Content Discovery Platforms

[CommT]

Hi,

I am looking into content discovery platforms such as Taboola and Outbrain to promote my website content.

We currently publish 2-3 articles a week, relevant to UK landlords and business owners. Our articles get around 7,000 unique visits a month - I'd like to increase this significantly.

The articles are all well-written, well-researched and relevant to our niche. I would really like to widen our audience base beyond just search (which is where the majority of our visitors come from), as I believe that there is a huge potential for traffic growth if we can get in front of the right people at the right time (which doesn't necessarily mean in the SERPs).

Do you know of any other content discovery platforms beyond the ones I mention above?

Has anyone else used these sorts of services in the past and if so, what sorts of results did you get?

Thanks,

Amelia

[RyanPurkey]

Hello Amelia. Yes, here are some others...

• www.zemanta.com
• nrelate.com
• www.skyword.com
• contently.com
• curata.com

You can also try retargeting campaigns based off of search, social, or the article targeting to help advertise to your specific audience and draw them into your site. Another option is direct advertising at sites that would have cross over with your audience as well. Finally, don't forget print! There's probably some low cost options that would be highly targeted as well depending on your rev model. Cheers!

[CommT]

Thank you Ryan.

Have you used any of these, and were they any good?

You may not be able to answer though as I suppose it depends on many variables - the content itself, the subject, the audience etc etc. I suppose I've answered my own question: only way to know is to try it for myself!!!

Have a great morning/afternoon/evening -I don't know what time zone you're in!!! - have a good one

Amelia

[RyanPurkey]

You're welcome Amelia. Haha. Reading through I was about to say, "Well certain ones tend to be better for certain things." Good luck!

[KaneJamison]

Hi Amelia,

The primary ones to consider are Outbrain and Taboola - Zemanta is good as well but works a bit differently. nRelate recently shut down. There are others out there, but Outbrain and Taboola will likely be the best option for business-focused content. In my own research, the other networks tend to focus more on B2C topics. Ryan also mentioned Skyword and Contently, which are software companies that offer marketplaces to hire writers, and Curata, which is software to curate content socially. All 3 offer good solutions, but don't fit into the discovery platform description I believe you're looking for.

For content discovery platforms, you'll probably pay in the range of 10-50 cents per visit. However, the only real targeting they're providing is geographic, and other targeting is controlled using their algorithms.

Because of this, I'd suggest you consider paid social as an alternative solution. You have a well-targeted group of individuals - UK business owners and landlords. Other networks like Facebook and LinkedIn will offer you much better content targeting with the same intended effect - drive traffic from your core audience.

You may pay a bit more per click depending on content performance, but the benefit of targeting makes it worth it. We've seen performance as low as 2 cents per engagement on Facebook for popular content, and CPCs as low as $1-5 for highly targeted audiences (for example, CEOs in the US who make $100k+ and are interested in very specific industry topics). If my audience is CEOs, I would much rather get 500 visits from CEOs for $500-1000 than get 5000 visits from random individuals in the UK reading business articles at the same cost.

[CommT]

Thank you Kane. We currently use Linkedin advertising, but more for driving leads than visits. It's not as successful as I hoped it would be, but we've had vouchers to keep the costs down so hasn't been a total flop. I think perhaps you're suggestion of using it (and Facebook) for content distribution is great and I will definitely look at this as a possibility.

Thank you also for the lowdown on these different platforms - its good to know which ones are best for targeting the right type of traffic we want to attract - e.g. B2B (though many landlords wouldn't necessarily consider themselves 'businesses' - even though technically they are).

I've read a lot of negative stuff about this kind of content distribution - and can totally see where the naysayers are coming from - who wants to be associated with '10 celebrities looking ugly at the beach' etc type articles? I want to be careful about this as negative associations could really damage us. However, we do need better content distribution so I am prepared to give it a shot for a month to see how it works out. I have read that the algorithms they use should put our articles on the bottom of relevant articles - but I don't always see this happening - most of the content seems to be BS about celebrities having weird bodies or some such rubbish even on serious financial articles. This is both a reason for us to be shy of it (bad association) and give it a go (we should stand out as being the only credible/relevant source in the bunch). Like I say, I'm prepared to give it a go. If you don't TRY these things, I guess you never know!

Have you used any of these before? If so, what were your experiences of it? How did you overcome some of the problems I've outlined above?

Thank you again!

Best wishes,

Amelia

[KaneJamison]

I agree with all of your negative connotations, and with your final point that it's nevertheless worth trying. My experiences with it are limited simply because I need targeting to justify using it, and prefer to spend it on Facebook and LinkedIn for B2B promotions.

In general, I know I can get $1-3 per click on Facebook and $2-5 per click on LinkedIn, and that's much more valuable to me than $0.25-0.50 per click on Outbrain. I can also get $0.40-1 on Twitter if I feel my audience is spending time there (B2C and younger B2B, generally).

To read an alternative perspective, SEER has produced a decent rundown on their experiences using it for clients that you should read: http://moz.com/blog/maximize-roi-via-content-distribution-networks & http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/how-to-improve-your-paid-content-promotion-efforts-measurement-and-reporting/.

[CommT]

Thank you for the links.