Getting Content Ideas for the Forex Niche by Analyzing the Backlinks

Forex is the trading of worldwide currencies, using a highly leveraged model, which means you can make a lot of money from a little and you can also lose a lot of money and in a lot of cases you can lose it all.

Forex is highly attractive with affiliate marketers due to the ease that people can sign up to the programs and the high pay out of commissions.

It also appeals because the currency markets trade 24 hours, Monday to Friday, so there is always a chance to make/lose money.

I look at three popular Forex blogs and analyse some of their top linked to content to see what makes them successful.

Earnforex.com

Earnforex.com has 2 content types which are getting good links as we can see from the top 20 linked to pages, which are calculators and e-books.

Calculators

198 links + 93 links from a position size calculator = a haul of 291 links

Earnforex.com calculator, a simple design which is clear and easy to use

Earnforex.com also have a position size calculator in the same simple, straight forward design. Straight forward design is very important as you don’t want people to be thinking about how to work the tool, you just want them to use it, get satisfaction and then link to it.

Calculator – 93 Links

E-Books – 77 Links + 44 = 121 links

E-books in the Forex market have been a staple for link builders for many years. Due to the way the fact that forex trading attracts those who try to get an edge by learning additional technique, any piece of information that is able to give the trader the slightest edge against the market is deemed of value.

Thus, e-books that are deemed as being tasty are highly linkable.

Mahifix.com 

Mahfix have a tasty John Paulson infographic from the clever people over at Evokeseo who have some tasty, interactivity going down.
Infographics still have the ability to suck up lot of natural links from authority websites.

251 links + 6 = 257 links. Not a bad haul.

Interviews – An interview with Paul Rotter. Who is apparently is a legend amongst scalping traders. It’s an exclusive interview and so has some currency. – Links = 26

Interactive Game – A nifty app which lets you play at guessing the value of your Facebook friends. – Links = 36

Top 50 Forex Blogs to Follow in 2014. What I like about this content is its attention to the strong design component of the MahiX brand.  –  Links = 27

Forexcrunch.com

Forexcrunch seem to have done it a little different, being around for quite a few years, it seems to have earned its links simply by blogging about the news and the power of the owners ability to write magnetic blog posts, which consistently attract links.

I will not list all the links that have been attained by each blog post, as it’s consistently high for the top 20 links. The date of some of the content is a few years and over all that time the content has been earning at compound rate.

Some people balk at paying three figures for a blog post, but this is what good quality costs. Obviously the SEO community has been used to paying $5 a pop for word filler created in some smoked filled ashram on the outskirts of Bangalore. But the content idea that consistently builds links, the brand and helps build the tribe is deemed as more of an authority than one who isn’t.

Egobait

Creating a list of the best blogs in a niche is a common piece of content which performs several tasks at once. It enables the website to announce it exists to the owner of the website it is linking to, or at least the person who notices the web traffic for those sites. It induces the act of reciprocity, which has been identified and described by Robert Cialdini, the Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University and author of the book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

 It is rather crude if not done well, but if done in an elegant manner and backed up by a website that is the best thing since sliced bread, it can be very powerful.

You can easily find content ideas such as these by searching for “best blogs in (keyword)”, of “top blogs in (keyword)” Note how the content that works gives extra information and has an easy on the eye design.

It is not simply about throwing up a bunch of links.

E-Books

It’s been known for some time that writing a book is a signifier of authority and knowledge, not only does it show you know what you are talking about, it allows you to go deeper into a subject and explore things in detail.

Although in some people’s minds the e-book has a bad reputation due to numerous people marketing low level, badly written e-books for the aim of generating quick cash. But with social media a potential reader can quickly check if the e-book is worth reading through social proof.

In sectors such as web design, programing or Forex, the e-book is a perfect medium for people to consume dense and detailed information. A Forex service can also use the e-book as training materials which help position the service in a helpful way.

Useful information is needed in sectors where there are specific issues with getting to grips with complex issues. The way the e-book is designed is of course very important as it needs to appear attractive to the reader.

News

Blogging about the news, or what is topical within the niche is often overlooked in articles about blogging. This is because it’s hard and if you are selling a course on blogging or your blog about blogging wishes to attract large amounts of people, then the crowd is attracted more if you claim it’s all easy peasy.

Writing, or blogging the news in an authoritative and interesting manner is hard if you don’t know your subject. Or expensive if you have to hire someone to do it for it in an accurate, expert, consistent way.

A forex blogger who can do this is sitting on a pile of gold, because people need accurate, up to date, verified information quickly and without having to worry about the efficacy of it.

Conclusion

We couldn’t cover all the content techniques that were used in this blog post as there is just too much and if you go deeper into these sites you will notice other content techniques being used.

This isn’t magic bean stuff, it’s not a dark art. It is there for all to see. You can easily analyse why a website or a blog works, add your own spin and then replicate it for your own site. You can’t do everything, but you could do one thing very well.

A great blog will do a few things very well, as demonstrated by the above analysis.