data and all the thing with Google sections of the website started Going live and there was all this other Data that was far Better than what we had so there’s no Point updating it again by that point But that kind of given us that okay Actually if you’ve got

Data people are always looking for a Resource but actually sometimes you can Spin that and make it A story as well and we repeated it in 2014 With um a survey-led piece where we Questioned people about how many times a Day they pick up their phone But instead of just asking that we Listed all these tasks and said how many Times a day Do you do each of these things on your Phone you ask people how You know how many times they pick the Phone they’re gonna underestimate Greatly And we found it was something like 200 Not times a day and That one went everywhere i mean that was Hundreds and hundreds of links in the First couple of weeks and still growing So then we started doing this for Clients everywhere at the agency i was Like it was you can pretty much make A story out of any piece of data Really either survey-based or You can use google trends or google Keyword data there’s all kinds of Different Data banks freedom of information that You can use to go and Find a little story hidden a number Somewhere But i think the reason i really stuck

With data as opposed to Too much else is the uses that you can Have Without having to do any outreach so Actually we do tons and tons of stuff Now With data and statistics pieces where we Don’t do any outreach And these pieces are getting 100 plus 200 Links just because we’re treating it Like we would a product landing page but We’re optimizing for a different Audience So if we produce one of our editorial Sort of test sites is microbizmag dot co Dot uk And on there we test a lot of statistics Pieces So there’s a page on there that ranks Pretty well might have the featured Snippet for Startup statistics and it’s a really Simple piece we did a Single question google survey which Costs about 80 dollars maybe and we did some keyword Research And we used some third-party statistics It’s Not mind-blowing um we launched it And we did a little tiny bit of outreach To one or two sites Who wanted to cover the thing the the

Question that we’d asked We’d ask the question about whether we’d Ask employees Whether they have ambition to start Their own business so we found a couple Little sites that were happy for us to Write about that And got the first couple of links Manually and then it started ranking top 10 and obviously The more these pieces rank the more People who are searching startup Statistics are finding it And linking to it um and then before you Know it you’ve either got a feature Snippet or a position one or two And it’s dealing with links on its own So i think we’re 90 to 100 links on That one now with literally an hour and A half Of outreach at the start 80 Spent on the content plus about two Hours and We’ve repeated that then for different Topics we do this for clients in Healthcare Finance that kind of thing works In any sector because it’s the I guess the slight difference between Creating a statistics piece To just rank it and let it link Passively Versus during the outreach is that when You do the outreach on a statistics

Piece You’re trying to be the story Whereas when you just let people link to It your background your context your Resource But you know when you go and look at if You just as a standard web user you go Off and Just read the bbc or you read any Website I mean that is that is how the web links Resources so i think if we make 100 Of our focus on being the story Constantly Aside from the fact that there’s some Scale issues with it It also isn’t a particularly realistic Way in my view of representation of how People link online you know people link To resources it’s not always about you Being front and center Sometimes it’s just that you’re a Background stat and on most of the The stats pieces that we do the links Are always according to research or the Anchor text over something like X number of startups or freelance skills Most in demand And it’s someone talking about a similar Topic they’re not talking about you They’re using a figure of yours and just Citing the source properly Um and for us that’s been Really scalable probably over the last

Three or four years we’ve done a lot of That and It’s one of those areas that doesn’t Seem to change but i mean you can go Back and look at content on The web from 2005 and that’s it’s never Changed that’s just how people cite Their sources So you mentioned there about Google survey was it is that uh can you Actually get people to respond In there like pay for responses yeah It’s around about eighty dollars for a Thousand responses Um with a general audience it’s really Cheap yeah it is Um obviously with a different survey There’s loads of different channels for Surveys and You can vary from yeah eighty dollars Per thousand responses with google Surveys Up to paying a few thousand for a few Questions with the likes of one poll or Yougov Or census wide and i think there’s There’s use cases for for them all i Think if you’re trying to be front and Center and you’re trying to be the story Then having an accredited market Research company behind your data Is important and actually when we’ve Pitched data driven stories to press Before particular

