DNX Global Online Marketing Workshop

Brian DeanFounder, Backlinko

Meet & Greet

Let’s split up into groups.

“What’s the #1 thing you want to learn

today?”

Hi! I’m Brian.Before I founded Backlinko, I wasworking from my parents’ base-ment.

Now I’m a successful entrepreneur and digital nomad.

My site has 90,000 visitors/monthand 60,000+ email subscribers.

The 5 Steps to Successful Online Marketing

1. Your ability to find low-competition, high-converting keywords

2. Your ability to create popular and authoritative content around those keywords

3. Promoting your content so that people link to it from authoritative, relevant sites

4. Turning traffic into leads (email subscribers)

5. Selling to those leads

1. Your ability to findlow-competition,high-converting

keywords

Group ActivityCurrent Keyword Research

How do you find keywords today?

Group ActivityBuilding a Keyword List

• Open the Google Keyword Planner and enter a keyword your target customer might use to find you

• Next, use keywordtool.io and kwfinder.com

Need pictures to illustrate the steps here

Group ActivityDetermining Buyer Intent

• Use the GKP to check out estimated bid and “competition”

• Also look at Google Adwords ads in your country. Lots of ads = high commercial intent

Need pictures to illustrate the steps here

5-minute break

Problem With the GKP

The GKP only spits out keywords that are VERY closely related to what you put into it.

Example:Online Flower Shop

Example:Online Flower Shop

Do you really need a tool to come up with these alternatives to “buy flowers online”?

“buying flowers online”“buy flowers online cheap”“buy flowers”“send flower online”

Fortunately, there’s a simple way around both of this frustrating issue...

It’s called The GKP Hack.

Here’s how it works…

Step #1: Head over to the Google

Keyword Planner

Here’s the screen where you’d normally enter a keyword.

Step #2: Enter a competitor’s landing page into the “your

landing page” field

Step #2: Enter a competitor’s landing page into the “your

landing page” field

Step #2: Enter a competitor’s landing page into the “your

landing page” field

Another example:

Let’s say that you just launched a blog on your flower shop’s site.

You notice that a lot of your customers order flowers for weddings.

So you decide to create a blog post around wedding tips and advice.

Again, when you enter “wedding tips” into the Google Keyword Planner:

You get dull variations of that keyword:

Now check this out:

Use that instead:

You get these gems:

Here are other pages you can use for GKP Hacking:

Blog posts News articlesWikipedia entries (surprisingly good!)Press releases (search PRWeb for your keywords)Conference agendas (like DNX Global)Reddit pages

Group ActivityThe GKP Hack

• Let’s find some buyer and informational keywords using the GKP hack

• Pinterest search results• DNX global speaker list• Competitor pages

2. Your ability to createpopular and

authoritative content around keywords

Now it’s time to create content around the keyword that you just found…

But not just any content…

…content that gets results.

Group ActivityWhat makes “great content”?

Ideas?

Analysis of 100 Million Articles: 3000+ Words=More Shares

Analysis of NYTimes Most Emailed: Awe, Surprise, Anger=28% More Shares

Analysis of NYTimes Most Emailed: Practical= 34% More Shares

Group Activity

Pick one keyword/topic that you could easily turn into content that leverages the research-backed insights into “great content”

The Skyscraper Technique

Step 1

• Find link-worthy content

Step 2

• Make something even better

Step 3

• Reach out to the right people

Step 1: Find link-worthy content

Step 2: Make something even better

Step 2: Make something even better

Step 2: Make something even better

(Lots of practical value)

Step 3: Reach out to the right peeps

Step 3: Reach out to the right peeps

5-minute break

Group ActivityFind Link-Worthy Content

• Google search• Buzzsumo• Your brain of stuff you’ve seen• Reddit top posts

Group Activity

Pick one piece of content.

Find flaws in it and ways to improve it:

• Length• Writing style• Visuals• More up to date• More real life examples

Case Study:How Jimmy Used The Skyscraper Technique

Jimmy originally found a bunch of weak content around the

topic/keyword of “email marketing best practices”.

He now ranks #2 for “email marketing best practices”

5 Things Jimmy Did…

…to take the content he foundto the next level:

1. Published ONLY meaty, practical tips

Or as Jimmy puts it:

“We’ve made a huge effort to keep our content detailed, educational and super actionable.

2. Real world examples

When you hear the words “for example” your brain breathes a sigh of relief.

