At Go Fish, we build links by producing creative content campaigns –– data-rich, newsworthy content that tells a compelling story and that journalists will want to link back to. Many refer to this approach as digital PR.

Digital PR campaigns can come in the form of data studies, surveys, rankings, contests, illustrations, and quizzes, among a slew of other formats. 

These types of link building campaigns have never been more competitive across industries, and the real estate + home sector is no exception. In this blog, we’ll focus specifically on link building in the home and real estate niche, providing link builders with a quick guide to producing successful digital PR campaigns in this space. 

The Best Data Sources & Formats for Home & Real Estate Content

The Fastest-Selling Home Styles in Every State, The Most Gentrified Cities Around the U.S., The Dream Kitchen Survey, and the Game of Thrones House Sorting Quiz are all strong examples of digital PR campaign ideas, from past and present, within the home and real estate space. But how can link builders come up with these ideas? 

Sometimes the ideas spark from a timely or trending event in the news (like a recession or Barbiecore). Sometimes we have a lightbulb moment. But more often than not, ideas spark from a data source –– one that’s either existing or created. Let’s take a look at some of the best sources for both types of data within the home and real estate industries.

Existing Data Sources

Real Estate Marketplaces: Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Apartments.com

Zillow’s research hub has a whole host of housing, time-series data by specific geographies (state, city, zip) from median home values and rent prices to median days on the market and inventory data. Zillow also has several APIs for users who want to dive deeper into real estate metrics like home value forecasts, Zestimates, and neighborhood data.

Government Agencies: U.S. Census, Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) 

The Census is a real estate link builder’s dream with data tables you can filter for various home and housing metrics, from property taxes and homeowner characteristics to migration patterns and homeownership rates (diced down by every demographic you can think of). Again, most of the datasets can be analyzed both nationally and locally (by state, county, MSA, and more) –– a huge plus for local media outreach when promoting a digital PR campaign.

Trade Associations: National Association of Realtors (NAR), National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)

Trade associations like the NAR store current real estate market insights on both a residential and commercial level. Housing affordability indices, commercial real estate transactions, and gentrification insights, among hundreds of other indicators, are at the link builder’s disposal on the NAR’s research and statistics page. 

Created Data Sources

Web Scraping: From sites like Airbnb, Google Trends, Yelp, TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Zillow, and Redfin

As link builders, we can’t sleep on scraping websites for new data that will help us tell a story. Analyzing TikTok views, pulling search data from Google Trends, or scraping Airbnb listings are all methods for creating a new dataset that will help with:

• Gauging popularity

• Detecting trends

• Uncovering new information

Past campaign performance data shows that 78% of campaigns that use created or scraped data earn organic media coverage, and the average DA of these campaigns’ referring domains is 59 –– considerably higher than average.

AI Tools: ChatGPT, DALL·E 2, Midjourney

It’s no secret that AI is changing the game for content marketing, and digital PR campaigns are no exception. Content marketers can build links within the home and real estate spaces using AI-driven content generation tools like Midjourney or DALL·E 2. These tools produce unique artwork, illustrations, or designs based on specific prompts. 

This format is quite a departure from the data journalism approach mentioned above, but can be just as effective given the right topic! Here are a few AI image campaigns in the home space that we’ve got major crushes on:

Here’s what Barbie’s dreamhouse would look like in every state: Sara Aspier used Midjourney to build a Barbie dreamhouse for each state, based on the state’s most common architectural style. 

AI imagines a typical home in every state: All Star Home tested Midjourney to generate an “idealistic” home in all 50 states and the 30 largest U.S. cities. 

Surveys

Some of the best created datasets continue to be proprietary survey insights. Using automated survey platforms, link builders within the home and real estate industries can launch anonymous polls about homebuying and homeowning topics for the purpose of yielding newsworthy statistics.

For example, we launched the “Zillow Obsession Survey” for a client within the contracting space, inspired by a viral, SNL skit about Zillow browsing. The survey produced head-turning insights such as “53% of respondents have looked up the value of their boss’s house on Zillow” and “49% of respondents would rather browse Zillow than have sex” which helped the campaign earn coverage from top outlets like House Beautiful, Business Insider, and HuffPost. 

