Major News Channel Exposure Using Content Marketing: A How-To Guide
One of Our Clients just got featured on BBC Africa as a direct result of us coaching her on how to succeed with content marketing.
She did this simply by writing a great blog post on her website for the perfect keyword in her niche. Even Google realized it was the best and quickly boosted her to number 1 on the rankings for this keyword.
This led to her being easily discovered as an expert in her niche and she got emailed by the BBC to do a live interview
We’d love you to get similar results to this as well. So today, we’re going to share exactly how to get featured on a major news channel using content marketing!
Here’s the 4 step process to use…
Step 1. Finding The Content Gap
So the first thing you need to do is find a content gap. What does that mean? It’s a lot easier to write an article or piece of content or create a video where there isn’t a whole lot of competition for that particular subject.
Here’s how to find that gap.
Keyword Research
So the first thing you should do is go to your friend Google, and you should type in a few things related to your niche and try to find something that’s a great overall topic that nobody’s really tackled, or that there’s very, very thin content about that you can just blow the competition out of the water.
So with this particular client, she’s a health coach and we did a bit of searching around Google and we found this beautiful opportunity. She’s a health coach in South Africa and it turns out nobody, no actual health coach has actually written a great comprehensive article about “health coaching in South Africa”.
So that was our content gap. Nobody’s really answered this great keyword! So we were going to tackle this keyword and write some great content to fill that gap.
Picking A Fight You Can WIN
You should pick a fight you can win.
Let’s say you’re a small business or consulting agency or anything like that, and there are massive, massive content platforms from well-known websites that are writing crazy detailed ultimate guides to something. You’re not likely to be able to get any exposure on Google against these giants unless they’ve written terrible articles and you can just do one much much better.
Look at these results for the keyword “news”. Do you think you have any chance of beating these guys for this keyword? They are all clearly major, well-known news sites and also highly relevant to the keyword.
So I would start by picking a fight you can win.
Find a keyword that is quite specific to your niche but not so specific that no one would ever search for it. Then make sure it is badly answered, or not really answered at all, in the search results.
Another example of this is one of our articles, which is on “fantasy author websites”.
We help authors create websites. So we went online and we found this content gap. People were writing about “author websites” as you can see above, but nobody had ever published an article specifically on “fantasy author websites.”
We’ve created quite a few awesome websites for fantasy authors. So we went ahead and we created the “10 best fantasy author websites online” and instantly within two weeks it’s hit number one for that keyword and stayed there for almost two years now with no sign of it going away.
(above: we now rank no1 AND no2 for this keyword. Google even recommends our article as THE answer to what are the 10 best fantasy author websites online!)
So finding that content gap is an incredibly fast way to get exposure.
Picking A Subject You Can Own
So you pick a fight you can win and also pick a subject you can own.
Like I just said, we do fantasy author websites. It’s easy for us to write about fantasy author websites. We can use our own subject matter there. We can refer people to websites we’ve done. It makes sense.
Lauren Kim, she is a health coach, she obviously understands the subject she’s studied. She’s also a physiotherapist. She’s got a wealth of information to draw on. Of course, you can do extra research but it’s a lot easier to write a great article if you know what you’re talking about, and people can smell it from a mile away if you don’t.
It doesn’t mean you have to be the most regarded expert on the subject you’re writing about but you do need to at least know enough about a subject that you can contribute something of real value. If you don’t, you won’t be able to do the next major step 3 properly, which is coming up soon…
So that is how to find a great content gap:
- keyword research
- pick a fight you can win,
- pick a subject that you can own.
Step 2. Write from a Place of Authority
Don’t write about something you have absolutely no clue about
The next major area of this game is you need to write from a place of authority. So don’t write about something that you have absolutely no clue about.
I’ve kind of gone over this a bit already, but it’s kind of obvious. People will just realize right away that you’re just clueless and you shouldn’t really have any place talking about this in the first place.
Like if I were on this marketing channel to talk about “women’s fashion” or “shoes” or something. It would seem very weird, and what kind of authority would I possibly have to talk about that on this platform anyway? I don’t have I’ve never really done anything in that area. People would just not take it seriously, and be like it’ll be random right?
Be VERY relevant to your niche in your content
So which brings us to another area of this content marketing game is to make sure it’s very relevant to your niche.
Don’t create irrelevant content. Stay on topic. If you generally talk about health coaching, like Lauren Kim, then continue to talk about health coaching.
There’s a lot you can say. Any sort of subject can be fleshed out. You can always go into more specific detail about things that you’ve touched on before.
This is at least my third video and blog post on content marketing. I could make a hundred more. Some channels only make videos about content marketing. You can always talk about the same thing again and take a different angle.
