User engagement and overall time on site are perhaps one of the most key performance indicators for both B2C and B2B marketers – and any way to increase the performance on these KPIs are perhaps some of the best ways to showcase your worth to your clients.
Linking to related content is one of the easiest methods of keeping users not only well informed, but highly engaged with your brand, especially if you can introduce them to new websites and other sources of news and information.
Services like Reverb for the iPad, Clickky’s Applinks (for iOS and Android apps), Shareabolic (a Wordpress plugin) and Taboola (a popular content recommendation and distribution company that recently launched an API and appears on Fox News, USA Today, Time Magazine, and the Huffington Post) are one way to add related content links to articles, white papers, and other content with a minimum of effort on behalf of the publisher. Therefore, including such services on your website is a virtual no-brainer.
In fact, many content management systems now feature allow for related links based on user behavior and/or similar keywords, so there are hardly any technical barriers.
It is also important to carefully edit the related content options – because users will automatically consider any sites you link to as a reflection on your brand. After all, any links that appear under “You May Also Like” or “From Around the Web” and similar types of content sharing options will be associated with yours or your client’s brand, whether or not that is your intent. And sometimes the links that appear may not be the type of content you want associated with yours or your client’s brand!
Chances are that if a user has made it to the end of a given article, they are interested in content that covers related or similar topics. Therefore, simply giving them what they want via various options to learn more can be one of the easiest ways to ensure that they come back to the same site in the future, since you are providing them with valuable information and helping them discover some new sites and resources that are in line with their interests.
In addition, you should consider how and where your (or your client’s) content appears on these types of apps – granted, it may be out of your control at times, but ensuring that your work appears only on sites that are aligned with your overall message and goals is a key part of using related content APIs and apps effectively. Accordingly, tracking and reporting on which sites, articles, and placements send the most traffic, as well as which sites deliver users that are the most likely to convert, goes a long way towards making sure any content sharing or related content endeavors you embark upon are successful.
Finally, having links to your articles appear on high quality sites can also help to improve your overall search engine optimization efforts – even if said links are not “dofollow”, the traffic and connections alone can provide a boost.
Content marketers and agency professionals, how have you used related content links, apps, or APIs to enhance your marketing efforts?
