BuzzSumo: The Definitive Guide
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BuzzSumo:The Definitive Guide

This guide will teach you everything you need to know about BuzzSumo.

Advanced strategies.

Cool features.

And four entirely different case studies.

Let’s get started…

BuzzSumo: The Definitive Guide

Chapter 1:Find Content Ideas

Find content ideas

In this chapter you’ll learn how to use BuzzSumo to create better content.

Specifically, I’ll show you how to find proven content ideas that work GREAT.

(Including lots of real-life examples of these steps in action.)

Find Awesome Content Ideas With a Search

This is BuzzSumo’s bread and butter feature.

Just enter a keyword related to your industry…

Buzzsumo – Content – Web search

…and get a list of the most popular content on that topic.

Buzzsumo – Paleo diet – Popular topics

Don’t let simplicity fool you. This is a VERY powerful feature.

In fact, BuzzSumo’s keyword search helped me create one of my most successful posts of 2018: The Definitive Guide to Mobile SEO.

Backlinko – Mobile SEO guide

To date, this single piece of content has generated over 3,000 social shares, 398 comments and links from over 470 different domains.

Mobile SEO guide – Referring domains, shares and comments

Also, this post currently ranks in the top 3 for my target keyword “mobile SEO”.

Google SERP – Mobile SEO

And I got the idea for this post from BuzzSumo.

Here’s how it went down…

A while ago I did a BuzzSumo search for “SEO”:

Buzzsumo – Web search – SEO

That way, I could quickly find content in the SEO space that got lots of shares and links.

I also used a couple (B2B & TLD) of filters to zero in on relevant results.

Buzzsumo – B2B and TLD filters

(More on that later.)

And I noticed that 4 of the top 20 pieces of content were about: mobile SEO.

Mobile SEO – Topics

When I dug deeper, I realized that 3 MORE of the top 20 posts at least touched on the topic of “mobile SEO”.

In total:

7 out of 20 (35%) of the most popular posts in the entire world of SEO were about mobile optimization.

That’s when I realized: “I better get cracking on a mobile SEO post!”.

I also realized something else:

None of those 7 posts actually showed people how to optimize their site for mobile devices!

So I decided to fill in that content gap with a guide overflowing with actionable tips:

Mobile SEO guide – Actionable tips

Because my content was based on a proven topic – and contained information no one else covered in one place – it did REALLY well.

Steal Your Competitor’s Best Content Ideas

Did you know you can search in BuzzSumo with a domain?

Well, you can. And it’s REALLY cool.

When you do, you’ll see that site’s best-performing content.

Buzzsumo – Backlinko – Best content

And this feature helped me create one of my best-performing pieces of content… ever.

The content?

The Definitive Guide To SEO In 2021.

Backlinko – SEO this year

Not only has this guide racked up a boatload of shares and links…

SEO this year – Links and shares

…but it’s consistently one of my 10 pages in terms of monthly organic traffic.

SEO this year – Monthly traffic

Let me walk you through the exact process that I used to develop and create that piece of content.

First, I popped Moz.com into BuzzSumo search.

Buzzsumo – Web search – Moz

And I noticed something surprising right away:

The #1 post from the Moz blog (out of 400+ posts) was about… SEO in 2021.

Buzzsumo – Moz top content

Say whaaaaat?!

It gets better.

Loads of their posts were on that exact same topic

Buzzsumo – Moz 2021 content

At this point, I had NEVER even considered writing an “SEO in [year]” post.

(Why? Most of them are lame prediction posts that provide zero value.)

But considering how well that topic performed for Moz, I had to give it a shot.

Since then, I’ve learned that including the current year is a great tactic.

Not only does it make your content more relevant, but it also makes it way more likely to be evergreen.

Instead of a prediction post, I decided to include actual steps people could use to get their site ready for the upcoming year.

SEO this year – Post chapters

And like I mentioned earlier, that post absolutely crushed.

It got an initial wave of traffic in the first week…

SEO this year – Initial traffic spike

…and even though the post has been around for a while, it still brings in a consistent stream of traffic from Google, social media and blogs:

SEO this year – Monthly users

Find Untapped Keyword Ideas

This tool is pretty new to BuzzSumo, but it’s super useful.

Let’s say you’ve found a content idea in BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer that gets crazy shares and links over time.

That might be enough to justify you writing about it.

But why not go the extra mile and check whether that demand extends to search?

All you need to do is enter your keyword, and you’re served up with search volume, CPC, and trend data.

Buzzsumo – Discover keywords – Paleo diet

If your keyword isn’t one that gets much traction in search – don’t worry.

BuzzSumo’s Keyword Tool also offers up hundreds if not thousands of keyword ideas that do.

Check out “related keywords” for keyword ideas that are broadly related to your query.

Buzzsumo – Discover keywords – Related keywords

Or if you’re looking for exact match variations on your keyword idea, hit the “similar keywords” tab.

Buzzsumo – Discover keywords – Similar keywords

Then you can just optimize your content for topics that work in search and social.

And it goes without saying that SEO is definitely not about keyword stuffing anymore.

The more semantically related keywords you can include in your content, the better.

Pro Tip: Use these keywords as anchor text in other blogs, and build some great internal links.

Steal Your Competitors’ Keyword Ideas

Want to know exactly what your competitors are ranking for?

Who doesn’t.

In BuzzSumo’s Keyword Tool you can do just this, with a simple domain search.

Buzzsumo – Discover keywords – Search by domain

This data is truly awesome.

It shows you what proportion of your competitor’s site is ranking in positions 1 –3, their monthly organic traffic stats, and their authority metrics.

Plus, you can get ideas from their top-ranking keywords.

All you have to do is sort the data by “Rank”.

Buzzsumo – Discover keywords – Sort by rank

If you were Moz’s competitor, you might want to go ahead and challenge their #1 ranking for the keyword “algorithm update google”.

Then you can find out what keyword is driving the majority of their organic traffic.
Just sort by “Estimated Visits”

Buzzsumo – Discover keywords – Sort by visits

Now, here’s where it gets really interesting.

You can find out exactly how much ownership your competitors have over a specific topic.

Just add a keyword in speech marks after your competitor’s domain.

