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Link juice is a term used in the world of search engine optimization (SEO) to describe the value and authority passed from one website to another through hyperlinks. Understanding the concept of link juice and how to harness it can significantly impact your website's search engine ranking and overall online visibility.
We'll explore the ins and outs of link juice and best practices to maximize its benefits for your website.
What Is Link Juice
Link juice is a measurement of how much value a backlink passes onto a site, therefore, strengthening its results on SERPs.
When you put Link Juice into practice, you are performing Link Building. The definition of Link Building is, therefore, increasing the quality of inbound links to your webpage to increase your website’s search engine ranking.
The essence of SEO is that people want to increase their website’s ranking on search engines. Link Juicing looks at the two roles that links play in your website’s ranking on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
The first is the number of links that lead to your website. Think of this as how many cups of juice your page has. The more websites that refer back to yours, the more trustworthy your website looks to a search engine.
If your website seems trustworthy, then a search engine is more likely to recommend it in a SERP. The best way to improve this aspect is to have more websites linked to your own.
The second role of Link Juicing is to gauge the value the link has to your page. Think of this as how diluted each cup of juice is. A link that flows one way to your website is better than a link that goes both ways. If someone refers to your website, but you don’t refer back to theirs, then it looks like other websites trust yours as a reputable source.
The higher ranked a source website is on a SERP, the higher value that backlink has to your search engine ranking. Think of it this way: who would you rather ask to write a recommendation letter, a university professor or a five-year-old? We’ll look at specific ways to improve this later in the article.
Why It's Important
So what is the importance of Link Building and Link Juice? Put simply, Link Building helps search engines discover new web pages by following the backlinks in well-established sites. This almost word-of-mouth style of discovery also helps to determine a website’s ranking in a SERP.
Backlinks are one of the determining factors when placing a website on a SERP, the other being keywords. One-directional backlinks are important, as they show the website’s independence from the linking site. If two or more sites link back to each other at the same time, then it can look like a mirror or a scam site.
Backlinks are considered a form of support that websites use to keep each other high on the list. Having a backlink on your website is as if you are saying you personally support this website and all it does.
Best Practices
Now that we understand what these terms are and why they’re important, let’s see how Link Building works in SEO.
Collaborate with Other Sites
The first way is to simply get into contact with the owner of a site and ask them to backlink to your domain. Tit-for-tat, you might need to offer them something in exchange for them linking to your website.
This can be a useful bonus if you are already creating content for a client with their own website. If you create visual assets like infographics for a company, add to your contract that you want it to be clear to their clients that you are responsible for the graphics on show. This way you are effectively marketing your brand and your website.
As some free advice: never “work for exposure.” That’s just a company looking to benefit from your time at no cost to themselves.
Create Backlinks from Social Media
While backlinks from social media profiles may not directly contribute to link juice in the same way as traditional backlinks from authoritative websites, they can still have indirect benefits for SEO.
Creating backlinks from social media profiles involves placing links to your website in appropriate sections.
By placing these links you can leverage social signals to indirectly benefit SEO, driving traffic and increasing brand awareness, amplifying content to generate organic backlinks, and engaging with your audience to foster collaborations and mentions on other websites.
While social media backlinks may not have the same direct impact as traditional backlinks, they are valuable for building brand awareness, driving traffic, and potentially generating organic backlinks from other sources.
Keep in mind you will still require a well-rounded SEO strategy that combines traditional methods with social media leverage.
Let It Happen Naturally
Popular enough sites likely already have a few backlinks from how often people use them. If you make high-quality content, you can probably rely on other people to do the heavy lifting for you and spread your website on their own.
Resources are more likely to have people create backlinks to them. Government websites, online tools, and research websites all have useful information and services that people use almost daily.
Final Thoughts
Link Juicing is a basic analogy that refers to the quality of links that directs traffic to your website. By ensuring you have backlinks from reputable websites and a high number at that, you can ensure your website will rank higher on SERPs. There are a few ways to build links between websites that range from posting your own on your socials to collaborating with other creators.
