{"id":1776,"date":"2024-08-28T10:26:59","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T10:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/?p=1776"},"modified":"2024-10-25T07:44:05","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T07:44:05","slug":"award-winning-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/blog-ganador-premio-20-minutos\/","title":{"rendered":"When I helped my partner set up a blog and it ended up winning a national award"},"content":{"rendered":"

About seven years ago, around 2017, my partner and her father wrote a book about urban gardening. It was purely for the love of it, without any great ambition behind it. As an online marketing professional, I advised them to create a website to promote the book, since it would be self-published and wouldn't have the marketing support of a traditional publishing house.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although I'm not a programmer, I've worked extensively with WordPress over the years, building several websites and working on those of my clients, so I offered to create their website. The idea was to create a simple blog to share content about horticulture. This blog would also serve as a way to promote and advertise the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a short time, thanks to their dedication, they had a pretty decent blog, with different sections according to the themes, a section where they told their story and, of course, some calls to action to invite blog readers to buy the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

The importance of content<\/i><\/b><\/h2>\n

Simply creating a website, except in rare cases, is usually not enough to generate traffic. Just having a website is no guarantee that people will magically visit it or find it, especially if its launch lacks a clear content strategy and a good marketing plan. technical optimization<\/a><\/strong>, a solid plan of off-page SEO<\/a><\/strong> or the thrust provided by other factors<\/a><\/strong>, which are brand awareness or other traffic drivers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously there are a thousand different situations and many nuances, but let's say that in the case of "homemade" websites with little or no budget, it is very unlikely that by simply creating a microsite of a few pages, it will start to generate traffic and visits.<\/p>\n

Therefore, it was clear they needed to provide content for the website. After the enormous undertaking of creating a book from scratch, and without prior experience in similar tasks, father and daughter set to work filling the blog with content, writing potentially interesting articles for their readers: \u201cEverything you need to know to grow tomatoes at home,\u201d \u201cHow to protect plants from frost and snow,\u201d \u201cThe myth of 'I have no green thumb' and how to care for what you buy at a nursery,\u2018 \u2019Special feature on growing strawberries: how to enjoy those from your own garden,\u201d and more blog posts of that kind.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, I gave them tips for writing following SEO guidelines: I suggested topics with a high search volume and a level of competition suitable for a domain that at that time had neither age nor authority, guidelines for writing articles and the structure of the content, and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

A little bit of link building<\/i><\/b><\/h2>\n

But of course, as you probably know, semantic SEO isn't everything. So I started looking at the top-ranked horticulture blogs and analyzed their link profiles to see where they were getting links from and if there were any opportunities we could replicate.<\/span>.<\/span><\/i> In other words, which websites with a certain authority and which with thematic affinity were linking to those blogs about gardens. <\/span>We discovered that one of them, having won a blog contest sponsored by a well-known newspaper, had several links from the newspaper's website and other websites mentioning the contest and its winner. To our surprise, the submission period for the annual edition of the contest was open!<\/p>\n

Our idea was simply that, as participants in the contest, they might link to our blog, nothing more. However, my partner and her father were aware that the content was very well done and that we put a lot of care into it. They took care of everything to register for the contest and\u2026 all that was left was to wait and cross our fingers. It was the \u201c20 Blogs\u201d contest by the newspaper 20 Minutos.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, suddenly, a national award!<\/i><\/b><\/h2>\n

It must be said that, before they knew they had won, they were informed that they had been among the three finalists. This was, in itself, a real prize for them. Especially since they were competing against a Madrid-based digital newspaper specializing in environmental news, with a full staff, and the blog of a public gardening professional whose goal was to safeguard the city's green spaces. The competition was truly formidable. What chance did an amateur blog run by a father and daughter sharing their tips and tricks about urban gardening have?<\/span><\/p>\n

The title of this post is a spoiler in itself. So you can imagine the result. They won the Best Blog 2020 award in the Green Blogosphere category!<\/span><\/p>\n

And yes, they obviously got the coveted link from the 20 minutos website \u2013 quite a link building achievement!<\/span><\/p>\n

Link building is a fundamental aspect of organic positioning that requires planning and research (of the competition, the market in which a website operates, etc.), but also, as in this case, sometimes opportunities to carry out good quality link building that adds authority to your site can arise in unusual situations.<\/span><\/p>\n

