Co-Citation: 5 Ways to Get Better Links

 Co-Citation or Anchor Text?

Ever since Panda, Google values anchor text less than it used to. When Google devalued anchor text, it also passed more weight to what is called “co-citation.”

Co-citation offers SEOs the opportunity to target better, higher-quality links, but understanding how it works (and why) is the key.

How Co-Citation Works

A lot of SEOs make co-citation sound more complicated than it is, but it is actually quite simple. Here it goes . . .

An incoming link to your site passes more authority if the page on which the link appears also links to a completely different site on a related topic. That’s it.

The related topic part is the key factor here. You want your incoming links to appear on pages with other links that relate to yours. The more closely related the two link subjects are, the higher the value of your link.

Co-citation improves search, and better search means getting the right content to the right searchers. This is a good thing for SEOs who understand how to use co-citation to their advantage.

5 Tips to Get Co-Citations

You can leverage co-citation by understanding which subjects relate most closely to your target keywords. Once you’ve done that, all you have to do is get links on pages that also link to those related subjects.

For now, we offer this shortlist of five ways you can begin to implement this post-Panda link building strategy.

Tip #1:  Use the “Ad Group Ideas” Feature in the AdWords Keyword Tool

The “Ad Group Ideas” feature of the Google AdWords Keyword Tool will literally hand-feed you the subject keywords that relate most closely to your target keywords.

Tip #2:  Use Social Media Analytics to Find More Related Subjects

If you have social media outlets for your site, you can use their analytics tools to investigate the interests of your followers and discover more related subjects.

Tip #3:   Target New Links on Sites that Already Link to Related Subjects

Once you’ve built a list of the subjects that relate most-closely to your target keywords, save your link building for sites that already link to sites on those related subjects.

Tip #4:   Write Guest Blogs on Topics that Connect Related Subjects

When you guest blog, write the blog on a topic that connects the subject of your target keywords and the keywords of a closely related subject. Place outgoing links in the post to both your target url and a site that relates to the other subject you tied into the post.

Tip #5:   Write Your Own Site Content on Related Topics

Write your blogs on subjects that Google considers closely related to the subject of your site. If your site sells organic Columbian coffee and Google thinks that healthy dog food is a related topic, write a blog on the healthiest dog food.

It may feel a little strange at first, but this kind of content strategy will organically generate co-citations.

Conclusion

Co-citation helps us develop a better a kind of link building, link building for groups of links on related subjects. You might call it “co-link building.”

Check out our blog in the coming weeks. We’re going to post on each of the co-link building strategies that we’ve introduced here. Come back for detailed steps and examples.

By Justin Larsen

Google (Contributor for ShipleySEO.com)