Buzzsumo – Discover keywords – Exact keyword

Moz ranks for 421 “backlinks” related keywords and drives 9K searches a month.

That’s a lot of keyword ideas for you to explore, and a lot of traffic opportunities.

This kind of data is invaluable for building your own keyword strategy.

Uncover Untapped Long Tail Keywords With Question Analyzer

This is one of my favorite BuzzSumo features.

Why?

First, you can use the Question Analyzer to see the exact questions people are asking on Reddit, Quora and forums.

Buzzsumo – Discover Questions – YouTube SEO

That way, you can get a list of burning questions in your industry.

Yup, that’s pretty cool.

But that’s not the main reason I use the Question Analyzer.

I mainly use this feature to find long-tail keywords.

Why?

Well, when someone asks a question on Reddit, it usually means they Googled it first… and came up empty.

In other words:

Lots of people are searching for that question… but the results stink!

So if you can create a piece of content that answers that exact question, you can get boatloads of traffic.

Here’s a real-life example:

Some time ago I decided to update this post.

Backlinko – How to rank YouTube videos

So I added new screenshots, updated old content, and deleted outdated stuff:

How to rank YouTube videos post – New content

I also realized that the title tag was leaving A LOT of traffic on the table.

You see, the old title tag was:

YouTube SEO guide – Old title

As you can probably guess, my target keyword for that page was: “YouTube SEO”.

And sure enough, my post ranked #1 in Google for that term:

Old Google SERP – YouTube SEO

But I also realized that I could get even MORE Google traffic to that page by including a long tail keyword in the title tag.

The question is:

What long-tail keyword should I pick?

Well, back in the day, I would fire up the Google Keyword Planner and type “YouTube SEO” into it.

Google Keyword Planner – Search

But that would only give me super-similar variations of “YouTube SEO”.

Google Keyword Planner – Results

(And as you can see, most of these variations have really low search volume.)

Instead, I logged into BuzzSumo and typed “YouTube SEO” into the Question Analyzer:

Buzzsumo – Discover Questions – YouTube SEO

Then I hit the “Related themes” tab for a list of the top questions and categories that people asked about that topic:

Buzzsumo – Discover Questions – Related themes

One particular question stood out right away: “How to rank youtube videos?”

Buzzsumo – Discover Questions – Rank YouTube videos

My post answered that question. But it wasn’t optimized around that term.

So I added a shortened version of that long-tail keyword to my title tag:

"How to rank YouTube videos" in title tag

And it quickly hit the #1 spot for that long-tail keyword:

Old Google SERP – How to rank YouTube videos

Which helped boost monthly organic traffic to that page by 23.49%.

How to rank YouTube videos – Traffic increase

Not bad.

Hack Facebook’s News Feed With BuzzSumo’s Facebook Tools

There’s no doubt about it:

It’s harder than ever to get your Facebook posts to appear in your follower’s news feeds.

But there’s a simple way to get around this problem: BuzzSumo’s Facebook Pages and Page Analyzer.

These tools show you what content is working hardest right now – for you and your competition – on Facebook.

Buzzsumo – Content – Facebook engagement

That way, you can easily replicate strategies that actually get organic reach.

For example…

Let’s say you run a Paleo diet blog.

You’d do a search for “Paleo” on Facebook Pages:

Buzzsumo – Facebook Page Analyzer

And you’ll discover the most engaging Paleo-related Facebook pages.

Then all you’d do is select the competitors you want to compare – you can choose up to nine.

Buzzsumo – Facebook Page Analyzer – Competitors

This will lead you to a full report on what the most successful Facebook posts have in common (in terms of format, length, publishing time, and more).

For example, for the top competitors in the Paleo diet space, images and videos CRUSH other post formats:

Buzzsumo – Facebook – Average engagement per type

Your report will be set to a year by default, but you can align it with your reporting cadence to record the success of campaigns.

Buzzsumo – Facebook – Filter

You can check out more about BuzzSumo’s Facebook Page Analyzer here.

Get More Results From Your Content With The Content Analysis Report

So you’ve found a proven topic.

Great.

The question is: what do you actually write?

Well, no tool is going to write a post for you.

(AI is good, but not that good… yet!)

That said, BuzzSumo’s Content Analysis Report can help you write stuff that actually works.

I’ll show you how this works with an example…

A while back I was sitting down to write my mobile SEO guide.

Backlinko – Mobile SEO guide

I already had an idea of how to structure and write the post.

But I used the “Content Analysis Report” to make sure my content would actually work.

First, I looked at what content type worked best for this topic.

And sure enough, “How-to Articles” did best:

Buzzsumo – Content – Average engagement

Which was PERFECT because I planned on writing a how-to guide.

I also noticed that longer content about mobile SEO performed best (in terms of social shares):

Buzzsumo – Content – Average engagement by length

I tend to publish long content anyway. But it was nice to get confirmation that longer content worked well for this particular topic.

So…

Publishing content based on proven topics and formats already puts you ahead of 90% of your competitors.

But as you probably know, hitting the “publish” button is only the first step.

To get your content to the first page of Google in 2021, you need to actively promote it.

That’s where Chapter 2 comes into play…

Chapter 2:Find Influencers

Find influencers

You already know that a single share from an influencer can put your content on the map.

But how do you find them?

Well, BuzzSumo has some pretty nifty features that make finding your industry’s movers and shakers an absolute cinch.

And in this chapter I’ll show you exactly how to use them.

Find Influencers With a Keyword Search

This is by far the easiest way to find influential people in a specific niche.

Pop in a keyword… and get a list of peeps that write about that topic.

Buzzsumo – Influencers – Twitter – SEO case study

This tool searches Twitter bios, and lets you see what an influencer has “Shared articles about” or “Shared articles from” – but more on this later.

Buzzsumo – Twitter – Search options

If you’re looking for influential Facebook pages or YouTube channels, you can find those in BuzzSumo too.

Buzzsumo – YouTube Influencers

YouTube Influencers can be prioritized by relevance to your topic, total subscribers, video count, or total views depending on what you deem most important.

Use “Shared Articles About” to Discover Influencers

At the end of the day, the goal of content promotion is to get someone to share YOUR content with THEIR audience.

That share can be in the form of a Facebook post. Or a link.

