The role of the interactive content has increased substantially over the past few years. Interactive content has become a good substitute for old-fashioned keyword-stuffed texts, making online content more personalized. In marketing, using interactive content is a strategy with plenty of benefits in terms of SEO:
- According to Top Rank Blog, 93% of marketers say that interactive content brings the most value when it comes to informing their customers, as opposed to 70% of those in favor of static content.
- Stats, posted by Snapapp, show that interactive content is able to generate 2x more conversions than passive (static) content.
- Stats by Popcomms claim that interactive content generates 5x more page views and 88% of marketers claim that using interactive content in their marketing campaigns helps them stand out from the competition.
Moreover, interactive content gives you more credibility, as other sources will be more interested to reference you on their web pages. According to DemandGenReport, 59% of marketers say they use interactive content primarily for more engagement, generating links and getting backlinks.
Why Are Backlinks Important For SEO?
Backlinks are directed towards your website. In other words, backlinks are like references in a research paper, giving credibility to this paper by mentioning high-quality content.
Also known as inbound links, backlinks are seen by a search engine as the indicators of importance or popularity of a given source. Thus, a search engine will give more credit to websites that have a number of relevant, good-quality backlinks.
The quality of the link plays a crucial role in SEO results. A search engine also thoroughly analyzes the quality of the content that this backlink refers to.
How Can Interactive Content Help?
Using interactive content means that you offer something one-of-a-kind. So, by following a link to your site, the visitors will receive high-quality unique content, increasing engagement and conversion in return.
Creating backlinks that refer to interactive content also has a lot to do with creating permalinks that allow the link to the interactive content to stay relevant for a long time. This is a way to make sure that you’ll get lifetime backlinks by having your interactive content shared on other resources online.
Now let’s take a look at some examples.
1. Generators and Calculators
The key to the success of interactive content is making it as helpful as possible. Thus, creating interactive generators and calculators will not only provide you with lifetime backlinks but will also benefit people who use this content.
An example of a very helpful and very engaging interactive generator is Flavor Generator by Hello Fresh (an online food delivery service). When using this generator, all you have to do is identify what you’re craving for breakfast, lunch or dinner, choose the cuisine of your choice (Mexican, Italian, Indian, etc.), and choose the flavor you’re craving.
As a result, you get an inspiring idea for a meal (which you can also order from this service):
A quick check shows that Hello Fresh’s Flavor Generator performs quite well, having almost 5K external backlinks.
As for interactive calculators, one of the most popular examples with a lot of credibility and value is the Adult BMI Calculator developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The calculator allows you to enter the height and weight indexes in the imperial or metric system. After you enter your height and weight information, you get your BMI index, indicating your weight status and some recommendations as to how you can correct your weight.
An interactive calculator is a great way to bring value and get conversions and lifetime backlinks in return. Here’s how CDCP’s BMI Calculator is performing in terms of backlinks:
The more value your interactive content brings, the more backlinks you’ll get. Besides, creating an interactive generator or calculator will represent your company and products from a different perspective.
2. Interactive Maps
If you run an international business and sell products and services worldwide, an interactive map on your website may be a good idea to navigate the visitors of your website and get lifetime backlinks for creating unique content.
When developing their website, Flatfy, an international real estate company, created an interactive map, to redirect website users to their subsidiary domains in other countries:
This interactive map brought a considerable amount of traffic to their website as well as a lot of quality backlinks:
Besides providing you with lifetime backlinks, an interactive map is a good way to bring diversity to the content on your website.
3. Interactive Videos
Lastly, another engaging way to both introduce new content, show your business from a different perspective, and get lifetime backlinks is to create an interactive video. Moreover, an interactive video is also a great strategy for B2B businesses, who often struggle with creating engaging content marketing strategies.
For instance, some time ago Deloitte together with Rapt Media created an interactive video called “Will You Fit Into Deloitte”, which engages the viewers to take part in an interactive questionnaire and choose, how they would act in particular situations:
Depending on the answer, the viewers get the result whether they will fit in this company or not. This interactive video is a good example of high-quality engaging content. The narration is from the first person, making every viewer an active participant. There’s a bit of humor to this video as well, making it a very unusual way to represent a company.
What about backlinks? This video has brought Deloitte over 400 backlinks.
The number may seem low, but considering that this is a B2B company and the video is very sector-specific, this is a very good result.
The Bottom Line
Including interactive content in your content marketing campaigns is a great strategy to get lifetime backlinks. Interactive content brings value, that’s why it is a perfect strategy to give more credibility to your company.
In this article, we’ve introduced 3 ways of how both B2B and B2C companies can use interactive content to get lifetime backlinks. Choose the way that suits you best and just go for it. Investing in interactive content will definitely pay off!