Every business, no matter the industry, should have a balanced blend of keyword-driven and link-worthy content on its website. This is because, amongst many other reasons, it helps with a site’s SEO which ultimately impacts a business’s success.
Honing in on either KPI during the topic ideation process allows the creator to focus on achieving certain goals behind keyword-driven content and content worthy of links.
- Helps bring in organic traffic;
- Creates an opportunity for a site to rank for more relevant keywords;
- Improves the topical authority of a website.
- Increases the site’s potential to earn quality backlinks;
- Improves a site’s odds of appearing sooner in the search engine results pages (SERPs);
- Targets the audience at the top of your marketing funnel.
Ideating keyword-driven content tends to be rather straightforward. If the head term/phrase you’re targeting has little to no search volume, then you shouldn't be writing about it — at least, you shouldn’t be counting it as keyword-focused content.
Meanwhile, ideating link-worthy content tends to be a little trickier — even more so for businesses with niche services.
What Makes an Industry Niche?
A niche industry, also known as a niche market, is a business that offers specialized products, goods, or services that cater to a more narrow audience.
A few examples of niche businesses include but certainly aren’t limited to:
- Insurance providers;
- Lawyers/legal services;
- Pet-related services (like pet toy production, grooming tools, treats, and veterinary care).
As an example, the services offered by a law firm primarily cater to those explicitly seeking legal services. Whereas less-niche industries, like finance or marketing, may offer services that cater to a more broad audience.
Creating a niche for your brand is necessary to set your company apart from competitors. But keep in mind that the more narrow it is, the more difficult it is to build links to.
The Struggles of Linkabable Topic Ideation for Niche Industries
Some may struggle with topics designed specifically to attract links while also including an internal link to a website’s converting page. When a content creator insists on a title that blatantly promotes or emphasizes their services, it becomes less appealing for blog editors to include it as a backlink on their page.
One common reason for rejecting a link is that the respective article often promotes the sale of a product or service. To an editor, this call-to-action could indicate that money has been exchanged and that including the link is essentially free advertising.
This isn’t to say that promotional topics will always be rejected. Rather, a site editor may pay more attention to it as a result and request payment to include the link — knowing there’s a possibility you could be making a profit from their site — or they’ll remove it altogether.
This is why relevancy and natural link placement is crucial. If the anchor text incasing that link claims to offer one thing but takes you to a displeasing product page, it could raise a site editor’s eyebrows and deter them from considering the article at all.
On the other hand, there’s the possibility of creating content that is too broad and therefore not as relevant for your target audience. This can happen in a few ways — either you miscalculated your customers' needs, or you may not have taken the adequate amount of time to research the need for that topic on your site.
The key is relevancy. It could be tempting to mass-produce content for the sake of maintaining a blog but this isn’t necessarily how it works. Even if you’re consistently publishing content, if it’s not relevant to your audience, it will most likely fall flat. If you’re going to write for a blog you must understand the importance of conducting research — both competitive and customer — before you write.
So where do you draw the line between too broad and too niche? Just as with many things SEO, it depends.
Tips for Link-Worthy Topic Ideation
One way to ensure you’re getting the most link-worthy bang for your topical buck is to invest in SEO services, specifically custom link building. SEO experts have access to tools and resources that some blog contributors may not have access to. Not only is it their job to make sure the content you’re creating is capable of earning backlinks, but they also ensure you’re acquiring those backlinks from websites you may not have had access to originally.
Either way, if you do feel confident in your content creation skills, it’s still important to freshen up on basic on-page SEO to ensure you’re implementing the best strategies.
Here are a few additional tips to consider when creating content designed to attract links for your niche market.
- Create a sheet documenting common pain points within your target audience. This can be achieved by asking leading questions like “What leads customers to start searching for what I offer?” or “What common events might lead them to recognize my value?”
- Determine whether or not you can naturally mention your services in a non-advertorial way. If so, then you may consider using this as a topic designed to attract links.
- See what your competitors are writing about. With the help of a backlink tool, you can see what topics your competition is publishing to earn quality links from authoritative sources.
- Rework preexisting content on your site so that it’s up to par with linkability standards. If the topic is broad, covers a unique take on a popular topic, is top of the marketing funnel, and practices basic SEO then it’s probably good to go. If not, then you’ll need to optimize it so that it is. Reworking also entails ensuring statistics and figures are up to date. Comb through your site once a year just to be sure everything is current to keep them evergreen.
