The internet is a colossal space of web pages interconnected with one another. Search engines, which are huge directories of information, use the “links” between different pages to navigate the web, and analyze content. Whenever a page connects to another page, some level of “authority” or “value” flows from the source page to the destination page – known as “link equity.”
In this article, we’ll discuss why link equity is important for your TMS clinic’s website and how it helps improve your website’s search engine ranking.
Let’s dive right in.
What is Link Equity?
The term link Equity (commonly known as “link juice”) is a search engine optimization (SEO) ranking factor that indicates the transference of authority from one web page to another.
Both internal links (links pointing to pages within the same website) and external links (links pointing outside the website) play significant roles in building a website/web page’s domain authority with the help of link equity.
How Does Link Equity Work?
A webmaster uses anchor text backlinks on their website to pass value to the referred page. When a website having a high domain authority includes a followed link to a smaller website, it passes link equity to it.
via 5and3.co
In simple words, link equity achieves the following three goals:
- Content creators can allow their audiences to discover other relevant, useful, and possibly high-quality content.
- Link equity creates an opportunity for a search engine’s crawler bots to traverse through the web pages and update the search engine’s index based on relevancy and quality.
- When an authoritative website links to a smaller website, it confides in the linked website’s content quality and accuracy. This promotes website owners to focus on their content’s quality and provide fairways to rank them on search engine result pages (SERPs).
Link Equity and PageRank
PageRank was Google’s first link analysis algorithm that helped it rank websites based on their backlink profiles (number of links pointing toward a website).
With this algorithm, Google determined which web pages were worth ranking higher, depending on how many links it got. The more links a page had, the more popular it must be, which signaled it was trustworthy.
Today, Google doesn’t solely rely on PageRank to determine rankings, but it is still one of the many factors.
The concept of link equity is therefore tied to PageRank – the more “equity” that flows to your webpage, the better chances you’ll have of ranking higher.
Why Link Equity is Important
More importantly – as the owner/marketer of TMS clinic, why should you care?
Here are some solid reasons why you should:
It Helps Build Trust
If an authoritative website links to your TMS clinic’s website, it’s their signal of validation for your website. It works the same way referral marketing works and impacts how the visitor views you, which can go a long way in establishing trust.
Link equity provides a token of assurance to the relevant patients and encourages them to visit your website and find the services they need.
It Helps Rank Higher on the SERPs
Search engines are, to an extent, democratic when it comes to ranking websites/webpages on the SERPs.
When several authoritative websites, say medical journals, leading healthcare blogs, etc., start linking to your TMS clinic’s website, sooner or later, you’ll start ranking higher in the SERPs.
It Will Help You Establish an Authoritative Brand
Last but not least, by garnering links from authoritative websites and getting all that equity, your website itself will start to position itself as an authoritative source.
It doesn’t matter if your clinic is big or small – if your website is linkable, you’re well on your way to becoming a renowned brand.
What is Link Equity Dependent On?
Link equity depends on a number of factors, including:
- Page Authority
Page Authority (PA) is a metric (developed by Moz) that predicts a page’s ability to rank on the search engine result pages. PA score ranges from 0 to 100 – the higher this score is, the greater is a page’s ability to rank.
Authoritative pages tend to have a powerful link profile and a capacity to provide link juice to other websites.
- Topical Relevance
Multiple websites of the same niche having similar content have topical relevancy. Backlinks created by topically relevant websites are more impactful as compared to irrelevant websites.
For instance, if you get linked from a platform that publishes content similar or even remotely relevant to yours (such as Verywell Mind), equity will flow through.
But if you’re linked from a website that writes about something completely irrelevant, say, international trade, chances are that it won’t do you much good.
- Crawlability
This refers to allowing or blocking the search engine’s crawlers to crawl your website. Before reading a webpage, crawler bots read the HTTP header of a webpage and decide whether to analyze the whole page or bounce off.
Websites that are not crawlable for Google bots don’t contribute to building link equity for other websites.
- HTTPS Status
An HTTP status code indicates the web server’s response toward a web browser’s request. When a user performs an action on a website, they’re sending a request to the website’s server. The server responds to that request with a three-digit HTTP status code.
HTTP status codes help the search engines discriminate the operational pages from redirected and non-operational pages – smoothing out pathways for link equity, bots, and visitors.
Ending Note
Link equity creates a two-way road which helps websites develop strong ties that help both the search engines and the audience.
A final word of advice for website owners is to focus on creating quality content that others find helpful and use proper citation when referring to someone else’s content on their website.
