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Abstract
You want backlinks to your information rich link-bait pages, which in turn link to your landing pages from visually obvious calls to action (CTAs).
Different types of content serve different purposes. Link-bait is for attracting links. Landing pages are for converting website visitors into leads.
People sometimes talk about Google “punishing” websites.
I consider this framing to not be useful.
Google has stated for years how we should and should not build links. So when a Google algorithm update reduces the ranking and visibility of a website whose link building practices were done in ways that Google tell us NOT to do, I’m not sure why anyone is surprised.
At its core, Google is a pattern recognition engine, and link profiles have patterns.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.Introduction
Google defines content quality in A LOT of detail. They do so in their Search Quality Rater Guidelines, and in the E-E-A-T framework.
In those descriptions, Google distinguishes between different types of webpages, as referred to above. There is more on this further in this post.
Landing pages (and home pages are a form of landing pages) are not link-bait. They serve another purpose.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.Google’s views on this matter
When I google for the title of this blog post, I find numerous articles on why your landing pages should have no OUTBOUND links, but I see nothing on whether you want external backlinks INBOUND to your landing pages.
In this post, I explain that per Google, you do not, and I show what Google says we should do instead.
External links and Google E-E-A-T
With every Google algorithm update, and especially with recent Google updates, they’re pushing us all further towards what they call E-E-A-T, which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust.
The basic idea is to rate pages that have a high degree of E-E-A-T above pages that don’t.
Studies now show that “high information” pages are what Google creates AI Overview summaries from, and link from those AI Overview summaries go to those high information pages.
E-E-A-T seems to be an extension of the concept of PageRank, which is the idea that webpages pass “relevance” to each other when they link to each other.
As PageRank “gives ground” to E-E-A-T, it becomes even more important that the content on your website is worthy of being reference material for someone else.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.
A few different types of webpages, per Google
Landing pages
The phrase “landing page” means different things in different contexts.
To marketing people
To marketing people, a landing page is a conversion page. It’s a page where a website user becomes a lead by providing the information you can use to follow up.
Information like an email address, a name, a phone number, a company name, etc.
You could also call this a “conversion page”.
In the Google Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines
If there is a “bible” about website content quality, it’s the Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines document published by Google.
In this document, a landing page is any page you “land on” when you click a result in a Search Engine Result Page (SERP).
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.
Conversion pages
For this blog post, the phrase “landing page” means conversion page.
Why don’t you want backlinks to your landing pages?
Because landing pages (and home pages) don’t educate, teach, inform, etc.
Landing pages, by definition, do not add to your site’s E-E-A-T.
In fact, landing pages are an attempt to convert a website user to a lead, and as such can be considered purely commercial.
And while purely commercial landing pages are part of almost every website, they should be used in ways that work with the E-E-A-T of your website, and do not detract from it.
How do landing pages work with your site’s E-E-A-T?
By being where the visitor is taken to after they click the CTA button or text on the information rich page.
Link bait pages provide useful information that teaches something important AND contains a CTA button or text, shown in multiple places, that contains a marketing call to action and links to a landing/conversion page.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.
Use your website’s internal linking structure
Whether you’re aware or not, your website has an internal link structure.
It’s the structure of which pages on your site link to which other pages on your site.
And in the same way that external links to your site pass PageRank to your site, internal links pass PageRank to your internal pages.
In the diagram below, the lowest layer is blog posts, the next layer up is your “pillar posts“, the next layer up are your landing pages, and the top layer is your home page.
Of course, no website has quite this pure of a hierarchical internal linking structure, but it’s a good model.
In short, do that.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.
But we don’t have a blog?
Start one
Understand that the initial posts are going to be bad. They always are.
As with anything, the more you do it, the better you get.
Below is an example of a link to an interesting blog post, not a home page or a landing page.
Examples
Quoleady
Notice on this past there are two “ads” for their services, one in the sidebar and a very large one at the very bottom.
Product Led Content – Should You Try It for Your SaaS?
ION Audio Video & IT Solutions
Notice on this post there are also two “ads” for their services, one in the header and one about half way down. As well as a Get In Touch call to action in the footer.
Designing the Perfect Conference Room Layout
ION Audio Video & IT Solutions
This post has an ad in the sidebar as well as an old fashioned banner ad, but at the bottom of the page. So as you read down and scroll down, the banner ad at the bottom is just there. Having said that there is an X over on the left side of the screen that allows you to dismiss it.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.More about link bait content
Why does link bait content matter?
Backlinks have mattered in the world of SEO since the introduction of and almost immediate dominance of Google. They still matter in today’s world of AI overviews and summaries.
