It’s a no-brainer that every website desires to rank high in the search engine results to gain more traffic & visibility. Link building is always an integral part of any SEO strategy. No matter what the website domain is, links are always crucial to getting a website ranked & to gain more traffic along with boosting overall engagement. Contextual link building is another reliable way of improving your website rankings & boosting the overall website engagement rate.
What is Contextual Link Building?
So, what does contextual link building mean? How does it differ from traditional link building? Contextual link building implies building links within relevant content where your target audience spends more time.
If you have even the slightest idea about SEO, you know that Google hardly confirms the factors that it considers for ranking a site. However, contextual link building is one concept that has been confirmed by Google.
Image Source: Google
Contextual vs. Non-Contextual Link Building: What’s the Difference?
Before we dive deep into contextual link building, you must know the exact difference between contextual & non-contextual link building.
In simple words, a contextual link is a link that you get from another webpage whose information is quite relevant to the content on your platform. It incorporates optimization to make sure that all keywords are correctly used and optimized. Anything like irrelevance or spam is nowhere near when we talk about contextual link building.
On the other hand, non-contextual link building is something that isn’t spam but at the same time doesn’t redirect users to any context. The links you use on your header & footer are primary examples of non-contextual link building on your site.
Major Benefits of Contextual Link Building
Now that you know the exact meaning of contextual link building along with the important factors that differentiate it from non-contextual link building, let’s go through some major benefits that this strategy comes alongside.
Boosting the Domain Authority
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric that reflects the quality & credibility of a website. Your backlink profile is one of the reasons that plays a crucial role when it comes to shaping the DA of your website. Your overall SEO score will largely define your website rankings, and your website DA will largely define your SEO score. And, your contextual link building can really boost the DA score of any website quickly. So, the first reason that makes contextual link building extremely important for you; boosting the Domain Authority.
Getting More Referral Traffic
The definition of contextual link clearly specifies that you get more referral traffic with it. What is referral traffic? It implies the visitors that visit your site from external sources. Yes, you will be getting your organic traffic from Google search queries, but why not get some more from other sources?
When some external authoritative sources refer you to their traffic, you won’t only get more traffic, but your authority will increase too, which is a major benefit in terms of getting your website ranked.
Increasing the Website’s Credibility & Trustworthiness
Contextual link building clearly reflects the fact that your content is trustworthy, and well-researched, and you are delivering your audience with the best. There’s never a harm to provide your users with more knowledge by redirecting them to something valuable & relevant.
Outbound contextual link building is one of the most reliable ways to make Google trust your domain, and your content & hence, improve your search engine rankings.
When your website’s credibility & trustworthiness will increase, Google will consider it a massive green flag, and it would play a major role in terms of getting your domain ranked.
Increasing the Brand Awareness
Contextual links reflect the fact that you are a trustworthy source and that the content you are delivering is quite valuable. This helps you get the customers’ trust and, hence, increase your brand awareness to a considerable extent.
What are the Types of Contextual Links?
Contextual links are classified into three categories. Let’s check them out.
- External Links: When you redirect your visitor to another website through your content, it is termed an external contextual link.
- Internal Links: When you redirect your visitor to another page of your own website that might help users more in terms of the context, it is termed an internal contextual link.
- Inbound Links: When another resource redirects users to your platform, it is termed an inbound link.
How Do You Get Contextual Links?
Let’s check out certain ways by which you can implement your contextual link strategy.
- Naturally: This is by far the best way to win the contextual link building race. When you link other resources and when other resources link your platform naturally, without any deals, it gives a massive validation to the fact that you are delivering some value via your content.
- Reciprocating Links: This is a way where you and the other website owners of your domain agree to insert each other’s platform links in the content.
- Link Insertion: When you ask another website owner for a link to your own platform, it is termed link insertion.
Important Contextual Link Building Tips
We have some crucial tips for you if you are looking to formulate a contextual link building strategy. Let’s check them out below.
Maintain Relevancy Throughout
Your contextual link building strategy must follow the relevancy throughout. It should redirect users to the content that is relevant to your domain. For instance, if you are into the travel niche, you simply cannot redirect your visitors to the food domain, it has to be the travel domain or something closely related to it.
Not being relevant might not yield the desired results for you or might take some time to achieve them. Hence, make sure to be completely relevant with redirecting your users and avoid redirecting them to something that’s not related to your domain.
Form a Strategy Only If You Have a High-Quality Content
Content is always important, but its importance increases if you are planning to execute a contextual link building strategy. Other sources would give your website a backlink only if you are delivering some value with your content. Plus, for the links you use on your website, the audience would trust them only if your content is apt.
High-quality content is a must if you desire to win the race of contextual link building. Hence, make sure to do a content audit on your site once, before you really execute the contextual link building strategy.