Sort of tier ones sometimes you will get Tell us a bit about this Study and who did it for you and why and You get asked for the data when you get Asked questions i actually once had A journalist ask if they could contact The survey provider To verify that they had done the survey So there’s definitely a case for using a Big survey company like that if you’re Doing a pr piece if it’s a piece that You just want to rank And leave then you know something like Google surveys.com is fine Uh census wide now some of the and some Of the survey providers now do single Question Surveys and they’re more like 100 to 200 Pounds For one to two thousand um So you can do content quickly and Cheaply Excuse me and that way i think It becomes really feasible to do really Low cost Data content with a survey google Surveys is a winner because you just log In Set it up yourself you don’t have to Speak to an account manager it’s just Done And what you get back is quite a nice Panel graphs that mean we tend to make Our own graphs anyway

And you can manipulate the data in the Panel yourself So the limitation obviously if you’ve Ever answered a google survey is that You’re trying to get to a piece of Content When this question flashes up in your Face so you click whatever the hell you Have to click To get rid of that and watch the youtube Video you were trying to get to So i think that’s why we generally Wouldn’t use google surveys for Something we’re going to go to press With Okay and it kind of reminds me of the Situation We had with uh one of our websites many Many years ago So we had this article about the Negative effects of of coffee of Caffeine And it just got so many links we ranked Number one for that term for a few years And it’s got so many links from Journalists who would Go to google search for negative effects Of coffee and then Because they’re writing an article about It and then reference it so Do you find that you can’t have to be up There number one or you know pay for ads Or something to get The kind of like evergreen traffic or

Evergreen links Um from from those statistics pieces Yeah it’s definitely about ranking it so I think that we’re at a point now with Micro bismarck generally speaking where If we put something live it’s gonna rank Um on the statistics side so we don’t Need to worry about it too much anymore But we did um did one for a company Called fourth with life a couple of Years ago On stress statistics they do home blood Test kits one of their key ones is Cortisol Um so we talked about stress and when we First went Live with that piece it’s like well We’re page two to three It’s not going to get anything even with Quite stressed statistics is Quite a large query in the context of Stats queries And we did manual outreach there and Landed a few impress Which in turn got that to sort of Position five and six and then Once they start picking links of Themselves it kind of becomes Self-fulfilling for a period But we’ve done plenty where we’ve worked On sites that have No visibility yet and yet ads are a Really good way to go first Limitation beam if it’s a really low

Volume query Then actually sometimes you just kind of Get your ad to show google does this Thing where You know now you can’t have that one but You could just rank for this massive Broad Query that you know covers everything Instead but if you’ve got a big enough Query On the start side and it’s not just Stats like templates work well things Like negative effects of caffeine People you have health related research Content That that stuff tends to if you’ve got Enough volume and you can Advertise on it then absolutely a Perfectly valid way to get That same traffic it’s i think what we Tend to do as seos and you see this all The time People will do a pr piece that’s data Driven And it’s really good and absolutely Smashes it in the press And then you go back to it look six Months later and the link profile is Very much that there were All these links over that week or two And then Nothing since and it can just be Something as simple as The title is something creative they can

Within a creative meeting It doesn’t say statistics it doesn’t say Fact it doesn’t say data And you just know and we’ve tested on Some clients pages before Just change the page title and that Piece ranks for statistics queries and Then continues to passively generate Links afterwards And i think it’s because we we i don’t Know whether it’s because it’s different Teams i’m not i’m not sure why it Happens but If we’re doing keyword research for a Commercial landing page On one of our own sites or a client site Then Every seo everywhere is going off and Finding the keywords that people are Typing they’re thinking about search Intent i think this person wants to buy This thing And i think as an industry we’re Hot at that like You know there’s so much amazing content Out there now great examples of Smart keyword research and everyone’s Got a pretty good understanding i think Of search intent And then when we do these pr pieces it’s Like we just forget all that It’s like oh it sings and it dances and It’s great and it looks fab And it’s made the news but actually if

You bring it back to basics it’s kind of The same Thing for us we’re still trying to win a Certain audience who are in search We’re not expecting them to buy Something we’re trying to find people Whose search intent is to find a Resource And i think that actually there’s tons Of creative content happens in this Space That does a job from a pr point of view And then stops generating links the Moment it’s finished because That bit hasn’t been done um and i’ve Never really been able to figure out why Why that doesn’t get done but i think Probably if you go and look at any Of the data driven stuff that makes the News today or that’s made the news in The last six months And you go and look at the website and Look at the asset on the Company’s website indefinitely over half Of those cases I’d be confident that you’d find the Page has not been optimized to have any Long-term Rankability or to drive traffic Long-term And i i can’t get my head around why it Happens because just as seo actually Good Do you think it’s maybe because uh like