Either way, you need to get your content in front of people that are likely to share it.

And the best way to do that?

Use “Shared articles about”.

Instead of searching through Twitter bios, this feature reveals people that have recently shared content on your topic.

(Which means they’re super likely to share your content too.)

For example, a while back I was getting ready to publish this SEO case study on my blog:

White hat SEO case study

I knew this post had the potential to do REALLY well.

IF I could get it in front of the right people.

Here’s what I did…

First, I did a “Shared articles about”. That way, I could get a list of people that had recently shared SEO and content marketing case studies.

Buzzsumo – Influencers – Twitter – SEO case study

And then I sorted by influencers with the highest average retweets to uncover people that were likely to actually get traction when sharing my post.

(Specifically, people that have a decent Twitter following… and write about SEO and content marketing.)

And I easily found a bunch:

Buzzsumo – Twitter – Average retweets

Then, I emailed each of them this message:

White hat SEO – Outreach email reply

(As you can see, I made sure to personalize this email script for each person that I reached out to.)

And when someone said they were interested in my post, I sent them a link:

White hat SEO – Outreach email reply

Because I wasn’t pushy, a good chunk of the people I reached out to happily read my post…

White hat SEO – Post reader email

…and shared it:

White hat SEO – Post share email

Find Quality Journalists To Pitch To

Building connections with relevant journalists can do very good things for your brand.

But how do you know who is relevant?

And, more importantly, how do you know what a “good” connection looks like?

Enter BuzzSumo Journalist Profiles.

This tool tells you everything you need to know about a journalist.

Interests.

Contact information.

Publications they write for.

All at the click of a button.

You just need to search your topic and look out for the journalist icon.

Here it is in the Content Analyzer…

Buzzsumo – Content – Journalist tag

In BuzzSumo Monitoring…

Buzzsumo – Monitoring – Journalist tag

And in BuzzSumo’s Trending Tool…

Buzzsumo – Trending – Journalist tag

When you find it, give it a click to pull up a full profile of the journalist.

Buzzsumo – Journalist details

This profile is awesome for helping you decide which journalists to prioritize.

Are you pitching an idea?

Or sharing your newest piece of content?

Check out “topics” to see if they already have an interest in your subject.

And – most importantly – pay attention to their content performance and followers.

This will give you an idea of the reach that they could generate for you.

Then all that’s left to do is contact them.

One more great thing about this tool is that it comes in filter form.

Meaning, you can view content written only by journalists if you want to.

Here’s where you can find that filter in the Content Analyzer…

Buzzsumo – Journalist filter

What’s great about this is that you can go even more granular by applying extra filters.

Find journalists that write for B2B publications with a B2B filter.

Buzzsumo – B2B filter

And see which journalists are writing for your competitors with a domain filter.

Buzzsumo – Domain filter

Try out all the filter options to find a journalist that’s right for you.

Remember, a great outreach email or pitch is all about relevance and personalization.

That’s why a tool like this is crucial to the success of your campaign.

One last thing, and possibly my favorite way to use this tool.

Head to Twitter Influencers and type in your own domain into the “Shared articles from” search.

Then hit the “Journalist Profiles” filter…

Buzzsumo – Influencers – Twitter – Journalists

This will show you all the best journalists that are already a fan of your work.

In other words, your warmest outreach opportunities.

These journalists are prioritized based on “Relevance”.

This is code for all the most important metrics that make for a good influencer…

Follower count.

Average retweets.

Reply ratio.

Even the number of times they have been added to Twitter lists.

So start at the top and work your way down.

Easy.

Find The Top Authors In Your Industry

You can also use BuzzSumo to find the biggest and baddest authors in your industry.

Buzzsumo – Influencers – Authors

So: what can you do with this information?

First, you get access to a list of the top bloggers and journalists that write about your topic.

Buzzsumo – Top SEO authors

(Which is helpful for building your influencer list.)

But the #1 benefit of this feature is that you see what influencers write about.

Buzzsumo – Authors – Top content

Topics.

Angles.

Formats.

You get the idea. 🙂

Why is this important?

If you want influencers to share your content, they need to actually like your content.

I know, I know: “Thanks Captain Obvious!”.

But it’s true.

In fact, I get email pitches like this all the time:

Bad outreach asking for share

There’s a ZERO percent chance I’ll share that content. Why?

Because I’ve never written about or shared anything about marketing for nonprofits.

On the other hand, check out this hilarious outreach email someone recently sent me:

Funny outreach email

Yup, this is a top-notch outreach email. But if Benyamin was pitching content on a topic I didn’t care about, I’d still hit “delete” without thinking twice.

Fortunately, the content he’s pitching (an actionable guide to lead magnets) is in my wheelhouse.

And that’s why I decided to share it.

Backlinko – Twitter share

Chapter 3:Monitor Mentions (and Links)

Monitor mentions and links

In this chapter, I’ll show you how to get the most out of BuzzSumo’s “Monitoring” feature.

In my opinion, this is THE most powerful feature on the entire platform.

Seriously.

And in this chapter you’ll learn how to use Monitoring to build strategic relationships, get more backlinks, and see what people are saying about you online.

Turn Unlinked Mentions Into Backlinks

Usually, when someone mentions you in a blog post, they link to you.

Usually.

But there are times when someone mentions your brand… without linking to your site.

Here’s an example:

EDUindex – Unlinked Backlinko mention

As it turns out, you can easily turn an unlinked mention into a backlink with a simple outreach email:

Brian outreach – Unlinked mention

The question is:

HOW do you find these unlinked mentions?

BuzzSumo Monitoring.

Just add a new “Brand Mention” for your brand:

Buzzsumo – Create brand alert

And you’ll see forums, blogs and news sites that mention your brand.

Buzzsumo – Mentions

Results with a little link icon actually linked to you:

Buzzsumo – Mentions with link

And results without, haven’t.

You can also sort by mentions with and without links:

Buzzsumo – Mentions filter

Simple.

Find Who Links To Your Competitors

Here’s the deal:

People that link to your competitors are VERY likely to link to you too.

Now:

You COULD find your competitor’s backlinks with a tool like Semrush.

(And that definitely works.)

But there’s one problem with that approach:

It’s hard to find people that recently linked to your competition.