Home + Real Estate Digital PR Campaign Examples

Now that you’re familiar with some of the best sources and formats for digital PR campaigns in home and real estate content, let’s look at some real-life campaign examples. 

The Most & Least Expensive Architectural Styles Around the U.S.

Many studies have been conducted about the most popular home architectural styles based on Google search data or quotes from industry experts. There are countless listicles on the subject in the search results, but to build quality links from top-tier news outlets, we need to provide unique value for the journalists we’re pitching to.

In this case that meant providing them with new and unique data that they don’t already have access to or don’t have time to pull themselves.

In “The Most Profitable Architectural Styles Around the U.S.” campaign, we used a web scraping tool to find the average home price and number of days on the market for different architectural styles (from Colonials to ranches) across thousands of Zillow home listings in 50 U.S. cities. The study told a compelling story about how certain architectural styles are more valuable than others depending on where you live. 

With fresh data, a sound methodology, and a strong local angle, this campaign was able to earn coverage from top business journals and local news outlets around the country. 

Vacant Homes vs. Homelessness in Cities Around the U.S.

For digital PR campaigns to build links organically, we often need to piggyback off of the news cycle or go where the reporters already are. In this case, that meant producing a campaign that could be tied back to unaffordable housing during a time when mortgage rates were through the roof, housing inventory looked dire, and rent prices continued to rise.

In the “Vacant Homes vs. Homelessness Around the U.S.” campaign, we used data from the Census and HUD to compare home vacancy rates to homelessness across America’s largest cities, highlighting the ongoing challenge to find affordable housing for both renters and buyers alike. 

A newsworthy angle, local insights, and a combination of authoritative data sources helped this campaign earn coverage from top real estate, local, and national news reporters.

Surveying Americans on Their Home Organization

In order to earn a high number of high-quality links, we also need to make sure our content is relevant to a wide audience of readers. “The Home Organization Survey” campaign is a shining example of wide relevance. We surveyed U.S. homeowners about their home organization systems, their biggest sources of clutter, and the messiest rooms in their COVID-era homes. 

Relaying unique insights around a highly relatable topic with broad appeal helped this campaign earn dozens of backlinks from top-tier home and lifestyle sites.

Wrap-Up

Let’s face it –– link building is hard in this day and age. More and more sites are vying for coverage across top media outlets. The competition is fierce, but hopefully, these strategies can help you produce campaigns that will stand out amidst the clamor of the digital PR world. 

Need help earning links? Get in touch with our team at Go Fish Digital to learn more about our approach to digital PR.

A Beginner’s Guide to Digital PR Campaigns in Home & Real Estate is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

Contest marketing campaigns can be a fruitful link building strategy––when executed thoughtfully. With contests, the production overhead costs are extremely low, while the potential to secure a high quantity of backlinks from authoritative media outlets is high. With link building campaigns, we’re often asking ourselves “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” Well, with a newsworthy angle and a jaw-dropping reward for the winner, contests can produce gallons of link juice with minimal squeeze!

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Our Go Fish Digital digital PR agency put our heads together to compile a list of the biggest contest do’s and don’ts. But first, here’s a quick rundown of the types of contest campaigns the savvy content marketer can employ and contest ideas for each.

Binge-Watch Campaigns

Binge-watch contest campaigns are essentially job postings––but the job task at hand is binge-watching movies, a series, or other televised events. Entrants have the potential to win a tempting prize or bookoos of cash just by sitting on their couch and watching their favorite content! 

In this Disney binge-watch contest, Disney lovers applied by sharing why they love Disney movies and why they’d be a perfect fit for the job role. The winning binge-watcher was tasked with quickly watching 12 classic Disney movies (from Alice & Wonderland to The Lion King) and their respective remakes to win $1,000. Upon completion, the binge-watcher reported back on which version was stronger for all 12 movies, the original or the remake.