Agency Pr type people tend to focus more on Like the short term wins and showing Showing what they can show maybe for the Length of their six month or one year Contract Versus you know if you’re doing it for Your own site you’d care more about the Long term rather than just the short Term Yeah i think there’s definitely a part Of that um we see within houses as well And i’m not sure whether it’s because Well because it does sit with pr teams As opposed to traditional seo teams i Think a lot of it will depend on how you Structure something Like in here we’re we all work in the Same Space you know everyone’s obviously Outside a covered a few working at home At the minute but Um everyone’s in the same space so it’s Like you can shout something across If someone’s working on a pro piece of Content it’s like your fans just looking Some key words up for me for this And if it’s not their bag or if you’ve Got someone who’s Would by their own sort of definition of What they do they sit on the pr Side they’re great at the creative They’re great talking to journalists Maybe not that good at search intent

Analysis or reverse engineering what Somebody might want Then actually just making sure it’s Plugged into the seo team Beyond a link report at the end can mean That These these pr assets can continue to Generate links passively Over time and that’s where your real Scale comes in i think and it’s quite It’s quite a difficult sell for me for Myself when we’re doing our own websites To sort of I don’t do much digital pr at all on our Own assets Our best ranking assets have been ranked Off passive links through statistics Queries Um creative commons image link building For the most part because For me it’s like okay i might land a Hundred links if we absolutely smash Something On this big campaign it could take days And days and There’s all these fancy graphics and all We could just Do this on a much smaller scale and rank It and okay it might take longer to get There But then those hundred links might Happen over a year Rather than over the week but then Tomorrow i can put another piece out and

The day after another piece out And scale that way and for me that just Is much more practical And much more enjoyable i think outreach Actually is I really don’t like orange and i really Don’t like doing it i really don’t like Making people do it um i just don’t Enjoy the process And i think if i can build links with as Little of that as possible Then i’m all for it so to tell us more About this creative commons Image link building then this is my Favorite i think so Um again we’ve gone back probably close To 10 years that we’ve been doing it With The idea being just that you create a Bank Of images that you license under Creative commons Distribute them in such a way that they Get picked up and we use flicker for That i could talk about that in a minute Um and people just use creative commons Images As they do on blogs news sites business Websites Pick up creative commons images the idea Is that they credit you with the link as Per Your attribution request and in 96 Of cases they will do it right the first

Time so the real the The real areas of process here for us Are researching what kind of images You can build to get links um Getting them optimized and as i say we Use flickr and we keep coming back to Flickr we’ve tried hundreds of other Things and we keep coming back to Getting this bank of images and Uploading it to flickr Um for a few reasons you set your Default license creative commons Um bar a few months last year Where when google updated image search And flickr’s licensing didn’t seem quite Right Um they rank pretty well in image search Particularly for the filtered image Search when you’re looking for creative Commons Um and there’s a ready-made audience There And you know you use your title your Flickr title when you’re uploading is Becomes the page title yeah click a Description becomes a meta description And there’s a neat little description Box there where you can put an Attribution request That specifies exactly how you want Attributing so flickr sort of just takes Care of it all Um and so we we do keep coming back to Flickr

To host these images we’ve done Self-hosting we’ve done all sorts i’ve Seen Recently people using unsplash um And we had a go at that but the Thing with unsplash i guess is you’re Distributing an image which people have Been told they can use freely without Attribution But it would be nice if you did but they Don’t have to but then you’re going Saying to someone You know will you attribute after all um For me like Our response rates we’ve only done a Couple of very small tests but our Response rates for Going after people who found the image On splash have been Significantly lower than people who Found one of our images on flickr Or on wikimedia commons uh when they’re Looking for creative commons images Yeah the idea is basically what images Can i create In this um how do you find that how do You determine what images to to create You have a process Yeah we go about it much like we do for Creative content so if we’re working on A website that’s like Um let’s say we’re doing micro bizmags Images were Mind mapping so in the middle we’re

Talking to small businesses and Freelancers And then we’re looking at all the Different areas they care about So you know working from home remote Working was a big area they care about Building a website marketing hr And then we look at different images we Could produce in those areas And one of the biggest areas that we Looked actually for micro bizmag earlier On this year was we did a bank of work From home images Um probably the same week that Work from home was uh not enforced Was issued as guidance in the uk and So the timing was really good for that Sort of thing But will my map at the same as all the Content so these are the topic areas That we’re interested in Then we’ll go off to google and we’ll Start typing into google Some of just some of those keywords Around that topic to see what images Already rank In image search whether they’re any good If we filter by creative commons You often find that there’s loads of Images for a normal image search and Then as soon as you filter by creative Commons Everything disappears and you’re left With um a lot of crap