Instead, you end up sifting through thousands of links… many of which are 5+ years old.

Enter: Monitoring

With Monitoring, you see the exact sites that JUST linked to your competitors:

Buzzsumo – Mentions – Recent link

It even shows you how many times that piece of content has been shared, your mentions over time… and the Domain Authority of the site.

Easy peasy.

Find Conversations About Your Brand

In my opinion, BuzzSumo has one of the best brand monitoring tools on the market.

And I should know.

I’ve tried ’em all.

I started tracking mentions with BuzzSumo in 2014!

Buzzsumo – Backlinko – Monitoring since 2014

And since then, I’ve noticed that it finds more brand mentions than any other tool.

Note: I’m talking purely about mentions on news sites, blogs, Q&A sites (like Quora), and online communities. BuzzSumo doesn’t track mentions on social media platforms like Facebook.

Anyway…

Why is this helpful?

Well, whether you like it or not, people are gonna talk about you online.

And if you keep tabs on those conversations, you can see what people like (and don’t like) about your brand.

And if it makes sense, step in and participate in the conversation.

Reddit – Brian replies to post

Fortunately, in my case, conversations about me and Backlinko are mostly positive:

Reddit – Comments about Backlinko

Mostly… 🙂

Reddit – Negative comments about Backlinko

Either way, it’s good to see what people are saying about me.

See Who Links To You

You can ask BuzzSumo to send you an email alert whenever you get a new backlink.

Buzzsumo – Backlink alert

Or create a Slack channel, so you never miss an incoming link or mention:

Buzzsumo – Backlink alert – Slack channel

Or, if you want to get a better understanding of your content’s popularity, you can just review all of your new links once a week, or day.

(10x a day in my case????)

So:

What can you do with this information?

Build relationships with the people that linked to you

This is especially powerful for authors that write for multiple websites.

When you send them a quick “Thank you!” message, they’re MUCH more likely to link to you in future articles.

For example, some time ago I noticed that I got a link from CrazyEgg:

Crazyegg – Backlinko mention

And when I clicked on the author’s name in BuzzSumo, I noticed that he wrote for A LOT of different marketing and online business blogs:

Buzzsumo – Author – David Zheng – Articles

So I sent David a quick note to say “thanks” for mentioning Backlinko in his post.

Brian – Thank you email

To be clear:

I’m not being manipulative or shady.

Instead, I’m building a strategic relationship with someone that writes content in my niche.

Track EVERYTHING

You can set up an alert for pretty much anything in BuzzSumo.

Your brand.

Your competitors.

Your content.

Your keywords and topics.

Mentions of journalists and authors you’re researching.

You can even track when a specific website publishes new content.

Buzzsumo – Content – Alert

This 360 tracking is awesome for helping you find new content opportunities.

Take author and journalist alerts.

Not only are they great for helping you personalize your emails.

They can give you awesome new content ideas.

If a journalist has written about a certain topic, you can bet they’ve done their audience research.

That’s a ready-validated topic. Now all you need to do is add your own take.

What about competitor tracking?

Knowing who is writing about your competitors is vital.

That person will already be interested in what you have to say.

All you have to do is reach out to them and start building that relationship.

Prevent a brand crisis

BuzzSumo Alerts are as near to real-time as you can get.

In fact, the BuzzSumo team did a quick test which proved that BuzzSumo Alerts are faster than Google Alerts.

And for that reason, they’re perfect for spotting when a brand crisis is about to hit.

All you need to do is set up alerts for the predictable and the unpredictable, to spot potentially harmful mentions.

For example, global, political or social situations might impact your business, so that whenever your brand is mentioned in relation to these topics, you get an instant notification.

One way to do this is to set up a “Keyword Alert” for existing crisis topics (ie. coronavirus).

Then all you need to do is add your brand name into the “Results MUST ALSO contain” section.

Buzzsumo – McDonalds keyword alert

And a great way to monitor the unpredictable is to track competitor mentions of your brand name.

You just need to create a “Brand Alert” monitoring your brand name.

Then add a “Domain Filter” of your competitor’s web address.

Buzzsumo – Uber competitor alert

If your competitors are likely to badmouth you, this is an awesome way to spot and address any false claims.

BuzzSumo Alerts will let you know about harmful unlinked mentions that would sneak through if you were only tracking links.

For more ideas on how to monitor your brand in a crisis, check out BuzzSumo’s crisis management guide.

Chapter 4:Cool BuzzSumo Features

Cool BuzzSumo features

In this chapter, you’re going to learn about some of my favorite BuzzSumo features.

You’ll see exactly how to use BuzzSumo to create viral content, make better infographics and take your content promotion up a notch.

So without further ado, let’s dive right into Chapter 4.

Monitor When and Where Keywords Are Used Online

In chapter 3 I showed you how to use BuzzSumo Monitoring to track conversations of your brand online.

But what you may not know is that you can also use BuzzSumo to track mentions of KEYWORDS.

For example, I’ve been tracking the keyword “Skyscraper Technique” since 2015.

Buzzsumo – Skyscraper technique – Monitoring since 2015

This report lets me know whether or not people are still talking about The Skyscraper Technique.

(Fortunately, they still are.)

But you can also use this same feature to help get your content in front of people that are super likely to share it.

I’ll explain how this works with an example…

A while ago I published this voice search SEO study.

Backlinko – Voice search SEO study

This post did great in terms of links…

Ahrefs – Voice search SEO study – Backlinks

…but I know it has the potential to get even MORE links.

So I set up an alert for the keyword “voice search”.

Buzzsumo – Voice search alert

That way, I can easily find people that write about voice search… and show them my study.

Create Better Infographics

There’s no doubt about it:

Creating an infographic that stands out today is HARD.

Fortunately, you can easily increase the odds that your infographic gets results.

Here’s how:

First, do a search for your target keyword.

Buzzsumo – Web search – SEO

Then, under “Content Type”, uncheck everything except “Infographics”.

Buzzsumo – Content type filter – Infographics

That way, you can see the handful of infographics that people actually shared.

Buzzsumo – Content – Infographics

In B2B? Use This Filter

For certain searches in BuzzSumo, you may stumble over some pretty irrelevant stuff.

For example, it turns out that “Seo” is a common Vietnamese last name.

