Topical SEO: 7 Advanced Concepts of Link Relevance
Getting higher search engine page ranking is the most desired output of digital marketing, and several SEO concepts are involved in gaining this position. However, one of the most significant attributes among these concepts is link relevance which is considered to be the holy grail of page ranking.
The quality of inbound links ascertains the importance of a website in the eyes of the search engines. Google gives a lot of importance to incoming links as they help in the assessment of relevancy and establishing authority. The assumption here is that trustworthy sites will link to other reliable sites instead of spam or irrelevant content.
Quality backlinks help in creating an online reputation. That is why organic SEO services aim at gaining links from websites which show the E-A-T qualities – Expert, Authoritative and Trustworthy. Let us discuss the seven advanced strategies adopted by SEO specialists to get higher rankings.
1. Anchor Text Phrases
The anchor text of the hyperlink enables the search engines to know about the topic of the page. If many sites link to your page using similar anchor text phrases, then it is highly likely that your site will rank higher for those phrases. An important thing to note here is that too many backlinks using the same anchor text can make search engines suspicious.
It might come across as manipulation to get higher rankings. Thus it is vital to get links from relevant websites which can bring quality traffic to your site. The best way to utilise this element for SEO is to create and seek descriptive anchor text which explains the theme of your page.
You must stay away from using generic anchor text which is not related to your page. Also, the phrase used as anchor text should be short and crisp.
2. Expert Pages and Authority
A hub is a page which points to many other authoritative pages while authority is a page which is linked by a variety of hubs. The authority pages always rank higher as they represent valuable content for users. Google adopted the Hilltop algorithm in 2003 which ranks pages on the basis of authority.
The level of authority of a page is assessed by the number of expert pages linking to it. A page is considered an expert when it is linked to several other relevant pages with insightful content.
The consultants at Netvision follow the practice of getting links from resource pages which are expert pages that link to sites with rich content. Getting links from these sites improves page rankings significantly.
3. Importance Of Links
Another link relevance concept which cannot be ignored is Google’s reasonable surfer patent which puts emphasis on the links which enjoy higher value on a page. For instance, important links are the ones which are put higher up in the HTML or those which are topically relevant to the page and the linked document.
On the other hand, the less important links are the other links present on the page such as banner ads, terms of service, links in the footer, and links which are not related to the topic of the page. Since the vital links have a higher probability of being clicked by the user or a reasonable surfer, they become more valuable than others.
Thus the SEO experts strive to get links which have better chances of being clicked. It implies getting links from sites which are directly related to the content on your page and enjoy heavy page traffic. For example, if you have a page on pregnancy, then you must get links from reputable and popular sites about baby care, prenatal care, mother and baby health etc.
4. Local Inter-Connectivity
It is also referred to as re-ranking and involves reordering of the search results on the basis of the number of links a page gets from other pages in the SERPs. Thus when a page has inbound links from most of the high-ranking websites on the results page, then it becomes more relevant than a site which has lesser links from the same sites.
So your SEO strategy must be directed towards getting more links from pages which rank higher for the search term you are targeting. If you find it challenging to seek links from sites that rank on the first page of results, then you can opt for variations of the target search term or pages that are at the bottom of the first page results. You may also try for different terms which are topically relevant to move your rank up.
5. Topical Relevance
You will be committing a mistake if you think that only trust and authority are helpful in gaining higher page ranks. As we discussed earlier in this article, topical relevance to the host page is also an important factor. While you may be concerned about the huge Google March 2019 Core Update, you need to pay attention to leveraging topic-sensitive page rank as well.
It involves getting links from sites which are related to your topic. It is a good idea to get these topically relevant links from the websites that are linked to authoritative sites such as Wikipedia, popular news websites or hand-edited directories. It can play a significant role in boosting the page ranks.
6. Phrase-Based Indexing
Phrase based indexing means using semantic themes to display the meaning of pages. For example, the anchor text link ‘Cricket’ on the first page will hold higher significance as the page will have various other related phrases such as ‘century’, ‘no ball’, ‘wicket’, ‘boundary’, etc.
Google ranks the pages with more number of related phrases higher than those which have fewer related phrases. So Google indexes documents as per the included phrases. From the SEO point of view, it is a smart move to seek links from pages which have related phrases. It can prove beneficial in on-page SEO and internal linking.
7. Getting Qualified Traffic
If understanding the Google patents is becoming confusing and too much to handle, you can opt for the simple way of evaluating the significance of a link. You just need to understand that the site from which you will be seeking links should be able to get engaged and qualified traffic to your site.
If you think that a site has the potential to bring potential leads and customers, then it is extremely likely that it will be related to your topic and will be already ranking high in the results. Thus you can focus on fetching links from these sites to get highly targeted traffic and rank higher.
Conclusion
Your link building profile is of utmost importance as the search engines are looking at the number and quality of backlinks while ranking your site. The quality part stresses on getting links from sites that are credible, relevant and high authority. So step up your link building game to get the desired spot in the SERPs.