Um so we’ll use that as a starting point Actually in these topic areas these are The Keywords where people might be looking For images that don’t have much Creative commons imagery there’s not Much there so then we know Loosely what kind of keyword we’d like To meet uh Meet the intent of with our image so we Know roughly what kind of topic Images we want then a bit of inspiration We’ll go off to like alami or Shutterstock or getty and take a look There for those kind of keywords what Images are showing up which ones are the Best sellers what people are prepared to Pay for So what kind of things the sites have Statistics on which ones Are the best sellers we reverse image Search them so Just do a quick google image reverse Image search and see which ones are most In use And that gives us an idea as to what People what kind of imagery people Actually want And are prepared to pay for and that Then becomes the basis of a list of Images that we’re going to often produce And most time for us it’s like It can be done um Well it can be done in a light box the

Idea is that we can do it in a light box In the office Um if we’re doing anything outdoors it’s Usually quite easy to replicate it’s Usually props rather than people If it’s people we tend to just use backs Of heads and whatnot just because You know nobody wants to find out that They’re a stock model one day by Accident on the internet Um and i think that like we just Just you can pretty much do this for any Sector i think you really can We’ve not very often had a complicated Um Shoot there was we’ve got a danceware Client and we wanted some Imagery of a ballet dancer and obviously You can’t just Get someone in the office to do that but They had a Catalog shoot coming up so they were Like we can do this for you And send them over to you um but okay i Think I’m going to put you on the spot here so Let’s say we had a paintball website How would you do it for for that so take A look at When people are looking for paintball I’d be the same way i would start with Content really is my map middle Paintball so You’re looking at sport you’re looking

At adrenaline and privatizing to Why would people go things like stag Dudes birthdays stuff like that So look at all those areas first with Something very specific around Um like people being very very specific You could look for action shots so the The really obvious ones are Is someone are there actually creative Commons images already of people doing Paintball Are they any good are they in use and if The answer is Loads of people are using images of People doing paintball there’s not very Many good creative commons Ones they’re a bit crap they think well Straight away that’s an immediately Obvious one that you could do You could go further i mean you can do All right there the um Stuff like that always gets used Remarkably well Is people searching for stuff on a Computer So it loads this with health like you Know someone holding a mobile phone Typing in fitness app And stuff and that gets used all the Time Um and you always think it wouldn’t Because you just think if someone needed An image like that they could make it Themselves in five minutes

But they don’t they just want to and I’ve done it myself you know go to Google images find something and use it And get the Blog post live uh so you can you can be People looking for that sort of thing You could do you could go wider Adrenaline stuff i suppose You could sort of look people looking For adrenaline sports people Would use um children’s Building blocks with letters on um we’ve Done whenever we Did stuff for road traffic accidents and We used Hot wheels and matchbox cars to Replicate some pretty gory accidents And they got used really well so i think It’s always a combination of something That looks a little bit Looks good looks a little bit different To what’s out there You can create it easily um but we also Expect i mean there’s no process perfect At all and we’ve got some image banks Where We’ve got 100 images and there’s only Five doing all the work So we normally say go live with 50 and Expect that 48 might not do what you need them to do But you’re looking for a couple that Absolutely Nail it for you and then you can just

Keep adding All the time so we normally start with a Bank of 50 and we’ll usually be looking To add 5 to 10 every month and i take it you Have to have a pretty Robust follow-up process to to monitor Who’s using your images but not linking To you and reach out to them Yes um been in my life but Generally worth it with the with the Stats content for whatever reason It just gets linked to so we go and Search we we Rarely ever find an unlinked mention It’s generally just always Links where people have found that Content as a resource With the creative commons images on our Last check Over 6 000 usages 95 to 96 Were not credited correctly the first Time So what we mean is they don’t have a Link to the end website that we want the Link to And what people do is a combination of Either no credit whatsoever Don’t like those articles or they’ll try To credit By like linking to flickr or mentioning The brand Or they’ll have written the link out as A caption on a wordpress