So when I search for “SEO” in BuzzSumo, the vast majority of results are from foreign news sites:

Buzzsumo – Content – False SEO results

But when I check “Only B2B Publishers”…

Buzzsumo – B2B filter

…I get a clean list of results:

Buzzsumo – Content – Clean SEO results

Nice.

Get a Higher ROI From Your Content With
“Evergreen Score”

It’s no secret that I’m a HUGE fan of publishing evergreen content.

(In fact, I only publish something if it’s going to bring in traffic for years.)

That said:

When you do a normal BuzzSumo search, the results are sorted by total shares:

Buzzsumo – Results sorted by total shares

And you have NO idea whether those shares happened the day after the post went live…

…or months later.

Enter: The Evergreen Score.

The Evergreen Score shows you content that’s continued to generate shares and backlinks… after the initial buzz.

For example:

If you do a normal BuzzSumo search for “SEO”, my content doesn’t crack the top 20:

Buzzsumo – Web content – SEO

As you can see, the results are dominated by huge brands, like Entrepreneur and Marketing Land.

But watch what happens when you sort the results by Evergreen Score:

Buzzsumo – Evergreen content – SEO

Bam!

My “SEO in 2021” guide has a high Evergreen Score because it’s still valuable MONTHS after it went live.

(Which means people continue to share and link to it.)

So if you wanted to create a piece of evergreen content about SEO, my guide would be a good model to follow.

Chapter 5:Case Studies

New case studies

In this chapter, you’ll see four BuzzSumo case studies.

Specifically, you’ll learn exactly how “normal” people used BuzzSumo to create viral content, build backlinks, improve their Google rankings, and more.

But first, let’s kick things off with a case study that completely blew my mind…

Case Study #1: How Rise at Seven won numerous campaign awards and boosted their client’s revenue by 55%

Rise at Seven uses BuzzSumo to brainstorm out-of-the-box ideas for client campaigns.

They get inspiration from other successful PR campaign ideas that gain big shares and links.

In this instance, a client came to them because they needed to boost their backlink profile in the US and Europe.

The client sold star map constellations.

Rise at Seven went straight to BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer to do some broad research.

They looked at big topics like the “night sky”.

Buzzsumo – Web search – Night sky

Then they checked BuzzSumo’s Topic Explorer and spotted something.

There was one topic that kept cropping up.

One that was written about in volume.

And that was: Light pollution.

Buzzsumo – Topics – Light pollution

And in BuzzSumo’s Content Analysis Report they noticed one more thing.

Engagement for “light pollution” was growing over time.

Buzzsumo – Engagement over time – Light pollution

Next, they zoned in on the backlink profile of light pollution campaigns that had done well in the past.

They needed to check that links were coming from high authority publications.

Spoiler: They were.

Buzzsumo – Light pollution article – Backlinks

That was enough to validate the topic. Rise at Seven was confident it would work.

The last bit of research they did involved Facebook Reaction data in the Content Analysis Report.

They wanted to look at the emotions surrounding “light pollution”.

Buzzsumo – Light pollution content – Reactions

From the data, they knew that their campaign shouldn’t be aiming to make people laugh.

Instead, it should be emotive, awe-inspiring, and highly visual.

They began to workshop a great idea.

They took the 27 most light-polluted cities in the world and used an interactive slider to show what they’d look like without light pollution.

Under Lucky Stars – If light pollution cleared – Article

Pretty awesome, right?

The results were phenomenal.

They bagged awards, including the Best Interactive Campaign of the Year at the UK Content Awards, and Best Use of Imagery 2020 at the Content Marketing Awards.

They landed their client 130+ links, including some from major publications like Forbes and Lonely Planet.

Ahrefs – Underluckystars – Article backlinks

AND they boosted their clients’ YoY revenue by 55%.

Impressive.

Case Study #2: How Russ Henneberry grew a 30K newsletter and boosted open rates by 10%

TheCLIKK is a newsletter founded by Russ Henneberry and built largely on BuzzSumo data.

TheClikk homepage

Every day Russ and managing editor Kevin Williamson head into BuzzSumo’s Trending Tool.

They work through curated content feeds, including “digital marketing”, “tech”, and “business”, to find super interesting content to share with their subscribers.

Buzzsumo – Discover – Trending – Tech

After that, they head to bookmarks they’ve created for some top publisher domains in BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer.

Then it’s just a case of curating either the most engaging or latest content.

In the last two years, this technique has helped theCLIKK to grow to 30K subscribers.

Marketers from PayPal, Google, and LinkedIn all read theCLIKK for regular digital marketing knowledge.

According to Kevin, without BuzzSumo theCLIKK would take 60 – 80% longer to create every day.

And Russ attributes a 10% growth in open rate to BuzzSumo, during a time when theCLIKK doubled down on their usage of the tool.

Nice.

Case Study #3: How James Got Featured on Mashable, Cosmopolitan, MTV, The Daily Mail, And More

James Brockbank used BuzzSumo to get links and mentions on authority sites like Esquire, Glamour, MTV, Bustle and more:

Missy Empire mentions

It gets better:

These links helped James’ client rank on the first page of Google UK for terms like “women’s loungewear tracksuits”, “slogan jumpers”, and a whole host of others… just in time for the Christmas season.

Google SERP – Missy Empire

Overall, this single campaign boosted their search traffic by 87.9%:

Missy Empire – Traffic increase

Here’s the full story…

James’ client is the fashion eCommerce site Missy Empire.

Missy Empire homepage

According to James:

“Our client had been producing ‘style guides’ and other blog content but struggled to earn links.”

So he decided to try something new.

Create something that fashion blogs and news sites would WANT to share

So he used BuzzSumo’s domain search to uncover fashion content that got lots of shares.

Glamour Magazine – Kardashians content

And James could sum up what he found in one word:

Kardashians.

James also stumbled on a “Reality Superstar Rich List” from Forbes. This page listed the earnings of every Kardashian family member.

Forbes – Reality superstar richlist

So James created a simple calculator that allows you to compare your earnings with the Kardashians.

You vs the Kardashians calculator

And the press absolutely LOVED this tool.

In fact, to date, this tool has links from over 130 blogs and news sites:

Ahrefs – Missyempire – You VS Kardashians – Referring domains

Crazy.

