I have a tendency to add too many doo dads to my blog, but putting OutBrain in my content is something I don't think I will ever regret. This little widget analyzes your content and places related links and thumbnails after each of your posts or articles. Naturally, their business revolves around high traffic sites and blogs, but they also have an offering for blogs that works on most platforms.
The free widget combines links to your related content as well as coop links with other participating sites and paid links from marketers. For the marketer, the service delivers highly qualified audiences because of the tightly related nature of the surrounding content.
Here's a video that shows you the benefits, and for an example you can simply look at the bottom of this post.
Outbrain Thumbnail Widget from Outbrain on Vimeo.
It doesn't appear to materially affect page load, which is nice. I had tried a couple of other tools with less positive results. From the time I installed it, it did bring down my bounce rate. Mine tends to be high because I spend a lot of time on specialized subject SEO, and get a lot of people seemingly interested solely in a single topic. But OutBrain definitely brought it down by about 14 points, which I think is pretty darned significant. It also increased pages viewed and time spent by double digit percentages. It'd be tough to ask for more than that, right?
So, I've been pretty focused on what it means for a small concern like mine, but Outbrain is also used by a variety of very large pubs. Here's what the Seattle Times had to say about their experience with the tool:
Outbrain's widget was easy to implement, and it immediately began delivering results. Right off the bat, our users found the recommendations to be relevant and interesting. Just a few months after launching, Outbrain has driven millions of page views on seattletimes.com and a terrific click-through rate. What a great way to increase user engagement! It's been a pleasure to work with these folks.
- Heidi de Laubenfels, Deputy Managing Editor for Strategy & Product Development, The Seattle Times
Give it a try, you'll be glad you did.
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