Binge-watch campaigns often earn strong media pick-ups due to their shock factor––entrants can earn a high reward for completing tasks that are both easy and fun. Movies or shows with cult followings and hyper-loyal fan bases are strongly encouraged! Think Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Disney, or Marvel. 

Photo Contests

Content marketing is a visual medium and contest campaigns are no exception. Photo contests have the potential to perform very well under the right premises. They offer a low barrier to entry, prompt more engagement on social media, and work wonders when it comes to user-generated content.

This “Mask-terpiece” photo contest example asked entrants to submit a photo of their coolest, most creative face mask for a chance to win $1,000. The company featured 25 finalists on the contest page, where viewers could vote on their favorite masks. The contest was innovative, relevant, and interactive, which drove some pretty amazing results in terms of traffic, social shares, and backlinks earned!

Job Postings

Job posting contests consist of entrants filling out an application and the winning entrant(s) will be responsible for completing some form of task. We can use the word “task” liberally here as it can include almost anything. A few contest ideas involving job tasks could be:

• A beer distributor asking a winning applicant to give up alcohol for six months and report back on their experiences
• A company undergoing a rebrand asking applicants to create a new logo
• A hospitality chain asking winners to stay at their hotels around the world for free and report back on their stays

Job postings can require larger investments and more resources, but they also have the potential to be extremely successful since they often include head-turning sacrifices or once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.

Contest Do’s & Don’ts

Now for the pièce de résistance––here’s what to do and not to do when it comes to running a contest that builds high-quality backlinks.

Do: Incentivize Entrants With an Eye-Catching Prize

Avoid brand-specific prizes like gift cards or “X months supply” of products or services. These rewards are often viewed as overly self-promotional within the world of content marketing. They’re usually not enough to appeal to a wide audience of entrants and will typically be overlooked by journalists during the pitching process. In contrast, a $1,000 cash prize or a week-long beachfront stay combined with an engaging contest concept has the power to stop journalists in their tracks and cover the content on authoritative media outlets––leading to backlinks aplenty.

Don’t: Give Entrants a High Barrier to Entry

If entrants have to jump through fiery hoops to enter the contest, they’ll be less incentivized to participate, no matter how enticing the prize. Time is precious. Make sure contestants can enter easily, with a low time commitment. For example, opt for entrants to submit photos (likely already stored on their camera rolls) or short written submissions, rather than time-consuming assets like a produced video or long written submissions the length of a research paper.

Do: Create a Contest Concept That Aligns With the News Cycle or Pop Culture

The contest concept should have a timely hook, punchy title, and strong tie-in to the current news cycle to encourage entries and pick-up from top journalists. For example, the Mask-terpiece contest above was not only visually creative but included a topic that leveraged the pandemic news cycle. A binge-watch contest campaign that ran this past fall 2021, “Get Paid $1,000 to Binge-Watch Space Movies,” garnered several backlinks from top-tier news outlets by aligning with the billionaire space race.

Don’t: Create a Contest Concept That Is Too Generic or Too Broad

Topics that are overly general or don’t have a strong tie-in to popular culture typically aren’t unique or relevant enough to gain worthwhile media coverage, which limits the contest’s ability to earn backlinks, organic traffic, and submissions. A contest idea like “Share your dream wedding for a chance to win X” is much less powerful than a concept like “Get paid X to give up TikTok for a year.” The latter is specific, compelling, including a highly relevant (and addicting) online platform, while the former is a bit too generic and wouldn’t pass a uniqueness check.

Do: Create & Pitch a Contest Around a Timely Event or Holiday

Journalists are hunting for creative content to cover around viral events or holidays, so a contest that seamlessly aligns with said event is low-hanging fruit. A pet costume contest before Halloween or a basketball slam dunk contest before March Madness are two strong examples.

Do: Set the Right Deadline for Contest Submissions

Be smart about your deadlines for submissions. After posting the contest on your site, leave more than enough time (six to eight weeks) for a digital PR team to pitch the contest to relevant reporters and earn coverage before the deadline. Contest exposure through top-tier media coverage is typically what sparks traffic and submissions because exponentially more people will have eyeballs on the contest.