Case Study #4: How Matteo Got 190 Social Shares (And 64 New Backlinks) to a Brand New Blog

Last year Matteo Gasparello had a problem…

You see, Matteo had launched a brand new digital marketing blog.

Strategico homepage

And Matteo knew that, for his blog to stand out, he’d need to publish a piece of EPIC content.

The problem was:

What kind of content should he publish? A list post? A tutorial? How about a case study?

So he fired up BuzzSumo.

And he searched for terms like “video marketing”, “Facebook video ads” and “video advertising”:

Buzzsumo – Web search – Video marketing

Matteo quickly noticed that these 4 posts did REALLY well:

Video marketing posts

So he incorporated what he liked from those 4 posts into a guide: Online Video Advertising: All You Need to Know.

Considering Matteo’s blog was brand new, he knew that he couldn’t just “publish and pray”.

So he used BuzzSumo to find people that had shared content about video ads in the past:

Buzzsumo – Top sharers – Video marketing content

As Matteo put it:

“Now it was only a matter of browsing through the results and contacting people that were really interested in video ads.”

And he reached out to those folks with a personalized (and non-pushy) email:

Matteo – Outreach email – Response

Because Matteo’s outreach emails were targeted AND respectful, he got lots of replies like this…

Matteo – Outreach email – Response

…and this.

Matteo – Outreach email – Other response

And once Matteo started sending his excellent guide to people that were interested, the shares and links started to pour in:

Matteo – Outreach backlink

Chapter 6:Advanced Tips & Strategies

Advanced tips and strategies

Basics? Check.

Case studies? Check.

Now it’s time to dive into advanced BuzzSumo tips, strategies and tactics that you can use to hire freelance writers, find awesome keyword ideas, and more.

Let’s do this.

Find (Quality) Freelance Writers

Finding a freelance writer is easy.

But finding a GOOD freelance writer?

That’s another story.

Fortunately, you can use BuzzSumo to find writers that actually know what they’re doing.

Here’s how:

First, search for your topic in BuzzSumo:

Buzzsumo – Web search – Link building

Then, keep an eye out for writers that tend to get lots of shares on their stuff.

Now:

Most of these writers are going to be big names… not freelancers:

Big name author

But if you dig deep, you can find freelancers that know how to write kick-butt content in your niche:

Freelance author

Pro Tip: Click on the author’s name in the search results… and you can see everything they’ve published:

Buzzsumo – Author – All articles

Create Targeted Content With “Search by Subreddit”

Does your target audience hang out on a particular Subreddit?

If so, BuzzSumo can show you the EXACT questions those folks ask.

(And the topics they’re most interested in.)

Let me show you how this works with a real life example:

My content is designed to help professional marketers get higher rankings and more traffic.

So even though there is a r/SEO subreddit…

Reddit – SEO subreddit

…it’s full of newbs.

Instead, my target audience tends to hang out on r/bigSEO.

Reddit – BigSEO subreddit

And, using BuzzSumo, I can EASILY see the exact topics members of that subreddit are most interested in.

Here’s how:

First, I head over to BuzzSumo’s Question Analyzer. But instead of typing in a keyword, I hit “Search By Subreddit”.

Buzzsumo – Discover Questions – Search by subreddit

And when I click on the “View related themes” tab, BuzzSumo hooks me up with a list of topics that members of this subreddit tend to discuss most:

Buzzsumo – Discover Questions – View related themes

Nice.

Find Keyword Ideas With BuzzSumo Suggest

This couldn’t be simpler:

Just type a keyword into BuzzSumo search…

…and see what they suggest to you:

Buzzsumo – Search suggest

And in the related topics:

Buzzsumo – Related topics

Very cool.

Track Marketing Reach (and Backlinks)

Are MORE people talking about your brand this month?

It’s not an easy question to answer.

That is, unless you track mentions and links with BuzzSumo.

When you set up mention monitoring, you can see how mentions and links change over time.

If you notice that more people are talking about you (in a good way), that’s a sign that your marketing is working.

Buzzsumo – Backlinko – Mentions

If not… it might be time to change things up.

Find Awesome Interview Opportunities

Interviews are one of my FAVORITE ways to get targeted traffic (and links).

The only problem is:

It’s REALLY hard to find high-quality interview opportunities.

Fortunately, BuzzSumo makes this process a cinch.

Here’s how to do it:

First, find someone in your niche that tends to get interviewed a lot.

(I’ll use my friend Noah Kagan in this example.)

Then, type his or her name into BuzzSumo search:

Buzzsumo – Web search – Noah Kagan

Why?

Well, unless someone is REALLY popular, they’ll only show up in BuzzSumo’s results if they’ve been interviewed.

For example:

When I search for “Noah Kagan” in BuzzSumo, 18 out of the 20 results are places he’s been interviewed.

Noah Kagan interviews

Very cool.

Now It's Your Turn

Your turn

So those are my best tips, strategies and secrets for getting the most out of BuzzSumo.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

Which strategy from this guide are you going to try first?

Are you going to use BuzzSumo to find a writer? Or maybe you want to start tracking brand mentions.

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.

182 Comments

  1. Brian'sFan Avatar Brian'sFansays:

    I haven’t even started reading it properly yet and I already know it’s on fire.

    Thanks Brian, you are the man!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      👍👍👍

  2. Thank you so much for the comprehensive Guide. I would love to find content ideas and influencers. 😉

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Sam. Chapter 2 from this guide should definitely help.

  3. Love the guide, Brian. Nice work as always! I haven’t tried this yet but am now planning on it. Thanks for your hard work.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Joshua.

  4. Kaavish Avatar Kaavishsays:

    Hi Brain,
    Honestly, this is Amazing.

    I have been using BuzzSumo for a long time but never discovered this much in depth. I am glad you have shown most of us the amazing insight of this secret tool for finding the best content ideas out there.

    Simply amazing sir. It’s always a treat reading your new guides and posts.

    Thanks for being with us.
    Keep up the great work.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Kaavish. I’ve also been using BuzzSumo for a while (pretty much since it came out). And over the years I’ve picked up a few tips that have helped me get the most out of it. So I decided to share them in today’s guide.

