Exploring possibilities on how to get backlinks from Wikipedia can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your SEO and content marketing endeavours by generating valuable inbound links.
Strategies for Building Wikipedia Backlinks
In essence, here’s the deal: By actively contributing to Wikipedia, you can earn a backlink to your website, leveraging the strength of one of the most influential domains on the internet. Not only does this gives you an opportunity to find your expertise with a global audience, but it also offers low-cost brand awareness and minimal risk.
Of course, it’s more complex than it sounds, and certain conditions must be met. However, you can acquire a few valuable backlinks with minimal effort with the right approach. Furthermore, this technique is accessible to almost any busy website owner, requiring only a few focused sessions. At Jack & Bean, we have prepared a comprehensive guide to help you navigate this process. Below is a general outline and plan to uncover your best opportunities for generating Wikipedia backlinks.
- Identifying Content Opportunities in Your Existing Assets
To begin, creating an inventory of your existing content is essential. Google Sheets can serve as an excellent tool for this purpose. By conducting a comprehensive crawl of your domain, make a list of the important content you have and the topics they cover.
Assessing Individual Pages
When evaluating individual Wikipedia pages, there are four key aspects to consider:
- Overall Quality: Examine the structure, organization, and composition of the article as a whole, and make note of your observations.
- Completeness: Determine if the article appears to be finished or incomplete, as if someone has started writing but has yet to return to complete it.
- Comprehensiveness: Assess whether the article covers all significant aspects related to the topic and if it provides up-to-date information.
- The Superiority of Your Content: Ask yourself if your content is more current, appealing, and relevant than any page source.
Once you have thoroughly assessed the condition of the page(s) relevant to your topic, take detailed notes to document your findings.
Selecting the Most Appealing Pages
Once you have comprehensive notes for each topic you initially chose, it’s time to evaluate and compare them against each other.
If you can access professional SEO tools, now is an opportune moment to utilize them. These tools can assist you in identifying Wikipedia pages that attract the highest traffic, exhibit significant SEO overlap, and align closely with the search intent of your target audience.
Additionally, it would help if you are thinking of impacting the Wikipedia content substantially. For example, merely adding a single line to an already “complete” article and including a citation link will likely result in your edit being rejected. To increase the likelihood of your amendment being accepted through a Wikipedia peer review, focus on providing high-quality content that enhances the existing article.
Remember, the more added value you bring to your edit, the greater the chance it will be retained in the Wikipedia article.
- Updating and Repairing the Targeted Wikipedia Page
In addition to adding your content to the Wikipedia page, addressing any spelling or grammar errors you encounter during the process is crucial.
Once your content is incorporated into the page, it presents an opportunity to assess and reorganize the article to ensure a logical and coherent flow. Individual edits or entries are frequently made without considering the overall composition of the article.
Revamping an outdated article provides an excellent chance to obtain a citation backlink, even if your source material doesn’t introduce new knowledge to the article.
Look for opportunities to include internal links to related pages you edited. With some creative planning, you can establish a network of related articles linking to various source pages within your website’s domain.
How to Edit a Wikipedia Page
Editing a Wikipedia page can be done through two different editors available. The first option is the new and user-friendly visual editor, while the second option involves using the classic Wikitext markup. Each editor has its advantages: the markup editor can be faster and more efficient once you become familiar with it, while the visual editor is more user-friendly, especially for those new to editing. For beginners, we recommend starting with the visual editor.
Register an account with Wikipedia and log in to use the visual editor. Afterward, navigate to your preferences and select the visual editor as your preferred editing method. While it’s not mandatory to register an account to make edits, choosing to edit anonymously will limit your permissions and available features. Registering an account allows you to access additional editing capabilities.
Remember that while there are no rigid, official guidelines for conduct on Wikipedia, adhering to the general style and tone of Wikipedia’s content is essential. In addition, you want your article to integrate with the rest of the site seamlessly. In this aspect of marketing, standing out is not necessarily desirable.
- Adding a Link to Your Content for Updated References
After completing the edits on Wikipedia, the crucial final step is to update the citation at the bottom of the page, ensuring compliance with Wikipedia’s citation standards. It’s important to note that Wikipedia maintains a strict verifiability policy. Even a tiny mistake in this final stage can result in the full edit being overturned or outright rejected without delay. Therefore, exercise the utmost care and attention to detail when handling the citation to ensure a successful and accepted edit.