One last thing to consider is to not be afraid to reach out for help. A great way to outsource advice is by attending link-building webinars. There you can find workshops and additional resources that allow you to work out link-worthy topics in real-time with the guidance of an SEO expert.
Publishing Broad Content Is a Must, Here’s Why
To be frank, compiling a list of topics designed with the intent to attract links can be one of the most strenuous parts of developing content. This is because some stakeholders may not understand the importance of having broad topics on their site. You may be included in this same school of thought. After all, if your services are not clearly stated in the title of a piece of content, how could it belong on your site?
While I appreciate the dedication to your brand, I’d like to reiterate that this is not ideal.
Publishing content that covers a variety of topics is crucial if you wish to appear anywhere near the top of the SERPs. A diversified blog can also help:
- Direct organic traffic to your website;
- Increase conversion rates;
- Improve marketing strategies;
- Establish expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (EAT) within your brand;
- Better facilitates a seamless user experience (UX);
- Elaborate on your products, goods, or services using terms your audience will better understand.
At the end of the day, if you wish you run a successful business, you must have an active online presence, and maintaining a well-optimized blog with balanced content is one way to achieve this.
Link-Worthy Topic Examples for Niche Industries
A final piece of advice that I’d like to offer is that it is possible to still bring attention to your services without the need to directly mention them in the article title. You just need to be open-minded to the idea that you’ll need to talk about a more broad concept to do so.
Let’s take a look at a few rough draft versions of good and bad topics designed to attract links for niche industries.
Example of a good link-worthy topic for insurance providers:
- “How to Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones During a Natural Disaster”:
At a glance, I could see how this could be confusing to correlate with insurance. However, for a homeowner’s insurance business, having an article on staying safe during a natural disaster creates a natural segue into discussing the value of investing in homeowner’s insurance.
Example of a bad link-worthy topic for insurance providers:
- “10 Reasons to Buy Car Insurance”:
Using the criteria I mentioned earlier, clearly stating “car insurance” in this article is an automatic red flag for linkability. Tweaking it to say something along the lines of “Ways to Increase Your Car’s Longevity” allows you to still bring awareness to the need for car insurance, as well as other ways to keep up on car maintenance.
Example of a good link-worthy topic for legal services:
- “Do’s and Don’ts of Traveling: How to Ensure a Fun, Yet Safe Trip, No Matter Where You Go”:
This topic would expand on tips and tricks to consider to have a safe vacation. One of which is educating travelers on local laws before a trip to ensure they don’t commit an accidental crime. This allows the writer to discuss what could happen if a crime is committed while traveling and what to do if it happens.
Example of a bad link-worthy topic for legal services:
- “7 Reasons to Hire a Lawyer”:
While this topic is relevant to your target audience, it is not broad enough to be compatible with various blog sites. Plus, through my experience as an SEO strategist, I have found that some editors tend to get a bitter taste in their mouths when pitched with the idea of linking to a law site. But don’t worry — there’s room to redeem yourself. Instead, try something like “Tips for Understanding Your Basic Rights.” This allows you to explain how the reader can seek legal services if they ever feel their rights are violated in any way.
Example of a good link-worthy topic for pet services:
- “8 Activities To Do With the Whole Family”:
This is a great example of a broad topic that serves a wide audience, yet still has relevancy towards pet services. Most pet owners consider their animals to be a part of their families. Including an article on your site that addresses different activities, including pet-friendly ones, naturally highlights different toys and treats to bring to entertain your pet.
Example of a bad link-worthy topic for pet services:
- “Why Do So Many People Hate Cats?”:
This title appears to be opinion-based. This could be a good idea for a standard post but for linkability purposes, this topic is too niche and not based on facts. Instead, you can expand the title so that it encourages the writer to include more factual claims. An example of an alternative title would be “Common Myths About House Pets.”
Many factors contribute to whether or not a topic is deemed link-worthy. For instance, topic linkability will vary based on what types of sites you have relationships with and whether or not that article makes sense to include on their site.
With that all being said, just remember, regardless of industry, the goal is to create content that serves a purpose — link-worthy topics and all.
