SEO Evolution

Google’s algorithm is consistently evolving to more accurately return search results, and award ranking placement. Each time an updated algorithm is launched like Penguin or Panda, SEO make the necessary resulting minor adjustments to their strategies to keep up with the new algorithms. These minor strategy alterations would be examples like altering title tags, or placing links at different locations on a page. As you can see, neither of these represents and “earth shattering” change to the standard SEO “best practices” that have proven true for years. Every once in a while however, there comes an algorithm change so significant that it threatens the longstanding SEO methods that are industry standard. From the looks of it, “Co-Citations” are one of these game-changing factors. 

“Co-Citations” vs.“Anchor Text”
Around March or April of 2012, many top SEO strategy sources started to notice a major change in the way sites were being ranked for competitive keyword phrases. What these SEO gurus noticed were several examples of websites ranking highly on the first page of Google for highly competitive keyword phrases. The interesting thing was, none of the pages that were returning as search results included any of the keyword phrases that they were returned for? So how can a website or page rank highly for a search term that they don’t optimize with keyword anchor text on their own site? The answer was “co-citations.” All of the sites that ranked highly for terms they weren’t optimizes for had a large quantity of co-citations across the web.
Remember, in this example there were hundreds of other sites that were competing for the same keywords, and were actively loading their sites with targeted keyword anchor text for the same competitive phrases. These sites that were actively practicing anchor text SEO best practices were ranking BELOW sites that had little to no keyword anchor text present. The only difference were the co-citations – that are obviously beginning to outweigh Anchor Text in terms of SEO value.

About “Co-Citations”

A co-citation is a literal mention of a company brand name or web address from an outside site; with relevant industry keywords included in the surrounding text. It’s important to remember that co-citations usually don’t include ANY LINKS at all! This is completely outside the standard offsite SEO value we’ve come to know and love. Take a look at this quick example of what a co-citation looks like :

• Co-Citation :

[BicycleReview.com (the Co-Citer)]
“…man, those guys over at Consumer Reports sure know a lot about bicycle brands…”
[Notice: there was no linking involved in this co-citation]
[ConsumerReports.com (the Co-Sited)]
[Their landing page doesn’t include a single mention of the keywords “bicycle brands”]

• Search Results :

The fact is, Google’s algorithms are truly getting much smarter than we’ve ever been used to. Google is not simply scanning a page’s HTML for outbound links – but actually reading text, and taking notice when another site’s brand is mentioned with relevant keyword phrases surrounding it. Building links and offsite link value are not completely gone by any means – but it’s important to start targeting some of your effort towards building offsite co-citations.

What Should You Do?

With respect to co-citations taking a leading role in site relevancy in Google, you truly don’t have to change your entire SEO strategy. You should definitely continue to work towards getting inbound links to your site with respect to link relevancy. The key here isn’t to attempt to “learn the trick” of something like co-citations, but to understand that Google is truly getting smarter and evolving the entire way that it looks at the web. Think of past algorithms as robots that were triggered by signals like links to assign rank value. Try and think about the current Google algorithm as a human being that’s looking for good quality content amongst the web, and assigning value based on the relevant citations a website gets in that content. Think about it: wouldn’t that be how you’d assign value to something if you were personally researching it?
This is why you need to actively be pursuing co-citation opportunities on a daily or weekly basis for your site. Of course this is going to be more difficult that simply link building where someone can jam your link way down on some random webpage. You have to get your name mentioned in at least one or two sentences of relevant keyword text.

Co-Citation Building Strategies :

Now that you have a brand new SEO battle to fight, take a look at just a few basic strategies that will get you co-citations fast :

1. Sponsored Product Reviews :
A simple way to get real, relevant content out on the web about your business is sponsored product reviews. For example, you offer a free mini pastry and ask someone to post a review on their site about it. If they post the review, they get two dozen pastries in a box! This is an easy way to get relevant real content out there in the form of co-citations.

2. Guest Posting :
A classic link building technique, guest posting works just as well for co-citations. If you’re truly crafty, you’ll find a way to work your business name into the article content with some relevant keywords. But even if that doesn’t work out, simply include your author byline at the end of the article with one of two of your keywords near your site brand name.

3. Professional Recommendations :
Similar to “link exchanges” of the past, a nice professional recommendation on a relevant non-competitor, yet industry related website will to a lot to build your co-citations. This is just one or two simple sentences vouching for your business or brand. These kind of honest statements will get the results both parties desire