SEO Workflows using LinkMaps
There are core features of linkmaps that help to work within the system. Having a grasp on these basics means you can jump down to the bottom of this article for links to specific workflows.
Core Components
The LinkMap visualization represents your website's structure through two fundamental elements:
- Nodes: Square boxes representing individual webpages
- Edges: Lines connecting nodes, representing the links between pages
Visual Interpretation
Color Coding
Colors indicate relative metrics specific to your website on a scale from low to high, displayed as either:
- Blue to red spectrum
- Dark to bright intensity
These colors compare your pages against each other - not against external websites - providing internal benchmarks.
Navigation
Click on any node to view detailed information about that webpage Hover over a node to highlight all its connections:
- Outbound links appear wider and match the color of the hovered page
- Inbound links appear thinner and retain the color of their origin page
Spatial Relationships
The position of nodes conveys meaningful information:
- Proximity indicates content relevance. Pages positioned near each other share stronger topical relationships
- Hierarchy radiates outward from the homepage
- Child pages form semicircles or rings around their parent pages
- Pages in the same ring or arc are siblings, sharing the same parent
Understanding the Algorithm
The LinkMap's layout is generated through a proprietary algorithm that analyzes:
- Page content relevance
- Existing link structures
- Nearly a dozen additional page metrics
This creates a data-driven visualization unique to your website. As your site evolves with new content and links, the visualization adjusts while maintaining topical groupings.
Extracting Insights
The workflow pages will guide you through specific methods for interpreting the LinkMap to extract actionable insights - a process that transforms complex website relationships into visual patterns you can easily interpret. These insights would be nearly impossible to identify from traditional lists of links and metrics.
SEO Workflows
Identify underdeveloped topic areas and create strategic content plans
Internal Link Optimization Workflow
Discover and implement high-value linking opportunities between related content
Site Architecture Reorganization Workflow
Align your site structure with natural content relationships
SEO Performance Correlation Workflow
Connect visualization clusters with analytics to prioritize optimization efforts