Here’s an example of some related subjects you can write about in the health and fitness niche. Can you imagine how much content could be produced on these subjects alone?
There’s no end to the amount of content you can produce but make sure you stay in your niche.
That doesn’t mean you don’t have to be original, but make sure you don’t go completely random and talk about something that has no relevance to your niche.
Use Statistics and link to the source
Show statistics of something that makes the post seem to make sense more (statistics show that people trust statistics!)
You can use statistics and link to the source of those statistics. That immediately gives you credibility. You’re building an argument and you’re saying something from a place of fact.
You’re not just randomly pulling opinions out of the air.
Use Trusted References and link to them
You can use trusted references and link to them. Use well-known sources of information, you know, government websites, things like that, where they have verified sources and names that are known.
These kinds of things are great and then link to the source so people can immediately verify your information is correct and therefore valuable.
Google will also see your article as more trustworthy because it links to relevant sources that actually have a connection to what you’re talking about.
Use Quotes from well-known sources and link to them
You can use quotes from real well-known sources and again link to them. Always link to something if you’ve got a great resource.
A great tip on this is actually asking the source for a quote specifically for that article. You can even make an article out of a whole collection of quotes like this called an expert roundup.
Use your own verifiable achievements
You can use your own verifiable achievements and you can internally link to them in other parts of your website. That also lends a lot of authority to your voice and means your article will sit better with readers.
If you noticed throughout this entire article I’ve also referenced our verifiable achievements of helping our clients rank no 1 for “health coaching south africa”, and ourselves for “fantasy author websites”.
Mention your credentials
Obviously, mention your real credentials: if you’ve written a book, if you’ve got a doctorate, if you have certain certifications or achievements or anything like that, let it be known.
Step 3. Craft EPIC Content.
Build the Highest Skyscraper in Your Content Niche
Great, so now we’ve realized the groundwork picking the content gap and coming from a place of authority so that you’re given enough of a platform that your audience will respect you as a source worthy of being read…
How do we go from there?
Now what we have to do is to craft epic content.
There is this legendary article in the content marketing world which is simply called “Write Epic Shit” written by a guy called Corbett Barr. It created quite a buzz in the content marketing world and you should definitely go check that out.
Basically what he’s saying is that you make the very best piece of content on the entire internet for that specific keyword in that specific topic. You don’t compromise. You don’t just churn stuff out. You put the time in. You dedicate whatever it takes to make the most epic piece of content you possibly can.
There’s no place for mediocre if you really want to stand out on the internet.
Another famous content marketer who specializes in getting traffic from Google is Brian Dean. His blog is called Backlinko.
He has this whole technique he calls the skyscraper technique. Basically, the essence of the skyscraper technique is when you look at the horizon of a city one building will stand out as the tallest building in that city.
People take note of the tallest building in the city (or the world) but no one remembers or really cares about the second tallest right?
So the basic idea of the skyscraper technique is to create the best content for your niche that you possibly can. Make it so much taller and so much bigger, that when people look at the horizon line of the internet for your subject your piece of content just stands out as that massive skyscraper.
As a result, it gets the most attention because compared to everything else there is just no contest.
Thorough Content Research
A little bit more on this epic content thing…
Make sure your article or video is the most thoroughly researched piece of content for that keyword. Does it fully answer the exact questions and concerns someone searching for the keyword might have?
You can use tools to help you with this.
There’s a great tool that I’ve found called phrase it’s frase.io. It will help you quickly do research and help you be able to create a better more thoroughly researched article than the other top 20 articles on the same thing in Google.
You simply put your keyword in the search and the tool scans the other content in the top 20 articles for that keyword and puts it all together in a summary. This helps you to know exactly when you’ve written a better article than any other content out there. Awesome right?
You can obviously use your own references as well. Link to other videos and blog posts on your website and embed YouTube videos that you’ve made that are relevant to the topic. You’ll notice I embedded a YouTube video at the top of this blog post with the same content. This is a great way to catch people who are interested in watching content and also people who prefer to read it!
Answer Every Question
Make sure you really go and think what are the questions around this thing that people have.
What questions will people generally ask?
Like with the “Health Coaching in South Africa” article that we got Lauren to write we define anything that might not be completely clear.
What is health coaching? If anybody had any question about what health coaching is, to begin with, then let’s quickly get that answered. Let’s get the fundamentals out of the way.
That’ll also tell Google, well, this person’s really taking care to make sure this article really covers everything! So make sure you get every question answered.
You can go into Quora and you can also see what are people asking questions about in your niche and get some ideas or what questions you should answer there.
Create Longer Content than Your Competitors
Epic content is not always longer content, but it usually takes more words and images to fully cover something.