Diving into Wikipedia’s Citation Guidelines
Wikipedia employs inline citations as a standard practice, necessitating the citation of any information that is either contested or has the potential to be challenged. Additionally, all quotations must be accompanied by citations. These citation guidelines apply across the entirety of Wikipedia’s article space.
When editing a Wikipedia page, please summarize minor edits in the designated field below the edit box. This area also contains important options such as “Show preview,” “Show changes,” the critical “Publish changes” button, and the “Cancel” option.
Creating a Citation within Your Wikipedia Article
Adding a citation or reference to your Wikipedia article can be done at any stage of the editing process. The easiest method is to use the “site” drop-down menu. If you are using markup (wikitext, wiki code, or wiki markup), you have the option to use the “<ref>” tag or the “{{Reflist}}” template.
Once you’ve added the citation, footnotes should automatically appear in the corresponding section heading. These footnote markers in the body of the text serve as clickable links to the relevant footnote. In the footnote, you should include the backlink to the source material you selected at the beginning of the editing process.
By following this approach, you can seamlessly integrate citations into your Wikipedia article, ensuring proper referencing and providing readers with easy access to the supporting sources.
- Regularly Assess Your Content
Just like any other aspect of the online world, even the most timeless content requires periodic evaluation. Typically, high-quality content remains relevant for several years, if not longer. However, as part of a comprehensive SEO link-building campaign, it is crucial to periodically review your content to ensure it hasn’t gradually lost its popularity due to neglect of backlinks.
Over time, your Wikipedia backlink can be replaced by a competitor or unintentionally altered through an edit. In such cases, you must investigate using the steps you initially took to secure the link. Before overwriting the edit, ensure that your content still surpasses the quality of the new link. Exercise caution during this process, as being perceived as problematic can result in being locked out of editing a page.
By regularly reassessing your content and taking proactive measures to maintain the strength of your backlinks, you can ensure the longevity and effectiveness of your SEO efforts.
Leverage Wikipedia Backlink Potential to Prioritize Future Content
One effective strategy is to leverage the potential of Wikipedia backlinks while exploring related pages within your niche. It is common to come across Wikipedia pages that could benefit from improvements, even if you need content directly related to them.
This is where having a well-defined plan for upcoming content becomes valuable. First, you can take note of these pages and incorporate them into your organic content roadmap. Then, knowing that you have a guaranteed backlink opportunity, you can adjust the priority of the related upcoming content slightly higher.
By strategically aligning your content roadmap with Wikipedia backlink opportunities, you can optimize your efforts and ensure that you capitalize on these valuable link-building prospects.
Leverage Broken Wikipedia Backlinks to Enhance Your Content
While exploring Wikipedia for content opportunities, you might encounter broken or “dead” hyperlinks. Although such instances are relatively rare since there isn’t a centralized entity responsible for tracking all links on the site, they can still occur.
It is quite common for websites to undergo content restructuring without updating their incoming links. As a result, the Wikipedia link may lead to a redirect or, in some cases, a broken destination. It’s important to note that link rot is often identified and corrected promptly by vigilant users within Wikipedia’s frequently visited pages. Typically, these corrections will direct users to the first non-Wikipedia result in a search engine, emphasizing the importance of consistently producing high-quality organic content.
By leveraging broken Wikipedia backlinks, you can seize an opportunity to enhance your content. In addition, identifying and rectifying these broken links can help redirect traffic to your website, establishing your content as a valuable resource.
Conclusion
While Wikipedia holds significant domain authority and greatly influences users’ daily browsing experiences, relying on something other than this technique is essential. Incorporating this strategy alongside other SEO efforts will yield the best results for your time investment. While it can be beneficial to quickly check for easy Wikipedia backlinks during spare moments, expecting significant returns beyond that may prove less fruitful.
Consider Wikipedia backlinks as discovering a quarter on the sidewalk. You can’t simply take money from someone’s pocket, nor can you expect to amass significant wealth from a few dollars you find lying around. If you can assist in implementing this approach, explore our monthly SEO packages and let our industry experts handle the task effectively.
By combining various SEO strategies and incorporating Wikipedia backlinks as part of a comprehensive approach, you can maximize the effect of your efforts and achieve long-term success in improving your online visibility.
