You’ve produced a piece of content you thought was going to be a huge success, but the results were underwhelming.
You double and triple checked the content for all the crucial elements: it’s newsworthy, data-driven, emotional, and even a bit controversial[1], but it failed to “go viral”. Your digital PR team set out to pitch it, but writers didn’t bite.
So, what's next?
Two questions you might ask yourself are:
- Do I have unrealistic link expectations for my link-building content?
- Is my definition of success backed by data-driven evidence?
Fractl has produced thousands of content marketing campaigns across every topic — sports, entertainment, fashion, home improvement, relationships — you name it. We also have several years’ worth of campaign performance data that we use to learn from our successes[2] and mistakes[3].
In this article, I’m going to explain how businesses and agencies across seven different niches can set realistic expectations for their link-building content based on the performance of 626 content projects Fractl has produced and promoted in the last five years. I’ll also walk through some best practices for ensuring your content reaches its highest potential.
Managing expectations across verticals
You can’t compare apples to oranges. Each beat has its own unique challenges and advantages. Content for each vertical has to be produced with expert-level knowledge of how publishers within each vertical behave.
We selected the following common verticals for analysis:
- Health and fitness
- Travel
- Sex and relationships
- Finance
- Technology
- Sports
- Food and drink
Across the entire sample of 626 content projects, on average, a project received 23 dofollow links and 88 press mentions in total. Some individual vertical averages didn’t deviate much from these averages, while others niches did.
Of course, you can’t