Contextual links simply put are links within a paragraph of text that link to an authority on the subject.
For example if we were referring to the Google Algorithm we’d insert a contextual link citing the original Stanford paper written by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page.
Linking out to contextually relevant sites is important especially when citing research or stats. It provides credibility to your content.
Contextual links isn’t just about linking out, gaining contextual links from third party sites is extremely valuable from an SEO perspective.
For example if you are a recruitment agency and you release a salary insights on cyber security jobs, you’ll find that other sites will pick that up and link to you citing you as the source of the statistic.
If you are the authority on a subject-matter, then people will naturally link to you.