Don’t: Give Unclear Instructions on How to Apply

Provide a clear Terms and Conditions section and step-by-step instructions on how to apply. If entrants are unclear on where they need to go or what they need to do to enter the contest, then they’ll drop like flies. Include any eligibility restrictions, such as age or geographic location, on your contest page. Clarify any other contest parameters, like a maximum number of entries or any types of content that won’t be permitted.

Do: Leverage User-Generated Content With Permission

Once permission from the individuals is granted, share the content of contest winners and finalists on your site and social channels to engage your audience and build your following. Under copyright laws, the entrant has sole rights to their original content (photos, artwork, written stories, videos, etc.), so make sure you’ve been given explicit permission to share the content before posting. These details should be clearly outlined in a Terms and Conditions section.

With that, you have the tools you need to start producing engaging contests online. As part of your link building and digital PR strategy, contests can be an effective way to attract new audiences, increase brand exposure, and give your SEO a boost! What will your next contest look like?

How to Run a Contest That Builds High-Quality Backlinks is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.

As a way to set our content apart, our digital PR agency prioritizes innovative data visualizations in our campaigns to capture the attention of publishers and online viewers. In digital PR, how data is visually represented can be just as important as the data itself. So, if you’re puzzled by how to present statistics, survey insights, or research findings, here are six ways you can showcase data using formats that are both stimulating and easy to digest.

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I. Interactive Maps

When the populations of a data study are regional, national, or worldwide, interactive maps allow audiences to consume large amounts of information on one page. It also lets the viewer make easy, at-a-glance comparisons between geographic locations without having to scroll through endless tables of data.

Example: CapRelo – Maternity & Paternity Leave Laws Throughout the World

II. Static Maps

State-by-state and city map graphics resonate with local audiences because viewers from specific states or cities generally enjoy seeing themselves represented. These map formats allow marketers to appeal to their viewers’ emotions by presenting the data in a way that feels relatable and relevant to where they call home.

Example: SimpleTexting – Remote Work By The Numbers

III. Illustrated Infographics

In an online climate filled with short attention spans and limited time, straightforward infographics are just the trick. A concise combination of illustrations, icons, and short stats can catch the eye and effectively hone in on key takeaways from a specific data set. 

Example: The Black Tux – A Deep Dive Into Millennial Homeownership

IV. Bubble Charts

Bubble charts are ideal when conducting data studies where certain entities are being compared against two variables on X and Y axes. Typically, each bubble corresponds to a specific entity, such as a location or industry, and its appearance can fluctuate depending on the type or size of the entity. Bubble charts are a time-efficient way for viewers to gauge relationships between different categories without having to sift through the weeds of traditional data tables or graphs. 

Example: Homes.com – Exploring Americans’ Perceptions of their Safety vs. Reality

V. Calculators & Generators

By their very nature, calculators and generators individualize data for online viewers. This encourages participation and interest mostly because users are inputting their own information to receive meaningful data that relates back to them. 

What’s more, social sharing capabilities can be integrated into a calculator’s landing page, allowing users to easily share their results with their social media following. Interactive examples we’ve created in the past span multiple themes from athlete salary calculators to Dundie Award generators for The Office cult following.

Example: Finty – Calculating How Long It Takes Star Athletes to Earn Your Salary

VI. Scrolling Landing Pages

Scrolling landing pages or scrolling infographic formats are visual storytelling at its best. They encourage attention and provide an immersive experience, literally carrying an audience through the journey of a topic. These formats cater particularly well to historical timeline campaigns. In the example below, we’re venturing through the history of messaging, from carrier pigeons and telegrams, all the way to instant messaging and modern-day texting. 

Example: SimpleTexting – The History of Messaging

Wrap Up

And there you have it – six head-turning formats you can use to set your content apart, capture the attention of online audiences, and pique the interest of journalists. Now that you’ve got the tools, you can round up your team of graphic designers, developers, and copywriters to start building some exceptional data visualizations. Or better yet, our GFD content marketing team can do it for you!

Six Head-Turning Visual Data Formats For Content Marketing is an original blog post first published on Go Fish Digital.