Late last year, I became aware of a content delivery service called Outbrain and quickly became very intrigued by the possibilities.
What is Outbrain? At the end of an article on most major websites (including USATODAY.com, CNN.com, and the like), there is usually a section called “From Around the Web,” that shows lists links to similar articles from other websites. Outbrain powers those listings. Thus, by uploading your content to Outbrain, you are supposed to be able to get your content listed on these huge sites, and then “recommended” as further reading.
So, once we heard about this, we at TheSelfEmployed contacted the folks at Outbrain and we threw down the gauntlet: “Can Outbrain really list our content and then get folks to click it and increase traffic to our websites?” The folks at Outbrain were so confident in what they did that they offered TheSelfEmployed a free trial run and The Great Outbrain Challenge was born. The folks at Outbrain were convinced that we would like it.
Like is an understatement.
We have had incredible success with the Outbrain Challenge. They increased our website traffic dramatically and TheSelfEmployed’s content, via Outbrain, has been featured on websites such as SmallBusiness.FoxBusiness.com, Inc.com, AllBusiness.com, BlackEnterprise.com, FastCompany.com, and the NYPost.com, and that is just for starters. We have already received in excess of 2 million impressions in the last three months because of Outbrain and thousands of new users. Outbrain has proven to be a very powerful way to increase our visibility and actually drive significant traffic to your our site.
What did we have actually have to do? We submitted about 50 articles into their database…and that’s it! Outbrain’s fancy algorithm picked which blog goes with which articles on other sites. Our most popular article on other sites was, 10 Self-Employed Businesses You Can Start Today with Little or No Money. We received an outstanding number of impressions with that article alone.
Overall, we are extremely pleased with Outbrain. Do you want more visibility, impressions, and visitors to your site? Do you want to be able to brag to your friends that you’re featured on top blogs and websites? Outbrain is the answer. We here at TheSelfEmployed would highly recommend working with Outbrain. You will see dramatic results!
Final point: How much do we believe in Outbrain? Once our free trial ended, we became paying customers.