Content creation and marketing seemingly go hand-in-hand these days. Without a steady stream of content, most brands are relegated to a status bordering on invisible. Unfortunately, such a high demand for content has created a reinforcing mechanism where people believe that marketing is solely reliant upon content, and content is solely to be created for marketing purposes. While the two definitely complement each other, quality content should also have an organic appeal: namely, that people who stumble across it feel compelled to share, repost and engage. We’ll discuss some strategies today for building better content that can generate links on its own and help augment any pre-existing marketing and SEO efforts.

Use Embeds

Links can come in many forms. We usually think about links in the standard format, with references in blog posts or on web pages to our websites. Links can appear in different forms as well, and one of those happens to be the embed. We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the use of social media embeds on websites over the past year. This makes it easy to share a post and allow users to instantly interact with it in multiple ways. You can do the same for your own website-based content as well. This will allow other websites and blogs to easily share your content, produces links for your website by pinging URLs from them and gives you the ability to intercept a larger amount of traffic in the process.

Use Current Events for Topic Ideas

The best way to generate new ideas for great content is to listen to the internet. Whether you decide to scour the trending sections of social media or flip through digital newspapers, there are always many current events that can provide inspiration for your next piece of content. Rather than pinging URLs to content that feature generic explanations of what you’re covering, try instead to look through what is happening in the world. This may provide you with an idea for connecting the current event to the topic or idea you wish to cover. If you can successfully do this, then you’ll gain extra traffic for your blog or website, and you’ll also get more organic links back to the piece in the process.

Interview Experts

When in the process of creating content, you may find yourself wondering whether a specific fact or opinion is accurate. While it may be easy to google the correct answer or commonly-accepted opinion, this could also be a perfect reason for reaching out to influencers and experts in this field. Whether you are discussing math, fashion, SEO or something entirely different, there are likely many different experts in the field who would be more than willing to lend a brief explanation, quote or opinion. Once your content is complete, be sure to follow-up with them and give them the link. More often than not, this leads to the person sharing the content as a way to further promote their image of being an expert in the field.

Building great content requires many different elements. By using embed, interviewing experts and using current events, you can increase the chances of earning links and shares organically. What else have you done to boost shares and links? Tell us below about what has worked for you.