Search engines often show Wikipedia results on page one of search results. Because the pages are so visible online, it makes using Wikipedia extremely attractive to search engine optimizers.
Wikipedia pages help with SEO because they rank consistently high in the SERPs. It’s no wonder SEOs want to capitalize on them when possible, especially since most searchers don’t click past page one of Google.
Wikipedia articles provide users with tons of useful information from a neutral point of view, making them great options for SEO strategy and content marketing. If you’d like to find out how to use Wikipedia in your SEO strategy, keep reading.
Does a Wikipedia Page Help SEO?
Whether or not having a Wikipedia page will help your SEO efforts is up for debate, especially when it comes to link building. Most external links from Wikipedia are nofollow links, which means that they indicate to web pages crawlers not to pass any SEO value to the websites they link to.
A high profile Wikipedia entry that mentions your keywords, client, or company is surely going to help improve SEO performance and rank higher in Google Search. The kicker is, many (if not all) of the links are nofollow that Wikipedia uses. This means that your client or company will likely see an increase in traffic if mentioned on Wikipedia, but your specific keywords mentioned in the entry might not have a change in ranking.
Using Wikipedia for SEO
If you don’t already have your own Wikipedia page, then you can suggest Wikipedia editors use your edits by creating a user page and submitting your suggestions via the “talk page” at the upper right portion of the page.
An edited Wikipedia page that shows your desired keywords and links is great for increasing search traffic and visibility to your site. The article will give users accurate background information and useful advice from an authoritative source, both of which Google weighs heavily when it comes to ranking signals.
Wikipedia Backlinks for SEO
Another way to use Wikipedia to help with SEO is to get backlinks, or links from other websites. Backlinking is one of the more crucial elements of off-page SEO work. A lot of digital marketers want to know, “do Wikipedia backlinks help SEO efforts?” And the truth is, it depends.
Wikipedia provides a “no-follow” backlink, which means the link discredits your website from any direct influence in keyword rankings. Google Search expert John Mueller has blatantly said that nofollow backlinks earned from Wikipedia will not increase your page rank, however, having a good amount of high-quality links over time will certainly help your backlink profile.
Consider looking for [dead link] or [citation needed] link opportunities on Wikipedia and add content as a reference. This is a great strategy to improve SEO using Wikipedia. Not only does this help your own website with SEO, but it also helps Wikipedia pages provide reliable sources for topics.
In short, it’s best not to rely on backlinks from Wikipedia as your only method of backlinking, but it is nice to have those links if possible for you, your client, or your business.
Wikipedia for Content Marketing
Another topic that often gets overlooked is using Wikipedia for bolstering your content marketing strategy alongside your SEO efforts. Wikipedia often uses links within articles as reference material for further reading, which means additional related information to the topic at hand.
This is a great opportunity to learn what other questions your audience has around your keywords, and to see if you can answer those questions through additional content. Taking the time to research why your audience is using Wikipedia and what they’re searching for will give you a leg up when planning your content calendar.
Aim to provide your readers with additional information, answer questions, and include any experts that can help back up your content with authoritative advice.
Closing
There are several ways to use Wikipedia for SEO. If your marketing team is considering using Wikipedia to help supplement your SEO strategy, it’s best to talk to the professionals. Speaking to Wikipedia experts who know the ins and outs of the online reference library can help you get the results you’re looking for in a reasonable amount of time.
Wiki experts can help you with all things Wikipedia page creation, Wikipedia page deletion, libel and privacy invasion, and more. Check out our other articles for more information on utilizing Wikipedia!