Linking phrases is the act of giving relational relevance to the keywords that you have selected for your squads. (If you have not seen how to create your keyword squads, then go to Simple Strategic Keyword Hierarchy.) Relational relevance means that the two keyword phrases (that are going to be inter-linked at some point) make sense.
Strategy For Linking Phrases
The very first thing to do is to re-order the squads into a representation of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Basically, you want the definitions first all the way through the most complex.
Captain 1 – what is business process outsourcing
Soldier 1.1 – outsourcing definition
Soldier 1.2 – insourcing vs outsourcing
Soldier 1.3 – reason for outsourcing
Soldier 1.4 – examples of outsourcing
Captain 2 – offshore outsourcing
Soldier 2.1 – offshoring vs outsourcing
Soldier 2.2 – outsourcing companies
Soldier 2.3 – advantages of outsourcing
Soldier 2.4 – effects of outsourcing
Captain 4 – outsourcing employees
Soldier 4.1 – outsourcing marketing
Soldier 4.2 – outsourcing payroll
Soldier 4.3 – outsourcing sales
Soldier 4.4 – outsourcing logistics
Captain 3 – business outsourcing
Soldier 3.1 – outsourcing trends
Soldier 3.2 – strategic outsourcing
Soldier 3.3 – outsourcing examples
Soldier 3.4 – outsourcing contract
This is the order that we are going to work with this material from now on.
Selecting Your First Squad
After re-ordering the squads, you need to choose the first squad that you wish to work with. Strategically, I choose the second squad on my list. This is the easiest place to start to start linking keyword Captains and Soldiers.
Captain 2 – offshore outsourcing
Soldier 2.1 – offshoring vs outsourcing
Soldier 2.2 – outsourcing companies
Soldier 2.3 – advantages of outsourcing
Soldier 2.4 – effects of outsourcing
Secret Santa The Soldiers
The next step is kind of fun. If you have ever done a secret Santa, you know that you choose a name (but you cannot choose your own). This is essentially what we are going to do.
However, the added instructions to our keyword secret Santa is that you cannot choose a name within your squad neither.
For each Captain and Soldier, pick one keyword from each squad adjacent to it.
Captain 2 – offshore outsourcing (examples of outsourcing; outsourcing sales)
Soldier 2.1 – offshoring vs outsourcing (outsourcing definition; outsourcing payroll)
Soldier 2.2 – outsourcing companies (reason for outsourcing; outsourcing marketing)
Soldier 2.3 – advantages of outsourcing (what is business process outsourcing; outsourcing logistics)
Soldier 2.4 – effects of outsourcing (insourcing vs outsourcing; outsourcing employees)
Do this for all of the squads. At the end of this section every Captain and Soldier should have 2 secondary keywords. The next thing to do is boost this count.
Secondary Keyword Boost
It is not enough just to link to the keywords you have chosen. You also need to grab keywords that are not in your linking list. These keywords are not meant to link anywhere, but give some extra relevance to your page.
Remember the original list of 40 keywords? Use that list to add one more keyword to each of the Captains and Soldiers.
Captain 2 – offshore outsourcing (examples of outsourcing; outsourcing sales; fair collections and outsourcing)
Soldier 2.1 – offshoring vs outsourcing (outsourcing definition; outsourcing payroll; capital outsourcing)
Soldier 2.2 – outsourcing companies (reason for outsourcing; outsourcing marketing; examples of outsourcing companies)
Soldier 2.3 – advantages of outsourcing (what is business process outsourcing; outsourcing logistics; benefits of outsourcing)
Soldier 2.4 – effects of outsourcing (insourcing vs outsourcing; outsourcing employees; outsourcing management)
If done properly, each Captain and Soldier will have 3 secondary keywords to work with.
If you were so inclined, you could add more of the keywords from the list for each Captain and Soldier (as long as you remember these words are not for linking).
Organizing Your Keyword Strategy Battle Plans
Making keyword strategy plans is an incredible way of organizing your primary and secondary keywords. This has been the most efficient way I have found to take advantage of both the opportunities for linking and boosting page relevance. This will also make it easy to generate SEO titles.
This is the second phase completed. The next phase of keyword mapping is going to take even longer. I would really plan to spend quite a while on the next set of instructions. At this point, you’ll want to stop and take a break. Stretch!
If this was your project, how would you go about linking phrases? Please comment below.
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