That’s because research shows that examples make learning easier.

For example: (see what I did there?)

Jimmy includes at least 1 real-world example for every tip in his post.

3. Curated insights from experts

To pile another layer of value on top of his content, Jimmy

included original quotes from industry experts.

For example, Jimmy’s first email marketing tip is: “Create an Exclusive Club”.

He realized that Alex Turnbull of GrooveHQ uses this exact strategy with his email newsletter.

So he emailed Alex for a quote.

Because the outreach email was short, sweet, and to-the-point, Alex took time out of his day

to reply:

And Jimmy added his response to the post:

4. Jimmy cranked up the UX

Most of the “email marketing best practices” content was

hard to digest.

For example, a good chunk the top 10 results in Google were category pages or roundups

that had links to other articles.

Jimmy created a very cool table of contents

(Not only does this look cool, but it makes the post much easier to

use)

Instead of sifting through 5,000 words to find what you want, just click on any tip from the table of contents…

…And you’re magically teleported to that tip.

5. Outstanding design

There’s no way around this:If you want people to read and share your content, it

needs to look GREAT.And that’s exactly why Jimmy

worked day and night to make his guide easy on the

eyes.

Not only was the guide jam-packed with high-res screenshots…

…but he created that colorful table of contents you saw earlier.

It took countless rounds of revisions, but over time, his design went from

this:

To this:

To this:

To this (the final design):

The end result?

An Epic Guide To Email Marketing Best Practices: 20 Tips for Dramatically Better Emails.

5-minute break

3. Promoting your content so that people

link to it from authoritative, relevant

sites

Group ActivityBrainstorming ways to promote content

“You just published something amazing. Then what?”

Step 3: Reach out to the right peeps

Use ahrefs.com or OSE to export all of the links pointing to your competitor’s content

into a spreadsheet.

Weed out referring pages that don’t make sense to contact (forums, article directories

etc.).

Find their email addresses

Email them and get links

Also, announce your post to your email list.

Ping expert contributors

Pitch your content to link roundups

(If you can’t find an email, use Twitter)

Internally link from older posts

Include “Click to Tweet” buttons

Include “Click to Tweet” buttons

Group Activity

Find 10 people/places to promote your content to

4. Turning traffic into leads (email subscribers)

2012 2013 2014

Backlinko Email List

2012 2013 2014

Backlinko Revenue

5-minute break

Group ActivityBrainstorming

Ways to turn visitors into subscribers

Series1

3.68%New rate

1.38%Old rate

6.18%

You’re giving them what they want.

What about the thousands of people

that DIDN’T go to my About page?

Dude…you need to use a popup

Let’s talk about ‘em…

You’re giving them what they want.

Pro TipTest fun, upbeat CTAs in your

buttons. They grab attention and reduce anxiety compared to “Subscribe” or “Sign up”

1 2

5.13%

Identify something of value you could offer someone in a popup.

What about the thousands of people that DIDN’T see my

popup?

“My average blog post conversion rate

is 10%. Some convert at

30%.”

Group Activity

Identify a post that brings in a lot of traffic for you. Write down ONE way you could

make it more valuable.

5. Selling to those leads

Why do you use AirBNB?

#1 issue I see with small businesses: NO USP

USP For SEO That Works

“SEO info is scattered, conflicting, and

confusing.

STW removes the guesswork and shows

you exactly what to do, step-by-step.”

Group Activity

Write down the one thing that makes your product significantly better than what’s already out there.

How to position your USP

Clear:

“Belong Anywhere”Rent unique places to stay from local

hosts in 190+ countries.

Benefit-Driven:

“Belong Anywhere”Rent unique places to stay from local

hosts in 190+ countries.

5-minute break

3 Real People Technique

Find 3 real people. Ideal customers (or even better) real

customers

Group Activity

Identify 3 real people

Interview Them for 30 Minutes

Questions to Ask

• “What’s your #1 struggle?”

• Where sites do you tend to read about online?”,

• “What have you tried already?”,

• “What’s worked/What didn’t work”

• “What products have you bought already.”

Case Study: STW

Old Marketing Message

“SEO is really hard. STW makes it simply to learn and understand.”

What 3 Real People Told Me

“We want a new set of tools”

“We are doing well. We just want to get better.”

“We want new advanced strategies to use.”

New Marketing Message

“STW gives you new advanced strategies that you can use to step your SEO game up.”

Questions?