Can Backlinks Improve Rankings for Query Fan Out Searches?

James Dooley: Hi, today I’m joined with Luis Salifa Herado and today’s topic is about does backlinks help you rank for more query augmentation terms or what some people are talking about query fan out terms. Does backlinks help you rank for more of those terms?

Luis Salifa Herado: First of all thank you for having me James. Related to your question. In the past backlinks were very important because of PageRank to create link juice. But nowadays backlinks are important to create connections between all the information on the internet about the brand or identity and then create the relationships that are going to feed the LLMs. So the LLMs are going to understand way better what your brand is about, what products or services you offer, where your customers are, where you are located and so on. In my opinion backlinks are still important but they have to be strategically designed to connect all the data on the internet and create a map for Google to understand what your brand is about, what your target market is, what you are offering and how you reach your customers.

James Dooley: Yeah for sure. For me personally when I used to do a lot of guest posts I was not really bothered about the content. I only cared about the DR and the power and trust metrics and whether the link had low toxicity for the backlink and the PageRank distribution. But now I understand the importance of the content on third party sources whether that is press releases, digital PR campaigns or guest posts. Are you giving content briefs or writing the content for clients for those guest posts because this is now an extension of your content that links back to you? Are you making them understand that micro semantics is important and that covering the different attributes of who they are and what they do is important? Are you making sure that the content on those third party sources is semantically stronger?

Luis Salifa Herado: Absolutely. I will merge two or three concepts related to this. The first question I ask clients or projects I work with is whether this is going to be good for the business because if it is good for the business it will be good for SEO. The second question is whether the source where you want to publish the information is helpful for your customer. Is your audience reading that newspaper? Is your audience on that social network? If the audience is there then it makes sense to invest. If both questions are answered positively then we invest. The backlink from that third party source works because the audience is correct, the platform contains potential customers and the information is appealing to that audience. Then you create a call to action which is the backlink to your website. Users interact with the content and that interaction creates signals between the entity of the third party source and your brand. That is the perfect scenario because you serve the user, you expand your business and you create connections between two powerful entities. That improves brand awareness, brand mentions and brand recognition while strengthening the backlink.

James Dooley: So if I go back to the original question about backlinks helping you rank for more query augmentation terms I would now answer yes. Backlinks help you rank for more query augmentation terms but not in the traditional PageRank focused way. Now it is about branded signals, trust signals and semantically repeating who you are, what you do and the entities connected to your brand. The quality of backlinks is more important than ever. It is not about chasing DR or simply getting a dofollow link anymore. It is about semantically connecting the nodes and edges of information around your brand. My question back to you is this. When you create a semantic content network and topical map for a client to build topical authority on their website, have you expanded that topical map for third party sources? Are you identifying thirty or forty entities or attributes that need to appear on external sources to strengthen query augmentation terms and external topical authority?

Luis Salifa Herado: Yes. I will give you an example. I worked with an insurance company. After several tests we identified the third party sources where potential customers spend their time. Most of the audience were men over thirty five who love cars because the company sells car insurance. We identified three strong Spanish language media sources where many potential customers are present. We created advertisements and content so they could consume it. Within that content we structured a call to action that encourages people to search our brand combined with insurance related queries. A user reads the content on the third party site, sees the ad and then searches for the brand together with the insurance product and its nuances. That creates brand reputation, brand searches and the connection between the entities. The backlink transfers authority to the website while brand searches strengthen the signal and together they generate query augmentation value.

James Dooley: That is brilliant. You are achieving more than just link juice or PageRank. You are expanding the semantic content network of the website externally. If anyone wants to learn more about ranking for additional queries and improving backlink strategies where can they follow you for semantic link building and collaboration on third party sources?

Luis Salifa Herado: There are three options. They can visit seotecnico.com. They can search my name on Google and contact me on LinkedIn. Or they can subscribe to my daily semantic SEO newsletter by searching dailysemanticseo.com on Google.

James Dooley: Brilliant. It has been a pleasure having you. The key takeaway for anyone watching is that backlinks have changed. It is no longer just about PageRank or link juice. Expanding your semantic content network across third party sources is now very important. That is how backlinks help you rank for more query augmentation terms. Thank you for watching.