By the way, you might be thinking that I haven't mentioned the name or URL of this famous gardening blog at any point. I did that on purpose, to maintain a bit of hype, and if you've made it this far, now comes the "reward": the site is called<\/span> Growing at home<\/a><\/strong> And, obviously, I encourage you to visit it.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also encourage you to contact me<\/a><\/strong> if you don't have a link building strategy or if you want to improve your current one.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hace unos siete a\u00f1os, all\u00e1 por 2017, mi pareja y su padre escribieron un libro sobre huertos urbanos. Por amor al arte, sin una gran ambici\u00f3n detr\u00e1s. Yo, como profesional del marketing online que soy, les aconsej\u00e9 que crearan una web para dar a conocer dicho libro, pues ser\u00eda autopublicado y no contar\u00eda con la fuerza comercializadora de una editorial. Aunque no sea un programador, he tocado much\u00edsimo WordPress en estos a\u00f1os, montando varios sitios web y trabajando en las de mis clientes, as\u00ed que me ofrec\u00ed a crearles la web. La idea era hacer un simple blog para ir compartiendo contenido sobre horticultura. Este blog, a su vez, ser\u00eda tambi\u00e9n una forma de dar a conocer el libro y publicitarlo. En poco tiempo, gracias a la dedicaci\u00f3n de ambos, ten\u00edan un blog bastante decente, con diferentes secciones seg\u00fan las tem\u00e1ticas, un apartado donde contaban su historia y, por supuesto, alg\u00fan que otro call to action para invitar a los lectores del blog a comprar el libro. La importancia del contenido Crear una web sin m\u00e1s, salvo raros casos, no suele ser suficiente para conseguir tr\u00e1fico. El simple hecho de tener una web no es garant\u00eda de que la gente va a visitarla o encontrarla por arte de magia, especialmente si detr\u00e1s de su lanzamiento no hay una estrategia clara de contenido, una buena optimizaci\u00f3n t\u00e9cnica, un s\u00f3lido plan de seo off-page o el empuje proporcionado por otros factores, cu\u00e1les el conocimiento de marca u otros traffic driver. Evidentemente hay mil situaciones diferentes y muchos matices, pero digamos que en el caso de webs \u00abcaseras\u00bb con poco o ning\u00fan presupuesto, es muy improbable que con tan solo crear un micro site de unas pocas p\u00e1ginas, este empiece a generar tr\u00e1fico y visitas. Por eso, estaba claro que ten\u00edan que dotar esa web de contenido. Tras el trabajazo de crear un libro de la nada, y sin experiencia previa en tareas similares, padre e hija se pusieron a trabajar para dotar de contenido el blog, escribiendo art\u00edculos potencialmente interesantes para sus lectores: \u201cTodo lo que tienes que saber para cultivar tomates en casa\u201d, \u201cC\u00f3mo proteger las plantas de heladas y nevadas\u201d, \u201cEl mito de \u2018No tengo mano para las plantas\u2019 y c\u00f3mo cuidar lo que compras en un vivero\u201d, \u201cEspecial cultivo de fresas: c\u00f3mo disfrutar las de tu propio huerto\u00bb y m\u00e1s blog post por el estilo. Evidentemente, yo les daba tips para redactar siguiendo pautas SEO: les suger\u00eda tem\u00e1ticas con un elevado volumen de b\u00fasquedas y un nivel de competencia apto para un dominio que en aquel momento no ten\u00eda ni antig\u00fcedad ni autoridad, pautas para la redacci\u00f3n de los art\u00edculos y la estructura del contenido, etc\u00e9tera. Un poco de link building Pero claro, ya sabr\u00e9is que el SEO sem\u00e1ntico no lo es todo. Me puse entonces a mirar entre los blogs mejor posicionados sobre horticultura y realic\u00e9 un an\u00e1lisis de sus perfiles de enlaces, para ver desde d\u00f3nde recib\u00edan links y si hab\u00eda alguna oportunidad que pudi\u00e9ramos replicar. Es decir, qu\u00e9 webs con cierta autoridad y cu\u00e1les con afinidad tem\u00e1tica estaban enlazando a esos blogs sobre huertos. Descubrimos as\u00ed que uno de ellos, al ser ganador de un concurso sobre blogs de un conocido peri\u00f3dico, ten\u00eda varios links desde la web de dicho peri\u00f3dico y desde otras webs que mencionaban al concurso y a su ganador. \u00a1Con nuestra sorpresa, el periodo para presentarse a la edici\u00f3n anual de dicho concurso estaba abierto! Nuestra idea simplemente fue que, como participantes en el concurso, quiz\u00e1s enlazaran a nuestro blog, sin mayor pretensi\u00f3n. No obstante, mi pareja y su padre eran conscientes de que el contenido estaba muy currado y lo hac\u00edan con mucho mimo. Realizaron todas las gestiones para inscribirse en el concurso y\u2026 solo quedaba esperar y cruzar los dedos. Se trataba del concurso \u201c20 blogs\u201d del peri\u00f3dico 20 Minutos. Y, de repente, \u00a1un premio nacional! Hay que decir que, antes de conocer que eran ganadores, les informaron de que hab\u00edan quedado entre los tres finalistas. Esto ya fue, verdaderamente, un premio para ellos. Especialmente porque compet\u00edan con un peri\u00f3dico digital madrile\u00f1o de informaci\u00f3n ambiental, con gente en plantilla y todo, y el blog de una profesional de la jardiner\u00eda p\u00fablica cuyo objetivo era salvaguardar el patrimonio verde. Los competidores eran realmente muy potentes. \u00bfQu\u00e9 posibilidades ten\u00edan el blog amateur de un padre y su hija contando sus truquitos sobre huertos urbanos? El t\u00edtulo de este post ya hace suficiente spoiler. As\u00ed que os pod\u00e9is imaginar el resultado. \u00a1Ganaron el premio de Mejor Blog 2020 en la categor\u00eda Blogosfera Verde! Y s\u00ed, obviamente consiguieron el preciado link desde la web de 20 minutos, \u00a1todo un logro de linkbuilding! La estrategia de creaci\u00f3n de enlaces es una pata fundamental del posicionamiento org\u00e1nico que requiere planificaci\u00f3n y estudio (de la competencia, del mercado en el que opera un sitio web, etc\u00e9tera) pero es que adem\u00e1s, como en este caso, a veces las oportunidades para realizar un buen link building de calidad y que aporte autoridad a tu site pueden presentarse en situaciones ins\u00f3litas. Por cierto, quiz\u00e1s est\u00e9s pensando que no he mencionado en ning\u00fan momento el nombre ni la URL de este famoso blog de jardiner\u00eda. Lo he hecho a prop\u00f3sito, para mantener un poco de hype y si has llegado hasta aqu\u00ed, ahora viene el \u00abpremio\u00bb: el site se llama Cultivando en casa y, obviamente, te animo a visitarlo. Tambi\u00e9n te animo a contactar conmigo si no tienes estrategia de linkbuilding o si quieres mejorar la actual.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1881,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1882,"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1776\/revisions\/1882"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paolodossena.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}