Image that hasn’t turned into a link so There’s all kinds of things That that can happen that stop someone From who wants to credit from crediting So we use there’s a few different Systems you can use Uh copy track is pretty good uh if not a Little bit slow So it used to seem to update like really Really regularly now it’s like every Couple of weeks A slightly faster one that’s on the paid Side is picmatch.ca Where you just upload your images or Hook it up to flickr And it will do the checks for you so It’ll go off and tell you if somebody’s Used your image Um from there your manual job is to go And see did they credit If they didn’t credit find the email Address and then get in touch And just request attribution so the Things that we generally do in all of Our attribution emails Are we adopt quite a polite Uh gracious thank you for using the Image tone as opposed to hi we’re the Copyright police Um and well it’s a thanks for using the Image We include the url where the image is in Place on their site We include a url for flickr

Where it was initially uploaded so that They can see the date it was uploaded They can see it’s authentically does Belong to the person we’re saying it Does And they can see the attribution Instruction as well So we include that as well just says This one here and as per that Instruction if you wouldn’t mind just Updating attribution with a link to Here that would be great uh then we’re Always keen as well if someone’s tried To credit and it’s It’s just that wordpress hasn’t turned The link into a link on the caption Will even say like it doesn’t really Matter where on the page is because you Can pop it at the bottom if it’s easier Um and then we’ll normally do one Follow-up Seven days later if they’ve not got back In touch and The success rates can vary from like 20 Responses to 60 in some cases but we Generally find The better the website the higher the Chance of a response It’s like the crappy blogs that don’t Care whether they’ve attributed properly Or not they’re probably not going to get Back in touch But you know we’ve literally sent Attribution requests to the bbc and had

A response within 24 hours Uh often with an apology for the fact That it wasn’t done correctly the first Time So what we would say is normally the Bigger publications do a better job of Getting back to you and If they have a corrections desk i would Always go to the corrections desk Over an info or a journalist We don’t tend to what is it correct That’s supposed to be Basically a corrections desk is my Understanding is that it’s basically The department within any publication That’s set up to make sure that they Haven’t screwed up Um so make sure they’re not getting sued You know anything that’s that it could Be Actually we’ve published a news story We’ve included A complete inaccuracy or We’ve not licensed something popular We’ve credited the wrong person for an Image So the corrections desks are set up for The pure purpose of making sure That if there’s supposed to be a credit On something it’s there that all the Facts are accurate So they tend to be really really quick To respond they don’t give a crap about Your seo objectives they don’t

Crap about link policies it’s like we’ve Made a mistake You’ve told us what we should have done It’s clear that you’re accurate there All the information is there predating Our post Um and it generally gets corrected quite Quickly the journalists i find Particularly a lot of freelance Journalists don’t even have the access To go and make the changes So if there is no corrections desk we’ll Generally look for an info at Or a contact at and get pointed in the Right direction from there but we do Often find that the journalists Themselves On the bigger publications are not Likely to be the ones going in And correcting licensing errors Of all the ideas you’ve you’ve tried Across all the different Different strategies what what kind of Ideas tend to work and Have you ever sort of had ideas that you Thought were going to work really well But but just Fell flat and didn’t and why was that Yeah absolutely i think on content and Images we’ll do stuff where we think This is Definitely going to work and feel really Confident that we’ve done all the Research initially

Really confident this is this is going To work um And then it just doesn’t and i think Sometimes you can reverse engineer it And you can sort of say well actually do You know what It was something we did so i was Involved in a campaign a few years ago With an agency and It was about uh Children’s screen time probably going Back it was Five or six years now and it felt like It should work the data was all really Good everyone was really confident about The data Everyone was really confident about the Story the client was really happy with It The assets looked amazing and it Absolutely Sank like it just it was rubbish it was Such hard work We had to repurpose it loads of times it Was really hard work to hit that link Target And actually i look back at that now and I just think What a patronizing piece of crap Probably because i’ve got children now Um and you look back and you think There’s six people involved in that It’s about children and screen time not One of us was a parent

Not one of us not at our side not at the Client’s side not one of us was a parent And we’re like yeah this is great and Actually read it back now and The way i look it now is what a Conversating piece of crap Like you know it’s almost like Preaching at people so i think sometimes You can Step away and have the hindsight that Takes like several years and And having a child to have quite extreme But i think sometimes things fail Because We we’re rarely our own target audience You know it’s i think and it’s very easy To get in the space with Content with images with anything that You’re producing Of thinking people will love this Because i like it but You know like the the weird spot the Difference puzzle images and the where’s Wally type puzzle images that still work I don’t like them but they work every Time So i think when things fail a lot of the Time on content it’s It is the idea i think more often than The execution And i do think that one of the big um Difficulties that can cause that is Having People judge the quality of an idea or