      1. Kaavish Avatar Kaavishsays:

        Yes, they are really helpful. In fact, your tips are showing me the further ways to explore the unique stuff can’t thank you enough.

        Oh BTW, love the graphics. a huge clap for your design department.

  5. Hey Brian,
    Thank you so much for this amazing guide. I have a quick question. I use ahrefs since 2016. Is it a good idea to switch to BuzzSumo? Your guide me think about it. Thank you!
    Qasim Khilji
    Phoenix, Arizona

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome. It really depends. Ahrefs is more for keyword research, backlink analysis and other SEO-focused tasks. BuzzSumo is more content-focused. I personally use both but it depends on what your goals are right now.

  6. Another Great Blog/Guide Brian!
    Thanks Bud!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Tom. Glad you liked it 👍 👍 👍

  7. Brian,
    Thanks for this great guide. As always all details are been covered in depth.
    ~Lin

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Lin. Glad you learned some new stuff.

  8. Wow – how comprehensive and thorough guide! I just published a new article last night & will definitely use some of your tips from this article to rank higher. Thanks Brian!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Darshana. Keep me posted.

  9. Always enjoy your content. This is just loaded with goodies. Looking forward to diving into the meat of this when me and my team get the time. Thanks for the good info and keep up the good work, Brian!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Ben. I tried to pack this guide with lots of little actionable tips (aka goodies) that I picked up over the years. Glad you enjoyed it!

  10. Awesome post Brian!

    I always liked buzzsumo but never know that it has lots of others cool features. Thanks for sharing this detailed guide.

    – Shubahnshi

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome. I’m happy to hear that you discovered a few cool new features in the tool.

  11. Woaw! Content delivered.

    Thank you very much.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Antonin.

  12. NZ Avatar NZsays:

    Hey Brian,

    This is AWESOME, thanks for putting so much detail into this! I really found Buzzsumo a bit of a black hole so it’s great to see how you use it.

    That being said… I know you use Ahrefs too – any thoughts on their new content explorer? It seems to do a lot more than Buzzsumo in terms of SEO and although it doesn’t do questions at all (yet…) you can get it to mimic the functionality of Buzzsumo’s FB analyzer by sorting by FB shares. Although it doesn’t necessarily do some of the content analysis stuff (type of content that performs best, etc.) I guess the question is if you think the same opportunities are findable through Ahrefs.

    Would be great to hear any thoughts you might have – can only afford so many tools 😛

    Thank you!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome.

      Aherf’s Content Explorer is solid. But like you said, it’s not as feature-rich as BuzzSumo. I hear you: Ahrefs and BuzzSumo together aren’t super cheap. At the end of the day, it’s whatever system/tool works best for you. And it sounds like you figured out how to get the most out of Content Explorer.

  13. Kaushal Soni Avatar Kaushal Sonisays:

    Remarkable guide:)

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Kaushal. I put a lot of work into it.

  14. I have never tried to get influencer sharing my content! Reading your post, I got a positive feeling I should try it. Guess, I will try that as soon as I can!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Subh. To be clear: your content has to be amazing for this to work 🙂

  15. Abhay Sharma Avatar Abhay Sharmasays:

    Awesome post Brian !!
    I loved the in depth details that you gave !
    I have a question
    can we use buzzsumo for youtube seo ?
    can it help reaching international audience for youtube videos ?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Abhay, good question. BuzzSumo does have some video-focused features, but it’s not great for analyzing YouTube videos. For that I’d check out VidIQ.

  16. Loz James Avatar Loz Jamessays:

    Hey Brian

    I just read this in one go – I’ve never really dug deep with BuzzSumo before but I’m definitely going to revisit it after this. I’m thinking a combination of Ahrefs and this would be immense together – and all you really need.

    It’s also great to see an example from Andrew Holland in here. He really knows his stuff and is always very positive and helpful in the SEO That Works FB Group – and those are some massive results he’s been getting.

    There’s just one thing I’m unsure on though – when using the Question Analyser, how did you know your long-tail keyword addition of ‘how to rank youtube videos’ would get a lot of organic traffic – just by virtue of being there – e.g. 45 people were asking questions related to it so that was a good enough gauge?

    Anyway – epic post as usual 🙂

    Many thanks

    Loz

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      That’s great to hear, Loz. It must be pretty good if someone can read it in one sitting!

      And yes, I was very happy to feature Andrew in the guide. He’s legit.

      Good question. I did confirm that this long tail add-on got decent search volume using SEMRush before using it.

  17. Excellent guide to getting started on Buzzsumo. Thanks for putting this together, Brian!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Zee. Glad you enjoyed it.

  18. Rintu Biswas Avatar Rintu Biswassays:

    Hey Brian,

    Can you please write a post on Local SEO.

    Also, how to rank service pages in Google and especially how to build backlinks to these services pages.

    Any tips?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      I might do that, Rintu. Thanks for the suggestion.

  19. Oh My Gosh, if ANYone EVER had a doubt about BuzzSumo and how to use its rich set of features, those doubts would be totally obliterated now! Absolutely epic stuff, Brian.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Mike. I’m with you: BuzzSumo is super useful!

  20. Great blog, I found BuzzSumo a few weeks ago and did not get me interested, now I am going to revisit 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good guys. Let me know how it goes.

  21. Great guide Brian. I like how the ‘taking the guess work out of content’ approach.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Marcus.

  22. Jennifer Avatar Jennifersays:

    I almost deleted this e-mail… thank god I didn’t. This is one of the best things I have read on the internet 😱

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      HA! Why did you almost delete it?

        1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

          👍👍👍

  23. Another one. Thanks for the detailed info. I will definitely use it when I’m writing my new post.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Ivaylo.

  24. I feel so honored to be part of this guide. Thanks for having me, Brian!

    Also, great tip on chapter 5 to find freelance writers. This is something I’m struggling a bit lately, and this advice will really come in handy.

    Matteo

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Matteo. Thanks for sharing your story with the Backlinko community. It’s a good one!

  25. I’m with you Brian. As a long time users. I’ve used some of the tricks you mention, mostly for content creation for myself and my clients. But haven’t been use for reachout and link building opportunity. Thanks

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Argo. Let me know how it goes.

