Our Top Pieces of Content: Gaining Coverage & Ideating Masterpieces
Using different marketing techniques is essential to an effective marketing strategy. One way that we leverage our marketing department is by creating pieces that gain coverage or “links” with and without outreach.
Below are a few examples of top performing pieces that have gained coverage over the years:
Fall Foliage Prediction Map
Our Fall Foliage Prediction Map is a piece that we’ve had for years, and we continue to develop it every single year for improved accuracy. This map has over 269,000 backlinks built into it and 8,200 referring domains all time. It also ranks for 5,000 keywords.
It’s gained coverage from top publications like the New York Times, Business Insider, Daily Mail, and Forbes. In fact, journalists and bloggers now look forward to it every single year and reach out to us before we even begin our initial outreach. Why does it do so well? Not only is this piece loaded with a ton of data like county-based fall foliage reporting, but the style and format of it is unlike any other fall foliage tracker. It focuses on the U.S. by county (excluding Hawaii and Alaska), and weeks go into gathering the data sources as well as creating the map itself. We also offer an embed code and downloadable images for journalists to use so that they can embed our map directly on their site (which no other fall foliage tracker does.)
Shark Interactive Map & Database
Next on the list, we have our “Sharks” Database. This interactive shark database map has over 3,600 backlinks and 277 referring domains all time. It also ranks for 668 keywords.
This piece was created to help travelers become more knowledgable of marine life as well as remain safe when traveling to heavy beach destinations. Like our Fall Foliage tracker, this map covers the U.S., but it goes a step further and also covers the entire globe. This is another extensive datasource that we update regularly. While we update the Fall Foliage map each year, we update the “Sharks” Interactive Map and Database whenever a new attack happens.
This is a topic that can be found in several other sites, but we provide the most up-to-date information via news sources, while others include some faulty information and no map. To take it even further, we leveraged the initial data that we gathered to depict the day that is most commonly linked to incidents, as well as time of day and location. On top of that, we output a YouGov survey to gain end-user data for even further data points. This provides journalists with an additional and unique angle focusing on real survey answers from end-users about sharks. Because of this, we were able to get this piece covered on high-authority sites like The Guardian, LiveScience, TimeOut, and The Sun.
Safe & Found
Safe & Found is a content piece that focuses on survival tactics and safety in National Parks. What started out as an intrigue in lost hikers grew ideation for a comprehensive guide on how to stay safe in a National Park, and what to do and how to survive if you get lost. This survival guide has 549 backlinks and 205 referring domains linking back to it all time. It ranks for 34 keywords.
This piece has a “wow” factor by including some fascinating (and a little frightening) stories of these lost hikers who managed to survive. To gain coverage on this piece, we searched for relevant journalists who write about this specific topic or neighboring topics like outdoor education and safety. Because of the interesting stories and drilled-in survival tactics that we included, we were able to get coverage from places like National Geographic, Newsweek, and Travel and Leisure.
The Most “Instagrammable” Attractions in the States and the World
Bringing in some techniques that we knew worked like maps of the United States, we came up with the idea to showcase popular attractions and areas that get photographed frequently. We came up with this piece on the most instagrammable locations, and it has received 105 backlinks and 101 referring domains linking back to it all time. It ranks for 174 keywords.
We have found that journalists and news stations like to focus on their own cities. They like to know where they are ranking well AND where they are ranking poorly. We combined this with the knowledge of knowing that they also LOVE data! We gathered unique data that could only be found with thorough investigation and research. We came up with numbers to prove why these places were the top places for photos, and no one else had done that sort of research on this specific topic in the past. Since it was unique, full of data, and had a clear graphic that laid it out, we received great feedback and coverage from sites like Axios, PennLive, DIYPhotography, and Wealth of Geeks.
The Most and Least Expensive Vacation Destinations Around the World and States
Similar to the one above, this piece leveraged the knowledge we’ve gained by using maps (a known technique that produces links and coverage.) Through our previous experience, we also knew that using data and pivoting that data to a new angle was a technique that has worked for us as well. So, we came up with this piece that focuses on the Most and Least Expensive Vacation Destinations in the world. It has received 217 backlinks with 119 referring domains linking back to it all time. It ranks for 139 keywords.
