The second part of the equation falls to the content. In case it wasn’t clear, your content needs to be relevant, not only to your host site but to the page you are trying to build links to.
You can’t fool Google if your content is written to appease the host site and bears no relevance to your links, Google will spot it.
Now, I’m not saying an article must be solely on one exact topic that your linking to – I’m saying it should be relevant to your link target. If the target is, for example, an article on treating football injuries, try writing about sports injuries in general (to be natural), with a section on football specifically (to be relevant.)
Google advises the use of descriptive words when working with links because this passes relevancy signals to the page you link to.
Websites can be very picky about who they choose to accept content from and, when you’re sending out your outreach content, you should be equally as picky about who is hosting your content.
It (hopefully) goes without saying that if you’re looking to be pushing content for travel brands, for example, you’re not going to be reaching out to a website that sells patio doors.
But, how do you find the relevant sites that you need?
Ashley Lennon
About the author
Ashley Lennon is an Outreach Executive here at Equator. As well as playing a key role in the Outreach team she has runs her own blog, HiyaItsAshley.
The Host Site
There are SEO tools out there that can help you do a top-level analysis on the sites you’re thinking about. Look at their topical trust flow; it’s simple: the higher topical trust = higher relevancy. Higher relevancy = much more SEO value.
Unsurprisingly, links play a big part too.
A good website has quality backlinks, which means high relevance and no spam. If the site is a legitimate option, you should be expecting to see them linking out to, and being linked to by, other sites that are relevant within the same space.
If a website is filled with spammy, suspicious or irrelevant links – get out! They’re likely on bad standing with google, and you do not want to be on Google’s bad side.
The Content
Remember, this relevancy should be carried through by being thoughtful with your links and where they are leading users (and Google). Most people think the relationship between a host and the target is:“Host Site > Your Link > Your Target”
When really, it’s more like:"Host Site > Target Page > Related Page > Top Level Page"
Which, for an outreach campaign translates as:"Host (via your content) > Client Article > Related Articles > Product Page"
If you can master the technique of searching out highly relevant websites to house your content, alongside an ability to write content in a way that isn’t only engaging, but highly relevant to your target, then you’ll be able to keep Google – and your clients - happy.
When it comes to outreach if the content is king, then think of relevance as the queen. A lot goes into creating great content, but when we’re looking at content for boosting your SEO, search engines love relevance.
Google places a lot of value on links that are natural and valuable to users within the content. The best way to achieve maximum neutrality is to link the user to a page that is pertinent to the content that they’ve just come from.
Think about it – if a user is reading a blog post about the Top 10 Best Spanish Beaches, if you click a link and find yourself suddenly on the home page of an insurance company, it’s not great.
At best, it’s going to leave you with increased bounce rates – and an irritated user! At worst, it’s going to raise a red flag to search engines.
So, how can you make sure that your content is relevant enough that it’s passing on as much SEO value as possible? Consider two main things: the hosting site and the content.