  26. Nitin Avatar Nitinsays:

    Wow this is Awesome Tips of buzzsumo and your post design Amazing

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks

  27. Hey Brian,
    Complete SEO & Digital Marketing industry is well acquainted with the fact “YOU’RE GREAT.”
    What disappointed me today morning (it’s 07:00 AM in India) is this BLOODY THREAD on Reddit- www(.)reddit(.)com/r/SEO/comments/5dh1ej/seo_that_works_20_used_fake_testimonials_and.

    Bad thought about this thread: How much your competitors would have paid him to create this shit? (just thinking)
    Good thought about this thread: Thanks for knowledge & trust I’ve gained from you that I quickly identified that above thread is “FAKE or PAID”

    Anyways, buzzsumo is a must-have tool. Indeed a definitive guide. Keep updating us.
    Thanks,
    Reyansh Kumar.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Yeah, I saw that thread. Looks like the guy is a bit unbalanced. Haters gonna hate I guess

  28. Luckily I’m not in the marketing space. It would be toooo tough to compete with you and Neil! Haha. Amazing post … as always!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      LOL. Thank you, Julius.

  29. Again, Brian Dean is launched his Giant guide on BUZZSUMO. The right way to build your influencer list and grow your business with natural formula “sharing is caring”
    Thanks Brian😄

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Sammy. Well said

  30. Hello Brian,
    Thanks for giving this awesome article. You always make in-depth content for every problem, that I like the most. I use BuzzSumo to find influencers.
    Thanks – Shubham

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome 👍👍👍

  31. Brian Dean, First of all, thanks for your hard work. I still just check how much longer this content is so I would schedule my time to go for that great buzzsumo guide.
    I am searching yesterday for new keywords via ahref but now I would love to read this guide before writing any further articles.

    Keep up the good work and God Bless you:)

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Atay. I recommend using BuzzSumo to find ideas. Then confirming that people actually search for them in Ahrefs. It’s a powerful 1-2 punch

  32. Shivam Avatar Shivamsays:

    I’d have preferred if a download-able e-book of such a big content/guide was available.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You can’t please everybody 😄

  33. Awesome guide Brian. I love the quality of all your posts. Do you think BuzzSumo is an ultimate content marketing tool, or can Ahrefs and SemRush also be used with their new features?

    I think of Ahrefs Content Gap etc.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Good question, Jacob. I actually use all 3 of those tools pretty much every day because they all complement one another. BuzzSumo is great, but it’s not made to do things that Ahrefs can do (like link analysis) or SEMRush (like keyword research).

  34. Anil Reddy Tirugudu Avatar Anil Reddy Tirugudusays:

    Hi Brian,

    Till the time before reading this article from my inbox, I knew Buzzsumo as for finding content ideas. But after reading entire article, I am really surprised that Buzzsumo can be used like this. Thanks for sharing. It’s a worth read epic article.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Finding content ideas is definitely BuzzSumo’s main feature. But over the years they’ve added some cool features that are actually pretty darn useful

  35. OMG Brian! You never cease to amaze me with your super actionable posts.

    Really Brian, thank you for existing in this world of digital marketing.

    This was another awesome read.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Ugo. Happy to help

  36. I knew that tool but I had never used it. Now, with that great tutorial I shoul have to try it. Thanks again Brian !

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Hugo. Let me know what you think of BuzzSumo

  37. Hey Brian,

    Last week I recommended one of my friend to read your guides and seo posts. Before he was struggling a lot to rank his post. But when he read yours he instatntly bost his traffic to more than 64%.
    Also read your Buzzsumo post, I specially liked the examples which you gave of other people.

    Cheers!!!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      64? That’s legit!

      I’m trying to include more examples of people not in the tech/SEO/marketing industry. So I thought it would be cool to feature people in completely different niches in this guide.

  38. It is the awesome case study on the Buzz Sumo and thanks for sharing with us.

    Regards,
    Basit

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Basit.

  39. Prasad Chandekar Avatar Prasad Chandekarsays:

    Again amazing and detailed guide. Thanks

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      👍

  40. Wanna share this most useful article on Linkedin, so request to add Linkedin share button please.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hey Sattvic. Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve also been active on LinkedIn lately so we might add that button in the future.

  41. Lopez Avatar Lopezsays:

    Thanks Brian!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      No problem, Lopez

  42. Can you please provide PDF link for your posts so that i can print it out.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      We don’t have a PDF version ready. They’re not easy to make unfortunately

  43. Hey my favourite Brain, how did you get the email address of those influencers in “CHAPTER 2: Find Influencers”. Otherwise, everything was fine. Thanks for sharing.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      I used hunter.io

  44. Another one. Thanks for the detailed info. I will definitely use it when I’m writing my new post.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Alex.

  45. neo Avatar neosays:

    Andrew paid something for the advertising the video? Or just published the video on Facebook and wait?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Neo, I’m not 100% sure if he used ads to give his post a boost.

  46. Joel Avatar Joelsays:

    Hello Brian, please what app do you use to design your blog post graphics?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Joel, we use a custom coded solution for these guides.

    1. Hi Joel, you should try some visual page builders on WordPress. They will alow you to make stunning design (but I think Brian’s blog is the coolest and cleanest one I’ve read. Love it)

  47. The ultimate guide thanks Brian, is there any alternative to Buzzsumo ie: not quite as expensive

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome Karl. Not that I know of.

  48. It’s amazing, Brian!

    I don’t know why the top bloggers don’t prefer Google Alert instead of Buzzsumo keyword alert or Ahrefs keyword alert.

    It’s free and fast because of Google crawling and indexing speed.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Google Alerts is still around? Last time I used it it didn’t work

  49. Hello Brian,

    Awesome post, one of the most detailed guides about SEO tricks I’ve read so far. However, you forgot to mention in the post an important thing, most of the tools you have described are available only in a paid version of BuzzSumo, and in my opinion, prices for their premium packages are too high for average users.

    But besides that, still great text, full of useful tips and phenomenal real life examples, thank you for your work and for sharing all of this gold worth tips and information’s.

    Best,
    Milos

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Milos

  50. Great Post Brian, I think you can short these whole content into a small infographic and. Keep sharing content like this

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thank you Anna

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