The quality of a piece of content based On whether they like it themselves And that’s it’s a hard habit to get out Of because you look at things and just Think well i like that so They’re gonna like that you know we all Like that but It’s it’s just it’s not always the case At all i think you can get around it by Making sure you’ve got the right people Involved at the beginning or at least When you get to a certain point in Developing anything Sounding it off some of the people who Do fall into that Target audience um which was a Giant omission on that piece of content So If you’d actually you know showing it to A few parents At that point before you you proceeded Then okay And that would have been all that it Would have taken i think is just to sit Down with a couple of people who’ve got Children aged two to five and say what Do you think and I’m pretty confident one of them would Have turned around and said what a piece Of shite Um because that’s what i’d say now so There you go so you you mentioned there Your uh Where’s wally or where’s waldo for our

American uh Listeners uh and these puzzle puzzle Type Content i’ve heard you refer to this in The past as wanky content Um what is monkey content and how to Work Um so yeah these little puzzle images This Start in 2016 and i do refer to it as Wanky content quite flippantly just Because Because i just i just look at it and Every time i see it i just think why Does it work but this is a good example Of me not Being the target audience so you’ll have Seen them everywhere is you know like Here’s a Sea of jellyfish spot the carrier bag or Here’s a sea of Um one dollar uh notes find something Else like this you know it’s It’s just that where’s wally style Content over and over again And in 2016 we tried one Uh for a dancewear client and it was Find a Flamingo or find a ballerina in a sea of Flamingos No less and it got hundreds of links And it was it was a hannah a girl in my Team at the other agency and she was Like i really want to go live i really

Want to try this out this is not going To take long Um i only need like i think she’s saying She need two hours of a designer And two hours of someone for outreach And i was like fine give it a go I ain’t taking this from the client’s Budget though this is this is training Budget because I’m waiting for this disaster off i go I’ve got hundreds of links i was like You’ve Got to be kidding like uh as then we did It again and again and fast forward And this stuff is still working we did One as recently as christmas And i don’t think we get the same Returns now so we’re talking like maybe 10 20 30 maybe links But they’re all really top-tier sites Like readers digest love it woman’s day Love it um the daily mail will publish Them quite happily and never link But then what we can do is when the Daily mail do what we’ll tend to do is We’ll take the image that we’ve got and Once it’s been run we’ll upload it to Flickr and license it creative commons And then all the hundreds of outlets Internationally that we’ll pick it up And copy from the daily mail We can pursue with attribution requests Um so there’s the ways around doing it But yeah i mean simple puzzles like spot

The difference so where’s this thing in Here and the main reason it works i mean I’ve spoke to Journalists about this is they’re Measured on social interaction In a lot of cases a lot of their Objectives are traffic Social comments if you read the comments On the daily mail Not something i advise you do regularly But if you read the comments on the Daily mail on some of these puzzles Some people are like oh what a load of Crap it only took me five seconds or Easy Uh you get people like this isn’t Journalism um But they’re getting comments and people Literally show them saying oh look daily Mail are doing this crap again But you just shared it um and they do They do Get a lot of interaction it’s the kind Of thing where if i see somebody on my Facebook sharing something like that i Usually Friend them but um it’s it does other I’m not the target audience for it and It Meets how they’re measured she’s like oh Yeah and it’s i mean Over a lockdown for example some of the Journals were saying this is just a Pleasant distraction for a lot of people

Just mind off easy consume content Pretty uncontroversial um yeah and i i Still refer to it as wonky content Because i can’t find A better phrase for it like it’s the Images always look great You know and whenever um ali in here Designs these they always look great So it’s getting a reflection on on the Design But it’s just why why why does it work i Don’t know why it works It still works it’s and for as long as It does we’ll continue to do it It is a approach there then also to go With like a reverse engineer what works And maybe adapt it to To your industry or is there any special Tactics for coming up with the idea here Yeah we do like to keep it relevant um Where we can to what the client does so If it’s down to our client there’s Usually Like a ballet shoe hidden in something Or a ballerina or a tutu Um so that at least you’ve got something That you can very loosely Tie in and suggest is relevant um Not always sometimes we literally just Go i think we had a witch’s hat Over halloween um that was in A sea of something that was nothing to Do with what the client does um But i think sometimes if you can keep it

