The Connect application provides automated linking recommendations and strategy based on the topic entered. This will be the topic of your article, the same one you used to gather data in the other applications.
There are four tabs, each holding different types of anchor text/link suggestions:
Internal – Links to content within your site.
External – Links to content on other sites.
Network – Links to content on other sites within your control.
Competition – Links to content on competitive sites.
Network and competition sites are set up in the Main Settings of MarketMuse.
How MarketMuse Determines Its Suggestions
MarketMuse builds its topic model based on its analysis of thousands of web documents. It uses this model in Connect as well.
For Internal and Network suggestions, Connect finds pages about topics from higher up the topic list. It uses these as anchor text suggestions since they are the most relevant.
For competitive anchor text, Connect finds quality pages about topics from lower down the topic list. They’re still relevant to readers, yet are not directly in competition with the subject of the article.
Using Suggestions From Connect
MarketMuse does its best to match a page on your website with the suggested anchor text. For smaller sites, it’s a little more challenging because there are fewer pages from which it can choose. Likewise when there isn’t any related content. So, if you’re not seeing good internal suggestions, it could be because you need to create more closely related content.
You’re not expected to use all the anchor text suggestions in your content. It’s an editorial decision only you can make. There are two ways of incorporating links:
- Decide ahead of time, before you start writing, which ones you want to use.
- After you’ve finished, while editing your work, pick which anchor text/link suggestions to implement.
For each anchor text you decide to use, you’ll want to evaluate which (of the 10 maximum suggestions) is the best link. The URL’s underneath each anchor text are sorted by relevance, so most often the best choice is near the top.
How to Change the Network and Competitor Setting in Connect
Click on the gear (above the export button) to temporarily change the Competitor or Network sites. The changes will last until you refresh your web browser or sign out/back in again, after which they will return to the original settings.
Changes made here are only temporary. For permanent changes, click on the gear in the left navigation rail and select settings.