If you’re just pumping out low-quality garbage it doesn’t matter how long your content is of course.
It’s statistically shown that longer articles (around 2000 words or a little less) generally rank at the top of Google.
(Image credit: Backlinko)
Be Easier to Understand Than Your Competitors
Make your content easier to understand than your competitors! Epic content is not confusing. It’s easy to consume.
This means using big font sizes, easy words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. There should never be a time when someone looks at a blog you’ve written and is scared away by a big block of text and a whole lot of big fancy confusing words!
Structure Your Content Better Than Anyone Else
Use bullet points. Use big headings that clearly define the structure of your article, and then subheadings under those as well.
Make your article better structured than anybody else out there so it’s easy to skim if needed. Organize the content so people can easily find things. Do whatever you can to make it even easier to use your content. Put a table of contents in.
Use Better Examples and Supporting Illustrations Than Your Competitors
Use examples and illustrations. If you can get these illustrations custom-made, even better! Really go all out to make your article the best you possibly can.
Just look at how many images I’ve added in this article to make it easy to understand!
Step 4. Boost Your Content with Outreach
Okay cool! I think we’ve got this kind of covered now, right?
You’ve written this beautiful 2000 word article. It’s so much better than anything out there, especially anything that’s on the top 10 on Google search results for your keyword. So what do you do now?
So at times, like with “health coaching south africa” and “fantasy author websites” like I mentioned earlier, it will be so easy to snatch that content gap that you’ll pretty easily shoot to the top. Just writing the article and publishing it online is enough to get exposure on the first spot on Google.
Lauren Kim’s website is now number one for “health coaching south africa”, number one for “health coach” or “health coaching africa”
This was how the BBC actually found and contacted her.
It was the same with my fantasy author website article. There was nobody else really trying so it’s pretty easy to snatch number one in a situation like that.
But in some cases you’re going to be competing for a very coveted space on the internet where there’s a lot of search traffic and a lot of people are trying to own that space.
In that case, the only way to get up there and actually stand any chance of competing with the other guys is to do what’s called “outreach.”
“Outreach email” or “outreach” is just reaching out to other people in the space, sharing your content with them, and getting them to share your content with their audience.
Obviously, this is much easier to do if you’ve done the step before, which is to create amazing content. Nobody cares about mediocre content. Nobody is going to link back to mediocre content from their website or share it on their social channels. Average just get less than average response and reaction.
People go “whatever, there are 10 000 articles just like yours online. Why should I care?”
But if your article is actually really good you can quite easily convince others to share it. You can say how in-depth your post is, how it uses custom-made illustrations. It’s got a video that goes with it.
Lauren can now say “Hey, this was featured on BBC Africa!” You just reach out to others on the internet and sell the value of your article.
You simply go on Google and you search your keyword and you find everybody else who comes up.
You go into each one of their blogs and you find out as many people’s actual emails as you can. It’s actually more surprisingly easy than you think. You can go on LinkedIn. You can connect with them there. You can tweet at them.
The internet is so connected these days it’s fairly easy to make a connection with somebody and bloggers kind of know this. So most people writing a blog are approachable believe it or not!
You just email them. You write an interesting original email “hey, I just saw your blog here. it’s so interesting for this or that reason. I love what you’re doing here…”
Make sure it’s personal. Nobody likes spam. Nobody likes to feel like you’ve sent a million emails already and they’re just the millionth person you’ve emailed.
So you send out more personalized emails.
This is some outreach I did that eventually led to me getting to speak at an awesome conference and reach hundreds of new people who were interested in our services but had never heard of me before.
Yes, it’s work but trust me it’s worth it. Anybody who doesn’t reply at first, you email again three days later. Anybody who doesn’t reply to that you send another follow-up email five days later. You can even do a fourth follow-up email a week after that.
The follow-up emails are very important because you’ll dramatically increase your response rate if you do that.
There are a whole lot of automation tools out there that help you craft your message and send automated responses. These tools also help you customize those responses to the particular audience so you can speed up this whole process.
You can use tools like Mailshake and Postaga to make this process a lot faster. Postaga will even help you find the names and email addresses of the people you want to email.
So that is how to really get other people to use their audiences to share your content as well.
What that’ll do is make them link back to you from their websites and blogs. Those links will then send signals to Google to say “wow, this article really is worth taking notice of!”
Then that’ll boost you up the rankings as well and, over time, you too will be recognized by major news sources like the BBC.
I myself have got some amazing exposure using this exact system that I’ve told you here. I hope you go right ahead and use it as well.
So rounding this all off I’d like to know exactly what kind of epic content you are about to produce right now so that you can get some major exposure yourself? Make sure to comment below and let me know. ?
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