Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz
| @randfish | rand@moz.com The Paradox of “Great Content” Why Some Pieces Make the Leap While Others Languish in Obscurity

A Tale of Two “10X”
Content Investments

Source

Yikes. #10. Behind many far
lower-quality, less-investment- heavy results 

Source

#1 for this and dozens
of other keywords

For 2.5 years, I’ve maintained
a list of remarkable content from across the web…

Analysis of 99 10X Pieces

Links, Shares, & Ranking KWsAnalyzed

Avg. Linking RDs: Avg. Ranking
KWs: Avg. Facebook Shares: 919 2,834 77,990

Correlation Shares->KWs: Correlation Shares->Links: Correlation
Links->KWs: -0.014 0.069 0.386

What Separates 10X Pieces That
Perform vs. Those That Don’t?

Keyword Research
& Targeting#1

Google made an immense investment
in this resource.

If only they’d done any
SEO at all… Not blocking your own crawler might be a start 

This piece may not look
like much…

But, sweet Christmas, does it
rank…

AStrong Investment in KW Research
Clearly Paid Off IFixIt knows what searchers want, and delivers

WhatYou Call Your 10X Content
MattersALOT! Sadly, Polygraph titled their excellent analysis unwisely, & missed out on lots of extra search traffic

Failure to Optimize for SERP
CTR#2

The Economist’s college rankings (which
are, IMO, vastly better & more scientific than others) can’t compete in featured snippets b/c of the chart embed 

FiveThirtyEight made the same type
of mistake w/ their piece on gun deaths.

Domain/URL
Segmentation#3

Many folks shoot themselves in
the foot, creating unique domains or subdomains for their 10X content 

Building on
Another’s Platform#4

Why Put a Phenomenal,Traffic &
Link-GeneratingArticle on Medium & Not Your Own SiteToo?!

Github seems like an even
more peculiar choice as one’s only publishing platform…

Some folks use 3rd-party platforms
wisely – for distribution, not the primary home

Accessibility
#5

1,540 linking RDs 60K+ FB
Shares Ranks for only 24 keywords 

No, Frinkiac, you really don’t
deserve this shabby lack of an internal link structure.

Delightful,
But Not Useful#6

It’s hard to justify 10X
investments that don’t provide ongoing value… unless you’re an ad agency 

Ignores the
Searcher’s Intent#7

Content that fails to answer
searchers’ goals can have a brief ranking “pop,” but usually falls thereafter

We observe this w/ time-
sensitive content, too. E.g. This amazing NYTimes graphic was a snapshot in Curry’s 3-point history, and thus, didn’t rank for long.

Creates No Incentive
to Link#8

Made Reddit’s Front Page w/
6568 upvotes 600+ Facebook Shares in a Week 42 Links

IcelandAir made a big investment
w/ this piece on the Northern Lights, but got only 5 links…

A Few Additional Patterns &
Observations

There’s Subtle Evidence that Social
VisitsAre Connected to Google’s Rankings Source

I Observed This Same Phenomenon:
Source

In 10X Content, Data >Almost
Everything Else Source

Interactivity isAlso Powerful
Source

Media Companies Dominate FiveThirtyEight New
York Times Bloomberg Other Media 7 7 7 19

Brand ROI Can Be Outstanding,
& Isn’t Just About Links or Rankings Source 515 Linking RDs Ranks for 92 KWs Worth it just for the positioning

Source 248 Linking RDs Ranks
for 47 KWs Shows off the UVP brilliantly

Source 225 Linking RDs Ranks
for 465 KWs Worth it for the brand awareness

The Three Most Successful* Pieces
*from an SEO perspective

#3: Timelines of Geeky Fiction
Source 96 Linking RDs Ranks for 9,616 KWs! 585 FB Shares

#2: US Election Odds Source
7,180 Linking RDs Ranks for 22,723 KWs! 344 FB Shares

#1: Zillow’s “Digs” Source 834
Linking RDs Ranks for 2,630 Insanely High Value KWs 8570 FB Shares

Rand Fishkin, Wizard of Moz
| @randfish | rand@moz.com bit.ly/contentparadox