We took several varied data sources for this one and calculated our own numbers and averages to come up with a final cost for each location. Since we calculated our own data, these numbers and calculations could not be found anywhere else. While there are several articles on the most and least expensive destinations, there has never been a fully researched article the same way that we had researched it. Because of this, we gained coverage from high-authority sites like Entrepreneur, Lifehacker, Thrillist, and AOL.
What Are Passive Link-Building Pieces?
Each piece above was ideated and created by us, as well as outreached by us. We researched journalists, emailed them, and discussed PR opportunities with them. Because of this outreach, we were able to gain links. Now, we will discuss other pieces that we have created that we did absolutely no outreach for.
These blogs and reviews have all gained their own coverage without any personal outreach to journalists or bloggers on our end:
15 Free and Cheap Things to Do in Panama City Beach
Simple enough, we knew that travelers cared about affordable experiences to enjoy when visiting a new destination. Our FloridaPanhandle.com site focuses on several areas along the Panhandle, PCB being one of them. Since we knew that free and cheap things to do was a highly searched keyword for this destination, we wrote a blog that focuses on just that. This blog has received 4.4K backlinks with 23 referring domains linking back to it all time. It also ranks for almost 600 keywords.
We did a competitive analysis, analyzed keywords, and made sure that our piece of content focused on the traveler’s search intent. We included pricing, we internally linked back to reviews, and we used all of our own original photos. All of this led to our large number of links.
View The Amazing Synchronous Fireflies in the Smokies
Another piece that has gained plenty of coverage without outreach is our Synchronous Fireflies event. This is an event that we update every single year so that the content remains fresh and never goes stale. It’s also something that happens every year, and we make sure to stay on top of the proper dates to update it again and again. This blog covering the Synchronous Fireflies has 1,300 backlinks and 339 referring domains all time. It also ranks for over 400 keywords.
The Synchronous Fireflies Viewing is an extremely popular event, so it gets massively searched every single April-June. Making sure that we have the original photos, current ticket information, and correct contact information is vital to this doing well each year. Because of the time we put into updating it, we’ve gained coverage from sites like the New York Times and Travel and Leisure.
Dollywood Tickets Guide
This is another piece that we update every single year, but we actually also update it multiple times a year. Dollywood changes its ticket prices a couple of times a year since it has both a regular amusement park section and a splash country section. Our blog on Dollywood tickets has 521 backlinks and 51 referring domains linking back to it all time. It ranks for over 800 keywords.
This is because we have put in the time to frequently add to this article. “Dollywood Tickets” is a term that is widely searched, and we continuously look into the search intent of this keyword or phrase. We make sure that we answer the end-users questions and that we drill in to what ticket prices have changed to recently. We also include any questions around deals and discounts, and we internally link to other key articles around the same subject.
John Oliver Historical Cabin
The John Oliver Historical Cabin is a review on our site that you wouldn’t assume gets a lot of traction and links, but it frequently gets great coverage. This page is an in-depth review on one historical structure in the popular Cades Cove area of the Smoky Mountains National Park. Because of its original photos, history, and search intent relevancy, this review of the John Oliver Historical Cabin has 6,200 backlinks and 380 referring domains linking back to it all time. Meanwhile, it ranks for only 61 keywords.
It’s covered by top sites like Newsweek and Stacker, and this is largely because we are a local site offering the best images available of this structure. It’s also because we researched keywords and questions being asked by end users, and we made sure to include them in the review itself.
Cades Cove Loop: Scenic Drive
Cades Cove is a key phrase that has a search volume of over 60,000 per month. We rank on the first page for this term. In fact, we rank for several “Cades Cove” terms that get thousands of searches every single month. Like several of our other reviews, Cades Cove gets updated frequently to make sure that the content doesn’t go stale and to make sure that it stays relevant. Our review of the Cades Cove Scenic Loop Drive has 1,100 backlinks and almost 500 referring domains linking back to it. It ranks for 700 keywords.
Not only do we frequently update and add to this review, but we also have our own original video to go along with it. There aren’t many other sites that offer a video of this popular attraction in the area, and no other site offers one that is as high-resolution as ours. Because of all of this, we’ve received coverage from Yahoo, the Culture Trip, KOA, and several other reputable sites.
As you can see, we’ve put a lot of time and effort into each one of these pieces which has allowed us to gain thousands of coverage. Whether it is directly outreaching to journalists, gathering several data points for a data resource, or constantly refreshing pieces of content, all of this directly correlates to these pieces doing well, our site gaining links, and all of our sites becoming more authoritative over time.