Relevant that makes sense And for us the media list on these Things he’s so small we’re sending out Like 30 journalists Tops usually with these um the ones that We know are using them So you can literally just go to google Today type in brain teaser Go to google news find the latest thing That’s gone live and there’s plenty of Them going live all the time Everybody’s doing them and reverse image Search it And just take a look at who is Publishing these take The top journalists from there and then Contact them and use whatever word They’ve used if they’ve used the word Brain teaser use brain teaser If it’s puzzle use puzzle in your Subject so you know they’re running These kind of things You’ve got one it’s not like it’s the Sort of thing that needs You know it’s not like a big study where The quality of the data needs vetting Or a third party expert needs to come in And make sure it’s tricky enough it’s Quite easy content for a journalist to Sort of say yeah i’m doing this this Works Put it live if that’s the kind of thing There and there are like um It’s often the female desk at the daily

Mail that does this stuff Just easy consume content and i mean i’m Definitely not the target audience for It But uh there are some logical reasons as To why It does work and what tactics do you Have for the Future or where do you kind of see this Type of link building going in the Future maybe Stuff that you haven’t tried yet yeah i Think you can get more complicated with The the puzzle Type content i think you could probably Do more like interactive You kind of get into the realm of almost Creating games Then really that are easy in bed um And i definitely think there’s still Scope for that and you see all the time There’s some amazing creative digital pr Content getting done that just gets more And more creative All the time and with the big visuals Desk research actually at the center of A lot of content that still does well Is data of some description whether it’s Someone who’s gone off and researched What time entrepreneurs get out of bed Or they’ve done a survey you know There’s usually Data at the center of most of it so i Think the areas of scale for us are the

Areas where we certainly see i’m sure This spot the difference type thing at Some point is going to stop working the Returns are already diminishing a little Bit I think images will probably continue to Be quite a big thing we see more usage And um actually even the rise of banks Like pixabay And unsplash hasn’t diminished creative Commons usage So i think that assets that people Constantly need to use Like images on websites or video Potentially if you’ve got like Stock video people can use and Statistics that back up their own Stories So for us i think it’s just a case of Keep it simple like yeah Content’s always gonna get more creative On the pr side um And there’s some agencies out there now Doing some absolutely amazing Creative content um that just gets It’s always worth keeping keeping an eye On agencies to see what they’re doing And it’s always really good to reverse Engineer what they’re looking at neo-mam Do some amazing stuff uh verve rise at Seven There’s a lot of creative stuff that’s Going on that’s always worth reverse Engineering and understanding

And understanding the value of that Beyond links but i think when you’re Talking about pure play link building And seo for me i would be putting all my Eggs in Things like passive resource assets so Statistics pieces templates Stuff that you do like research into Negative impacts of caffeine Things that are timeless and assets that People just need When we go back and we look at in 2005 How the bbc was linking or how big news Sites were linking out before Seo tried manipulating it and it was Linking to resources and sources So we just i think if we bring it back To the very basics it’s just Creating those and And it’s easier i think it’s time Relevance wise as well i think it’s much Easier to go to A health client and say we’re going to Commission a study Into stress and anxiety than it is to Sort of go to them and say We’re going to assess 500 movies To see you know how many minutes in it Is before somebody has a health crisis You know i’m a big fan of the creative Content we do a bit of it but for me the Scale is in pretty keep it simple basic Resources that Users need excellent uh so is there

Anything that i Haven’t asked you today that i should Have asked you I don’t think so i don’t think so Okay great well thanks for coming on the Show uh where Should people go if they want to learn More about you or get in touch or If they need some help with this stuff Uh staceymic.co.uk is the website I’m on twitter as well at stacycav S-t-a-c-e-y-c-a-v And to be honest i usually respond to Tweets faster than i respond to anything Else Yeah okay well we’ll put links to to the The website and to your social profiles In the Show notes for this episode thanks again Stacy for coming on If you guys enjoyed this episode today Then make sure to Leave us a like subscribe uh whatever Podcast player you’re You’re listening to this in then leave Us a review or give us some kind of Positive signals that you like this Stuff because Gail and i when we’re deciding who to Have on and what type of shows we want To Look at we actually use these user Metrics these signals And this is especially important for you

Guys on youtube so Leave a comment leave us a like Subscribe that really helps the show out As well We’ll be back next week on monday with Another episode so we’ll see you then [Music] You