Promise Media

Contextual Backlinks Improve Search Engine Optimization

Stored in Marketing and tagged ,
Links

Contextual backlinks is one of the most basic tactics in developing better search engine optimization.

Site publishers have total control over the backlinks on their own sites that go to important articles elsewhere on the site. They have less control over external backlinks. But they may have control over one or more external sites as well.

Assume for a moment that someone publishes a travel website about cruises. That someone decides to contribute an article about Mediterranean cruises to another site. The other site agrees to allow one link back to the author’s site.

The author’s site is about cruises and a subsection on that site is about Mediterranean cruises. Should the link on the other site go to the author’s homepage about cruises or to the Mediterranean index page?

Contextual SEO

The first choice supports the site as a whole. Traffic sent directly to the homepage might result in someone clicking through to the site and getting exposure to the total product. This is an advantage with visitors in addition to search engine rankings for the site as a whole.

The second choice supports only the Mediterranean subsection. Traffic will go to that page and potentially get more limited exposure to the entire site. A visitor might be less likely to click around the site compared to a homepage visit. But search engines will boost that individual page while a link to the homepage more likely is diluted.

Getting a boost for an entire site from just one contextual backlink to the homepage is much tougher than getting a boost for a highly targeted internal page.

Evidence indicates that the second choice will result in more traffic and therefore is the better choice for contextual backlinks. It provides specificity, context and relevance to the visitor.

A series of internal backlinks on a site is a chance to promote an important page in multiple ways using different combinations of keyword phrases.

For example, a single article might have three links within it to the same page. If all three links say the same thing, the reader may not find any appeal in the first reference and ignore the next two.

But if the next two say something different, they just might have enough appeal to encourage a click. In this case, think of the tactic as a mini advertising campaign with three different ads or messages.

Targeted Keyword = Higher Clicks

If the anchor text is a valuable keyword, the higher number of clicks will probably contribute to a higher ranking for the landing page in search engine results.

Negating factors always play into the results. If the call to action on the other site is poorly written, or if the anchor text is vague, the click rate is likely to decrease.

If the landing page has major competition from other sites, the ranking may not improve.

But as a general rule, contextual content marketing links will result in more clicks. More clicks equals not only more audience but also more rank.

Comments are closed.

-->
© 2007-2024 Promise Media LLC • AdvertisePrivacyTerms of ServiceSitemap