Short Content Better for Backlinks
Most marketers have understood that long-form content might be best for conversations, but what about backlinks? According to Buffer, a recent study conducted by Fractl revealed that the articles that draw the most backlinks are around seven hundred words in length. Additional work within the study explored the viability of evergreen and timely content as well. Fractl’s investigation opened our eyes to many things that we didn’t know and even corrected some of the misconceptions we had about the content, length, and even linkability of articles. While they didn’t look too deeply at SEO offered by companies like Yeah Local, their insights were still beneficial for local SEO customers as well.
Evergreen vs. Timely Content
Ahrefs mentions that evergreen content is any content that doesn’t go out of date, no matter how long it remains on the site. When an article has been published for 30 days, it starts getting an “evergreen” score. This score takes into account the number of engagements and its social media activity during that time. Evergreen articles tend to average a score of around 5.5 out of 30. Conversely, timely content can boost visibility and draw a lot of links over a short period. The most evergreen of article types was found to be How-To articles. Logically this makes sense since figuring out how to fix something is timeless.
photo/ mohamed Hassan
Content With the Most Links
Articles that demonstrated an enormous volume of backlinks (fifty or more in this case) were analyzed to see which topics were most linked-to. From the analysis of results, the top five most linked-to issues are:
- How-To Articles
- General Articles
- List/General Articles
- Newsletters
- Videos
When we examine these results, they seem to mirror the most shared types of content as well. This insight can be priceless information for businesses that want to increase their backlinks or engagement on social media.
Social Reactions to Linked-To Content
Fractl did a deep-dive into how people reacted to content that was shared on social media. Unsurprisingly, shared content usually made people angry, with the angry react forming the majority of all emoji reactions on shared content. Different content types tended to draw specific emotional responses. Sports, for example, tended to have more sad reacts overall than other general posts. Other posts that generated a similar volume of sad reactions were in the Food and Drink category. Health and travel, by comparison, were more likely to garner heart reacts.
Knowing Which Content Does What
The insights Fractl’s study offers us gives businesses a new way to develop their content marketing strategy. The types of articles that are most linked-to allow companies to craft their guest posts around those subject topics and their presentation. While evergreen content will always generate a trickle of traffic, sometimes a timely post may be an adrenaline shot to draw more people. Social reactions allow companies to tailor their posts to get the most emotional bang for their buck. While these findings are preliminary, they give businesses something to work from and build upon.
Author: Jacob Maslow