And while the core idea that backlinks matter has not changed, the specifics about how backlinks increase search rankings (and now increase the odds of your webpages being referenced within AI overviews) has changed.
An idea that is promoted, but should be promoted A LOT more, is the idea of a “natural backlink” profile.
Google is, at it’s core, a pattern recognition engine. Backlink profiles show or contain detectable patterns. Some look natural and organic. Others look engineered.
In summary, to earn backlinks that create a natural backlink profile, you need some content that is worth linking to.
And to increase the odds of your webpages being referenced in AI overviews, it needs to satisfy what Google calls informational intent. It needs to help people learn something, or it needs to entertain them. Both work.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.What is link bait content?
Link bait content is, simply put, content that satisfies what is described above so well that people link to it.
Link authority goes beyond the page being linked to
A key concept here is that the authority passed by a link is not limited to the webpage being linked to. The authority passed by the link extends to the site.
For that reason, the backlink strategy for your website needs to include link bait content.
I see far too many people requesting links to home pages and landing pages, and in summary, don’t do that.
While it may seem counter intuitive, backlinks from other sites should be to your link bait pages, and they in turn should internally link to your landing pages.
More about different types of content
The list below is by no means comprehensive, and is provided to illustrate the idea that there are different types of content which fulfil different purposes.
Topic cluster (pillar and snippet) posts
Topic clusters is a common method of establishing website authority for a certain topic.
There is generally one very in depth well researched article on a main topic (the pillar post), and multiple shorter more focused articles each of which is about one aspect of the overall topic (the snippet posts).
The pillar links “down” to the snippets, and the snippets link “up” to the pillar.
For example, if you’re writing about ski equipment, you might have one well researched post comparing various brands in a general sense, and a number of smaller shorter posts each of which focused on one item of gear (boots for example).
Topic clusters are good for readers, search engine robots, and AI engines. The links between them signal to all three that the posts are related.
And, for what it’s worth, pillar posts can be link bait, but not all pillar posts are.
The image below shows a representation of topic clusters. Credit for the image belongs (quite obviously) to HubSpot and was taken from a blog post they initially published in 2017. Having said that, topic clusters are still relevant to SEO.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.
Brand information pages
These are pages that directly talk about the brand; home pages, about pages, contact us pages, landing pages, etc.
If you’re writing for a brand that is widely known, such as Coke, Nike, Ford, etc., people will link to your brand pages. If you’re not, the odds of anyone doing so is slim to none.
Landing pages
As stated earlier, landing pages are sometimes called conversion pages, as their purpose is to turn a website visitor into a lead. That is generally done by presenting visitors with a form.
Link bait
Link bait content is specifically produced to earn links.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.Brief descriptions of types of link bait content
There are different types of link bait content and for the most part the only two things they have in common is they’re intended to be interesting and useful, and creating them takes effort.
Studies, statistics, and original research
The key idea here is originality. The example I used earlier about the US implementing a central banks after the 1907 financial crisis is not a good link bait idea unless you see some aspect of it that others missed. But as this topic has been covered extensively over the past 100 plus years, that’s unlikely.
But there is still no end of opportunity in terms of link bait content, but you need to be willing to possibly survey large populations of people, pull statistics from existing sources, etc., and then to look at whatever data you collect in interesting ways.
This is one of the more labor intensive ways to create link bait content.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.Interactive tools
Mortgage calculators, website analyzers, word origins, etc.
And weirdly in the AI dominated world we’re moving into, these have become easier as you can write a “wrapper” around an AI service and have it do the heavy lifting.
Quizzes and games
We’ve all spent some time on such webpages. Are there any that make sense for your website and your business?
Controversial perspectives
This is my personal favorite, and to return to a prior example of the formation of a central bank in the USA, if you find some LEGITIMATELY controversial take on this, it can work.
I capitalize legitimately as online fake outrage is far too common these days, and while it may attract attention, if you’re in the business of selling anything other than ads, you want website visitors who convert, not just argue.
But, if you see a perspective on a topic that people knowledgeable of the topic see as interesting and worthy of discussion, by all means, use it.
Building topically relevant links is hard. We make it easy.What makes link bait content different from other content
In short, people WANT to link to it. Because it’s good. Because it’s worth referencing.
However, it’s generally not enough to just publish it. You also need to draw people’s attention to it. Sharing on social media, email outreach, participating in link exchange communities, etc.
But link bait content has to be much better than the usual crap content we’ve all used to seeing. Link bait content causes people to pause, take a good look at it, and in some cases, to link to it.
In closing
To stay within Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines AND turn some of your website visitors into leads…
- Work to earn links to blog posts that inform, educate, teach, etc.
- Internally link from those blog posts to landing pages via the use of buttons with calls to action.
Featured image credit: gravitate
