Stop being afraid of building category page backlinks

Eva says: “Don’t be afraid of building category pages for backlinks.

There's a worry that if you build category page links it could be seen as unnatural to Google, but it's just like any digital PR strategy. When you start building links for a client, it's going to start slowly and build up from there. If you're doing it the same way as you would build links naturally, then it should be perceived as a positive thing.

It does depend on what you define as a category page, and these pages shouldn’t just be a small summary on a single page.

A lot of the category page links we build are on our client's website. For example, if it's a wedding and engagement ring specialist, we would build an ‘engagement rings’ category page and, within that category page, it would include frequently asked questions as well as products and anything else that is useful for a customer visiting that website.

It’s much more of a landing page, with a lot more substance to it, which makes it the kind of page that people would naturally link to.”

What kind of links are you building to category pages?

“Ideally, it's links that are from topically relevant publications. For wedding and engagements specialists, we'd want to build links from Brides.com, Hitched, and all of the topically relevant sites that are relevant to that page.”

Do potential partners often want to link to the homepage or a particular product instead of a category page?

“Not necessarily. When it comes to a particular product, that's normally done through product PR. We would send them a request with a product in mind.

In this case, you’re essentially using digital PR campaigns to build those category page links. More importantly, we tend to use reactive PR for this kind of strategy. We would jump on an expert comment for these kinds of publications and offer them expert commentary around whatever they need. If it’s engagement rings, that might be valuations of celebrity engagement rings, for example.

We also try and jump on requests for basic questions like, ‘What's the most popular engagement ring at the moment?’, so that we can try and build those category page links. That kind of content on a publication site like Brides.com would be very relevant to the content from our category page link.”

Do you get requests through existing relationships or a public website?

“It's a bit of both. I've been working with an engagement client for just over a year now. Journalists looking for reactive celebrity engagement commentary come to me directly, now that they know that I'm there and I'm offering a reliable source. We also keep an eye on HARO and we have response source requests and press flows that we look at. Once you’ve initiated that relationship, ideally, they will come to you directly the next time they have a request.

Also, whenever we know that a celebrity engagement has come up, we do newsjacking to get involved in that conversation. We identify which journalists typically cover celebrity engagements or valuations of a jewellery piece for a celebrity. From that contact list, we can send them a request like, ‘Hi! I'm working with X client, would you like to cover this valuation from the latest news on this person's engagement?’ Then we ask them to link back to a category page from there.

The journalists we are targeting don't tend to ask for any sort of payment, which is good because that’s against Google's guidelines. They don’t typically ask for any returns besides the content.”

Are people often keen to read and reply to those pitches or do you struggle to get engagement from people that you're reaching out to for the first time?

“Open rates are quite high, but then it's whether or not they'll cover the campaign or the reactive commentary. There have been instances where I've gone out with a celebrity engagement, and journalists have covered it left, right, and centre, but they never replied to let me know that they were using that commentary. It's just one of those things where you have to wait and see.”

Why should SEOs focus on building category links instead of links to specific product pages for example?

“It’s simply a good way to build up your search and get higher rankings on Google because it's a better way to target your keywords. If a client wants to be featured higher up for engagement ring keywords, then building category pages and category page links for ‘engagement rings’ will slowly build up the SERP rankings for that client and get them up to page one.

For relatively competitive keyword phrases, a category page can be an ideal target because those pages change often. Google will see that they have been updated a lot, which will help you compete.

It also supports your EEAT strategy as well. Backlink building in digital PR is part of an SEO strategy. You obviously need the tech and onsite to be on point too, because it's part of those three pillars. EEAT, however, is obviously all about experience, expertise, authority and trust.

In terms of digital PR, it's about who is answering those comments. For a wedding/engagement ring specialist, what is their background in wedding and engagement rings? Have they been in the business for a long time? Have they got any significant qualifications? The more links you build for that expert, the better.

You can show that you have X person at the company who says X, values X at X price, and offers expertise around the subject and topic. This ties into both the second E, expertise, and authority as well.

If you dominate the industry with forward-thinking press releases and campaigns (the latest trends in wedding/engagement rings, wedding/engagement ring shapes that are going to be the next big thing, etc.), and also with the reactive expert commentary, it builds your authority. Then, you become the go-to PR for a journalist on this topic. Also, if a journalist were to search for your expert, they would see your company and all the pieces of coverage that you've gained in the past. That builds trust.

Supply expert commentary frequently on relevant topics whenever you can. Gaining those links, and that coverage for your in-house expert, builds your website into more of an expert within that field.”

How do you decide which category pages to focus on, and at what point in your SEO strategy do you choose to target specific category pages?

“It depends. Targeting something like ‘diamond wedding rings’ is quite niche, so that would be hard. It would be better to go with a ‘wedding rings’ category page rather than ‘diamond wedding rings’ because the ‘diamond’ makes it seem a bit more unnatural to Google. It might appear that you're forcing the link for ‘diamond wedding rings’ rather than just ‘wedding rings’ in general. There are so many niche topics that you can go down into, like ‘sapphire wedding rings’ or ‘ruby wedding rings’.

Instead, you can build ‘wedding rings’ and, within that category page, build all of those other categories, like ‘diamonds’ and ‘sapphires’. The authority from there should pass on to your website.

As for when you should start targeting specific category pages, it should be considered from the very beginning of your strategy. If you are onboarding a client who has no backlink profile, and you know their target keywords, start building those links now – along with homepage links and blog page links. Google can then see that you're naturally building that authority on the site.”

Can you build up your links once and forget about it or is it ongoing?

“You need to consistently keep at it. If you start to jump from page 3 to page 2, and you stop before you make it to page 1, you will lose that place on the second page. Google is constantly re-evaluating and re-indexing those pages and categorising which are most relevant for each keyword.”

Besides responding to journalists who have requests for content, how else can you build links to your category pages?

“There are also the frequently asked questions you tend to have on your website. For example, you could have questions like, ‘What are the most popular engagement rings?’, ‘What styles and shapes are there?’, ‘What's the upcoming trend for engagement rings?’, or ‘How do you choose an engagement ring?’ Those are frequently asked questions by the general public.

You can even pinpoint those questions to a certain time and event. ‘How do you choose an engagement ring?’ is a great question to target at the most popular times for engagements, like Christmas or New Year's Day. You know that people will be searching for that query around or before that time, so that’s when you can outreach that campaign to journalists who would be interested in that kind of topic.”

Where would you position this type of FAQ content on your website?

“You can include it within the content you already have. If you scroll on your website and look at the products, you’ve obviously got the navigation bar that guides you to different pages. If you have an ‘engagement ring’ section, for example, the user would scroll past the selection of top products and that frequently asked questions section would be at the bottom of the page, before they click through to the second or third page – or even before categorising down through your products.

That frequently asked question section would contain the content so that it is on the same category page, which adds additional content and authority – as opposed to having the user click off and go to thinner category pages.

You can also build these links on your blog and host the content as part of the more in-depth content on those pages as well. This is just a snippet of one or two paragraphs, rather than a fully-fledged blog post. You might write one or two paragraphs answering the question directly within the FAQs on the category page, but then give them the option to click through and read a more expansive article if they want to.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Stop building links without a clear and robust digital PR backlink strategy. Otherwise, you’re just building links for the sake of building links.

You want to define that strategy about every six months. Sit down with your client and see if there are any changes on their side in terms of the way they want to approach it. There may be other keywords or new focuses and topics that they want to expand on. Work more collaboratively with the client and understand what they need.”

Eva Cheng is a Digital PR Consultant, and you can find her over at EvolvedSearch.com.