Search engine Optimization opens the door to endless opportunities for businesses in the digital world we live in today. It improves reach and target audience, increases revenue and is crucial for creating long-term brand awareness. Proper search engine Optimization goes way beyond keywords. It goes further into content strategy and onsite technical structure. Another essential element that goes a long way in boosting off-page SEO is link building. With link-building comes the aspect of link juice. What is link juice all about? Well, this quick guide will answer this and more:

What is Link Juice?

Link juice is a term prominent in the SEO world. It describes the value that transfers to a site from hyperlinks coming from another website. The value of the links is akin to votes of confidence in the eyes of search engine giants. More juice means a higher likelihood of visibility that increases traffic and, in turn, increases sales.

How does it work?

Essentially, the quality of links to a site determines its link juice. Pages transfer value to the pages they link to, and the level of authority passed to a website from the hyperlinks depends on various factors such as page authority, number of links and the links’ relevancy. A page that attracts more high-quality links garners more authority and passes the value of link juice when it links to other pages.

Is Link Juice the same as PageRank?

Granted, the two terminologies have similarities. It is no wonder most people clump them together. They are, however, not the same thing. PageRank is a metric used by Google to evaluate how a page should rank. PageRank is a cog in the SEO wheel, determined by backlink profile. Link juice is not necessarily the rank or position a website occupies in search engine results. A better way to look at it is to view it as the value a page receives. Essentially, link juice plays a significant role in determining PageRank.

Link Juice Relation with Keywords

No optimization strategy is robust without an emphasis on keywords at the foundational level. Keywords should be top of mind in any link-building architecture. Incorporating keywords in the hyperlinks make for a potent PR for the landing pages. When using keywords in your link-building efforts, opt for softer sentences in the content. Include keywords in the titles of your posts to create more interest and increase the chances of getting more juice. 

Here are some of the factors that affect link juice:

 1. Domain Authority

All links do not carry the same value. A link from a high authority site will be more valuable and have more link juice compared to a less authoritative site. Leverage SEO tools like Ahref and Moz to evaluate domain authority metrics.

 2. Link relevancy

Link juice depends on the relevance of a link. Links from topically relevant pages will have more value than those that appear to happen randomly. If you have a food blog, links from other food pages will transfer more juice. Search engine algorithms find a page more valuable if it gets recognition from other players in its industry.

 3. Quantity of links on the page

Getting links from a page that constantly links to other pages may not have an earth-shattering effect like getting from one with fewer outbound links. A smaller amount of link equity is passed from a page with many sites since PageRank is distributed between each link.

 4. Link position on the page

The link location on a page determines the amount of equity it passes to a site. Search engines find links positioned in the page body to be more valuable. Links embedded in the footer or sidebar seem like mere afterthoughts. More link juice will flow to links in the body of an article.

 5. No follow or Do follow links

A link from a site owner with no-follow links does not pass any authority or link juice. Do-follow links have a better chance of passing on authority and link juice.

How to Get More Link Juice?

Link juice generates PR and increases visibility and traffic to a page. Identifying ways to get more link juice goes a long way in improving ranking. Here are some tips to get more link juice.

 1. Create educative, authoritative, and trustworthy content

Quality content is a crucial SEO parameter. It is a significant factor in ranking, considering that no number of good links and no ingenious keyword strategy are enough to mask poor content. It is necessary for your content to be relevant, original, useful and have impeccable formatting. You will get more link juice and better page rankings if your content is great.

 2. Do audience segmentation

High quality is the first place to begin. The extra step of doing page segmentation takes the potential of getting more link juice a notch higher. Segmentation caters to the buyer persona, making it more likely that your content will resonate with the target audience. Page segmentation directs communication to the right people, generating higher rankings. The result is more link juice.

 3. Guest posting

Exchanging links with other site owners is an excellent link-building strategy that does wonders in strengthening site authority. Creating guest posts brings more audience to you and makes your website better known. Guest posting influences link juice. It is always a great idea to partner with other people. Outstanding content attracts more traffic and increases site PR.

You can get links by using our Guest Posting Services. We are dedicated to ranking you higher and achieving your desired results.

How to Send Link Juice to a Page

Here are some of the most effective ways to send link juice to a page:

 1. Building external links

• Guest posts

You can use guest posts to get external backlinks to your webpages. The idea is quite simple. You reach out to sites who request or allow third-party contributors to their blog and you pitch your content. You can then add a link to your desired webpage from the content you submit for publishing on the guest blog. The key is to create a tailored outreach strategy to standout from the many others pitching for the same space.

• Niche Edits

This one is another way to get backlinks from a desired site only this time you pay to get 

your links added on authoritative third-party webpages. The beauty is that you can pick the sites you like, albeit be careful to avoid getting penalised by Google for buying links.

• Linkable Assets

You can also grow organic backlinks by creating and marketing useful resources that can attract other web users to give you backlinks. You can create Infographics, GIFographics & “Map-o-graphics that provide value and pitch them to potential sites that publish infographics. This might not necessarily get you the link juice directly to specific pages but you can then use internal links from the assets that have amassed the juice to the pages you would like to rank higher!

 2. Grow your internal links

You should also invest in growing your internal links. You can use a SEO tool to find the pages on your site that are getting a good share of backlink traffic then add internal links to the site you would like to rank higher. It is more or less an equity link sharing approach.

 3. Use Redirects

You could use redirects to serve up link juice from an old page to a new one. Of course you don’t want to delete any old pages that are still getting you relevant website traffic. The goal is to look for old pages that no longer have viability for your site. Just do a quick audit and find those kinds of pages and set up redirects  to ramp up the link juice to your new pages.

How to Do Internal Linking Effectively

Internal linking as a strategy for building link juice is not as complicated as many people assume. It all comes down to narrowing down to pages on your site with high authority and passing equity through links from those pages. How do you determine authority? The easiest way would be to use SEO tools like Ahref and Moz. Adding internal links from your high authority pages increases the chances of ranking highly in search engine results pages.

How to discover the Link Juice offered in your content?

Tools and algorithms come in handy in analysing how much link juice is in your content. These tools use various metrics like citation flow, domain authority and Domain flow to determine the value and authority passed from the links. The tools to consider are Cognitive SEO, Ahref, Majestic SEO, and Monitor Backlinks.

How do you ensure link juice flows in the right place?

For the longest time, using link sculpting via no-follow and do-follow attributes was an effective way to control link juice flow. It was easy to channel link juice to important sites and minimise the flow for less important websites. Later updates curtailed the impact of PageRank Sculpting. Currently, the best way to ensure that link juice flows in the right direction is to use a proper backlink profile structure. Internal links also go a long way in controlling the distribution of sites, ensuring that priority goes to more important sites.

Penguin update – the link juice killer

The Penguin update of 2012 aimed to do away with unfair ranking sites from search engine results pages. Domains participating in keyword stuffing, cloaking and link schemes are now getting penalties. The rollout of the new update came with rules for webmasters to uphold to prevent spam and ways to mete punishment for sites in violation.

Source: moz

Wrap Up

Link building is a potent SEO strategy with a significant return on investment. That said, all links are not created equal. Some have a higher potential of increasing the authority of a site, visibility, traffic and, in turn, profitability. Link juice is an excellent measure of determining the value a link will pass to a website and its effectiveness in improving page rankings.

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