Select High-Quality Sites
Before you select an external resource for your strategy, make sure to check factors like the Domain Authority, the credibility of the site and the website traffic. There are various SEO tools available and try to use them to the fullest.
Do check out the site’s content before selecting the same for your strategy. Avoid redirecting your users to something that has meaningless links or too many ads. Ultimately, the site you are redirecting your users to must have high-quality content, and links, and must deliver considerable value to the users.
Keep it Natural!
Google has always been strict when it comes to unnatural & spammy links. If you really desire that the algorithm trusts your domain, make sure to keep it all natural. Avoid following any spammy tactic and try avoiding buying the links.
Yes, it would take some time to get the desired results in an organic way, but once you get them, they will be long-term and absolutely fruitful.
How Do You Create & Execute a Solid Contextual Link Building Strategy?
Create High-Quality Content for Your Website
This is the first and basic rule to formulate a solid contextual link building strategy and then win this race later on. Writing high-quality content would make other resources give your website a link, which would eventually bring the desired results for you naturally.
Plus, make sure to deliver some value with every piece of content you write on your website. Be clear, and concise, and don’t beat around the bush. Do use tools like AnswerthePublic to check what people are searching for and what’s in trend. It would help you figure out the content ideas that would make your audience feel relatable.
Use Broken Links Effectively
Using broken links is one of the best ways to invite backlinks. Broken links are never good for a website, and when you inform the site owner about it with a deal to backlink your website, chances are bright that they will accept it.
However, finding the right web pages with broken links is a crucial thing. You need to ensure that the domain matches your domain correctly.
Let’s check out a simple way to find the web pages with broken links below.
- Select the right tool to find the broken link on a website. We recommend using Ahrefs broken link checker tool.
- Now, enter the domain URL for which you wish to find the broken links. As mentioned, try to select a domain that’s relevant to your niche.
- In the drop-down, where it reads “Subdomain”, keep the value the same as it will fetch broken links all over the site. However, do check out other values and if any of them matches your requirements & preferences, do select that value. Click the “Check Broken Links” button once you are done.
- Within a few moments, you will be displayed with the list of broken links on the URL you have submitted. Do check out the links and the page where it was meant to redirect.
- Lastly, contact the site owner. Do let them know of the broken links and pitch them to replace your website’s link in place of the broken link.
Submit Guest Posts
Writing guest posts is another reliable & crucial way to earn natural links. It can be a solid part of your successful contextual link building strategy. The guest post benefits both parties, you and the publisher. You as a website owner get backlinks to your site, while the publisher gets free content for his/her platform.
However, be sure to recognize the right guest posting opportunities & platforms. Remember, it will take your time, hence, make sure to be wise and picky. Research well and prepare a list of the websites where you wish to write a guest post. Use advanced tools to do so. Once done, reach out to the publishers and offer them the deal. You can use email marketing or social media platforms to pitch.
Podcasts
Around 22% of internet users listen to podcasts. The number is expected to rise exponentially in the near future. Hence, featuring here might help grow your domain considerably.
Look out for a show that might be useful to you. Use various social media platforms to check the authority of the show along with the fan following. At the initial level, you can neglect the following factor as the show might grow later on.
A podcast would increase your brand awareness along with helping your contextual link building plan. Select multiple shows to appear & notice how results are yielded.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you give me an example of contextual link building?
Sure. Let’s consider you created a blog on soccer on your website. However, you mentioned ice hockey in it, and you already have some content on this sport on your website. Here, you can redirect your users to that specific page, where they can get more information about ice hockey. Here, the context does make sense and users are redirected to another source where they can get some more information about a specific term, in our case, ice hockey.
Do you provide contextual link building services?
Yes, we do provide contextual link building services, where we see your content, make necessary changes, identify both, internal & external linking opportunities, and execute our plan. Connect with us for more information.
Is contextual link building still relevant? As Google’s algorithm is now much more advanced and the importance of links is declining gradually?
No matter how advanced the algorithm gets, the concept of contextual link building will always stay important & relevant. Contextual links give Google a massive green flag about a domain, which helps it considerably when it comes to ranking a website.
How do contextual links & structural links differ?
Contextual links are within your content, redirecting your audience to something relevant & useful. While structural links are links on your header & footer, navigation, etc. They aren’t related to your content by any means. Both link types have their own application & purpose.
Final Words
Contextual links are influential, and they can be your important resource to win the race for website rankings. If you haven’t incorporated the contextual link building strategy in your SEO plan yet, it’s high time that you do so.
Be sure to be natural and stay away from any sort of spammy tactic when you formulate & execute a contextual link building strategy. It would yield better & long-term results for you.
Rest, if you are looking for professional contextual link building & Fully managed SEO services, you can count on us to do the job right for you. Our experienced team would ensure that the results we get through our contextual link building strategy are organic & for the long term. Do connect with us now to get some contextual backlinks for your platform.
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