6 Tips on How To Get More Upvotes on Inbound.org(with data!)

Adam LongDirector, Product Management

If you’re a marketer and you’re not checking Inbound.org every day, you’re missing out.

Inbound.org is a community where the best marketing articles get voted on to curate the best content.

So… what if you want to be a thought leader on Inbound.org?

We’ve analyzed the top 1,021 posts to see what gets the most upvotes.

1. Write about SEO… or don’t

When you analyze the primary tags of the top 1,021 articles, you see that the SEO tag dominates.

But, it’s a crowded space, and you might do better by targeting the other top tags on this list to stand out.

SEO

Content

Link Building

Social

Industry News

Community

Ask Me Anything

Entrepreneurship

Inbound.org

Conversion Rate Optimization

Tool

Analytics

Blogging

PPC

22660

4289

2839

2581

2024

1929

1407

1323

1198

1047

931

915

873

667

Top Tags on Inbound, by Total Upvotes

But, avoid these tags

At the bottom of the list of tags, you can see what Inbound doesn’t care about — traditional, offline marketing and old-school copywriting.

Copywriting

Productivity

Funny or Fun

Product Marketing

Psychology

Growth Hacking

Offline Marketing

Startup Marketing

253211

192190

188172

165165

162127

11884

7160

5452

Least Popular Tags on Inbound, by Total Upvotes

2. Make guides, or talk about Matt Cutts

The chart at right shows which words show up most in the top 1,021 article titles on Inbound.org.

Inbound loves to obsess about Google and its head of web spam, Matt Cutts.

It also loves guides to marketing, kinda like what you’re reading right now...

seohow

googleyour

contentmarketing

bloglinkyou

buildinginbound

guidewhatwhy

seomozsearch

hitreachlinkstoolsmozask

newget

pagesocial

expertsslideshare

mattcutts

181162

154111

898483

7878

535151

4847

4238

32303029292828272626252424

These are the two-word phrases that appear most often in the top 1,021 articles on Inbound.org.

Unsurprisingly, if you follow the basic tenets of content marketing and create helpful content, you’ll do well. As you can see, phrases like “how to,” “guide to,” “how I,” and “ultimate guide” do well.

…the top phrases show how much we love “how to” guides

how tolink building

guide toseomoz org

ask meslideshare net

to getmatt cutts

interview withinbound org

to buildhow i

i amways to

inbound marketingthe ultimateme anythingsocial media

content marketingwhiteboard friday

not providedcase studyyour blog

me anythingguest blogging

why iceo of

google analyticsultimate guide

8139

3525

2322

2120

171616

1515

1414

1313

1211

1010101010

99999

Top Phrases, by Occurrences in Inbound All Time Titles

3. When it doubt, list it outListicles (articles composed of numbered lists) and titles that are formatted as a question do well. They account for just over 20% of all the titles in the Inbound All Time Top 1021 submissions:

10%

12%

79%

Titles phrased as a QuestionList posts All other posts

4. Post Titles Should Be 15 to 60 characters longConcise titles are the way to go. Make them easy to skim.

1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61 64 67 70 73 76 79 82 85 88 910

400

800

1200

1600

2000

2400

2800

Total Upvotes on Inbound, by # of Characters in Article Title

Title Length (in number of characters)

Tota

l Upv

otes

5. Get these people to talk about you

These are the Inbound.org community members that are at the crux of what gets popular and promotes engagement.

Dharmesh Shah, one of the founders of Inbound.org (and HubSpot) comes in at #4, while Rand Fishkin (the other co-founder of Inbound.org, and founder of Moz) comes in at #12. However, Rand and Dharmesh dominate the total amount of comments.

The top ranked submitter? Jason Acidre, CEO of an agency in the Philippines and the writer of the Kaiser the Sage blog that also dominates Inbound.org.

jasonacidreVinnyLaBarbera

edfryeddharmesh

ChrisLDysonlarrykim

victorpankushalshah02

marktraphagengorcampbell

rohitpalitrandfish

fightopatrickcoombe

SEOparmarkavi

connections8venchito14Wow_Liammmhemani

PeterNikolowmatthewbarby

christykunjumonAjayalwayscool

MUmar_KhanSeonarendra

Backlinko

32502638

23032172

20081918

17311497

13611149

1087106310421023

987929911903902888874870842

769767

737728

222207

363494

251258310

5710078106

666114100156

3066

2457724560

152651017153

Total Comments Total Upvotes

6. Study what these sites are doing

Articles from these sites and blogs most frequently landed in the top 1,021 on Inbound.org.

Take a look at their bodies of work to get even more tips on how to succeed.

moz.comhitreach.co.uk

seomoz.orgquicksprout.com

kaiserthesage.comsearchengineland.com

searchenginewatch.comdigitalphilippines.net

wordstream.commedium.com

dejanseo.com.aublindfiveyearold.com

seonick.netreddit.com

portent.compointblankseo.com

moblized.comdistilled.net

backlinko.comseroundtable.comseobythesea.com

seobook.comsearchenginejournal.commatthewwoodward.co.uk

findmyblogway.comblog.kissmetrics.com

9330

2616

1312

1111

10101010

8888888

7777777

Domains Most Frequently on Inbound’s All Time List

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