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What is Link Juice in SEO & How to Boost Your Site’s Growth

Farnaz Kia

Friday, 5th Jul 2024

Ever heard of the term “link juice in SEO?”

Link juice refers to the power or value passed from one website to another through hyperlinks.

Think of it as a vote of confidence from one site to another. This boosts the linked site’s credibility and visibility in the eyes of search engines.

So, how exactly does link juice in SEO impact your website’s performance?

What is Link Juice in SEO?

Just as word-of-mouth recommendations hold weight in the real world, search engines like Google rely on links as a primary signal to determine a website’s authority and relevance.

Think about it – when a website links to yours, it’s essentially saying, “Hey, this content is valuable, and I trust this source.”

Search engines pick up on these signals.

These signals factor into how search engines rank your site in search results.

Websites link to each other for many reasons.

For example, you might earn a link from a blogger if they enjoyed a recent blog post of yours.

Or, you could receive a link from a business partner adding your site to their website.

How Link Equity Impacts Rankings

Now, let’s dig a little deeper. Not all links are created equal in the realm of SEO. The “juiciness” of a link – or its ability to boost your website’s authority – depends on several ranking factors.

Factors like the linking site’s domain authority (a measure of its overall credibility) can impact your rankings.

The relevance of the link to the content on both sites and the anchor text (the clickable words used for the link) all come into play.

Even a link’s position on a page can make a difference. Google tends to place more value on links nestled within the main content than those relegated to the footer or sidebar.

As Google states, it’s all about passing PageRank, which is their way of “sizing up” websites.

Internal vs. External Links

To measure link juice, you must first understand the difference between the two primary types of links: internal and external.

Internal links are simply connections within your own website, leading from one page to another. They help users and search engines navigate through your site’s content.

On the other hand, external links originate from different websites, pointing to your site as a valuable resource.

Building high-quality backlinks and optimizing your internal linking structure should be at the heart of your SEO strategy.

Link Quality Over Link Quantity

While it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers game, remember this cardinal rule – quality trumps quantity. This is true when it comes to link juice and search engine optimization (SEO).

Imagine two scenarios: your site has hundreds of backlinks from low-quality, irrelevant sites.

Or, you have a smaller number of links coming from highly authoritative, niche-relevant sites.

It might sound counterintuitive, but the latter scenario would almost always lead to better search engine rankings and organic traffic.

Remember, each backlink is a vote of confidence from another site – so prioritize quality over quantity for the best results.

How to Boost Your Link Juice

I bet you are now asking how you get sites to link to you.

Well, one really good way to boost link juice is to find any broken or discontinued links on your site.

Use 301 redirects to redirect those pages to new pages on your site.

Here are four proven ways to get more links to your website:

Content Marketing: High-quality, informative, and shareable content naturally attracts backlinks from websites seeking valuable resources for their readers.
Guest Blogging: Contribute high-quality content to authoritative blogs in your industry, which allows you to include a relevant backlink to your site within your author bio or content itself.
Broken Link Building: Identify relevant websites with broken links and offer your content as a replacement, providing value to both the website owner and your site through increased link juice.
Building Relationships: Connect with industry influencers, fellow bloggers, and website owners, establishing relationships that can lead to organic backlink opportunities.

You can automate the first three link-building tactics with BrandWell.

For content marketing, run your topic through BrandWell‘s keyword research tools and then create long-form blog posts around low-competition keywords.

For example, let’s find some good keywords for our link juice topic:

Choose keywords that have a couple hundred searches monthly and a difficulty score of under 40.

Click “Create Content” on the Action Panel and you’re done!

Your 2,000-word blog post will be ready for optimization in a few minutes.

You can even upload keywords in bulk to save time.

This is what your baseline draft will look like:

For guest blogging, follow the same process but make sure you read the guidelines of the host blog first. Some publishers have strict rules on blog structure, image size and resolution, and file format.

Here’s a guest post I wrote using RankWell, exported to Microsoft Word:

Finally, if you find broken links on other websites (you can use a broken link checker to do this), reach out to the webmaster and offer to replace their links with your RankWell-generated blog post to increase link juice to both your website and theirs.

Safeguarding Your Link Profile

The importance of ethical link-building and avoiding black hat tactics cannot be overstated.

Just like a positive recommendation can boost your credibility, negative associations can seriously harm your website’s reputation in the eyes of Google.

Participating in link schemes (reciprocal link exchanges purely for manipulation) or acquiring links from spammy websites can lead to penalties from search engines.

Also, engaging in any activity that violates Google’s webmaster guidelines can lead to demotion in the SERPs, potentially even resulting in your site being de-indexed.

Prioritize organic, white hat tactics that are sustainable for long-term SEO success.

FAQs: Link Juice in SEO

What is an example of link juice?

Let’s say a well-respected online magazine like Forbes publishes an article about the best marketing tools. Within that article, they include a link to your website, specifically your landing page that offers social media scheduling services.

Since Forbes holds significant authority, this backlink is like a powerful endorsement of your brand. This passes valuable link juice or link equity to your page and site.

What is link equity In SEO?

Link equity is essentially the SEO value transferred from one website to another through a hyperlink. Think of it as a vote of trust from the linking website, signaling to search engines that your content deserves to rank well. Getting other sites to link to you is a vote that Google considers when ranking sites.

What is link power in SEO?

While “link power” isn’t an official SEO term, it essentially refers to how much value or influence links pass to your website. Links with higher link power have a greater impact on your site’s authority and visibility in search results.

Which link passes more link juice?

Several factors contribute to the power of link juice a link carries, but a general rule is – the more authoritative, relevant, and trustworthy the linking website, the more powerful the backlink.

So, a single, high-quality link from a renowned industry leader will likely carry more weight than dozens of low-quality links from less reputable or relevant sources.

Building links is all about getting links from websites that also have backlinks, often called an authority link.

Conclusion

Understanding how link juice in SEO works is crucial in building a robust online presence and increasing organic traffic.

I always emphasize creating an ethical backlink profile built upon high-quality, relevant backlinks – you will be amazed by the results over time.

Building a website that people naturally want to link to through top-tier content, valuable resources, and genuine relationship-building will not only boost your SEO performance but ultimately solidify your brand’s reputation as a leader within your industry.

Written by Farnaz Kia

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