A Note About Topical Relevance, Content Marketing and Links

Every week, I try to share something of value on LinkedIn.

Sometimes it's an article, other times it's a podcast but more often than not, it's a campaign we produced that I think will serve as inspiration to people like me, who produce and promote content for a living.

Yesterday I shared a project for a UK client that we've just launched:

I received quite a few comments and one of them included an excellent question, which got me thinking about our approach to producing content that will attract links for years to come:

I started writing a reply to James but it got a little long so decided to post it here instead.

A case for stepping out of your 'topical relevancy' comfort zone

In my initial response to James, I mentioned that I want to create content that real people share and in the process, make our client look good in front of their potential customers.

I also stated that I don't believe tight topical relevancy has much use for the kind of work we do.

Would it have made more sense for us to produce content about the fortunes of billionaires for a company that offers credit to people who are having trouble making rent this month just because that topic is closer to finance? 

To be clear, I am not saying that an idea shouldn't be relevant to a client.

What I disagree with is the assumption that there is this perfect spot of "topical relevance" that can be applied to any content idea across a multitude of industries.

The strategies we develop with our campaigns depend on the client, the industry they are in and the publishing verticals they could exist within. 

When you work with big brands that are synonymous with their industry, you can get away with out-of-the-box content ideas like 7 Ancient Ruins Around The World, Reconstructed or Reimagining The Simpsons’ Home in 8 Popular Architectural Styles — these are creative ideas that feel so on-brand that could be an ad yet both the internet community and the media love them because it's exciting content they want to share.

I believe that for heavily regulated industries like payday or sectors like gambling, you can't produce super on-brand content that could feel like an ad, as you will struggle to attract links without paying for them — or worse, you can create a PR nightmare for your client.

We've worked in the payday loan sector for many years now, and when we just started, we used to produce content around 'what X is costing you', 'how your salary compares to X', 'the true cost of X' as well as pieces offering money-saving advice and budgeting tips. All the ideas stemmed from money and finance because, hey, it's a payday loan client, right? 

In the end, we would close our campaigns with a handful of links that were more relevant to X than they were to the money aspect — links about Batman and coffee and junk food and solar power and TV shows and staycations. 

We also learned what we now see as an obvious lesson: personal finance experts do not see loans in a good light, no matter how relevant those links would be nor how topically relevant our content was.

In all these years, our strategies have evolved in response to what worked and what didn't work, and our view of where we fit within the content marketing and link building world has also changed.

The way we see it when it comes to producing content to attract links, the ultimate goal should always be getting as many editorial links as possible. That way, we can cement that content as an asset for the Web that will continue to attract links months and years to come. 

In that context, relevancy to the client's sector becomes just another lever you can adjust through experimentation to find out what works best and to slowly build bridges for new online audiences to connect back to the client.

If you look for teams producing content to attract editorial links in the payday sector, you'll find tons of examples of campaigns that fall outside of the loans/finance sphere of relevancy like Unbroken Britain or The Most Frustrating Places To Drive. We'll never know how those pieces fit within their wider strategy, but in both cases, you can see there's experimentation happening and paying off for those brands.

Of course, every now and again I run into a successful campaign on a topic closely related to the finance sector that has been produced by a comparison site (or perhaps even a lender!) and I kick myself for not having thought of the idea first. So I'm always looking for ways to adjust the relevancy lever, experimenting with topics that are closer to the client's core offering as part of the mix of campaigns.

But my focus is on creating content that real people share, first and foremost. And I do my best not to let this fixation with topical relevancy become a creative block to creating something exciting.

I'm with Jon Cooper who believes that the link graph has a way of working itself out over time and that that the system adjusts naturally without the need to worry about the Google algo getting involved:

The reason why we don't see loads of infographics around these days is to do with sites deciding to stop featuring them, not Google filtering out the links.

The same is true of relevancy, and I imagine what gets links today will certainly not be as effective in 2020.

But as long as we keep innovating and experimenting with the goal of creating content that continues to attract as many links as possible months and years after the promotion has stopped, then we will be on the right path.