Looking for the best internal linking strategy and internal linking best practices?
Your website probably contains several links to other pages, but do you know how important it is to get them right?.
We are going to share a little Pro secret with you. It is VERY IMPORTANT to place internal links throughout your website in order to optimise your search engine optimisation (SEO) and get it on page 1 of Google search results where all the clicks are (Over 95% of people will use a business listed on page 1 of Google!).
Your internal links should not be placed anywhere. Link to less-known pages of your website and share the equity from your most powerful pages. Google will reward you with a higher rank on the search engine result page (SERP).
An internal link is a hyperlink which directs site visitors to another web page, or an area of the same web page. Internal links, in other words, point to another page on the same site.
Now we all know that internal links are what take us from one page to another page on a same domain. Optimising internal links can improve the performance of your website in many ways.
These allow site visitors to easily navigate your website.
These help to create a hierarchy of information on your company’s website.
These help to spread link equity, also known as ranking power, across your site.
These three types are used most often in the main navigation on your firm’s site.
When it comes to the Best Internal Linking Strategy and Internal Linking Best Practices, what’s the difference between an external and internal link?
Simply put, internal linking is when your website links with another URL on the same website. External linking, on the other hand, is when your website links with a URL on another website. External links, on the other hand, are links that point to pages from other domains. In other words, internal linking is when your pages have links.
Link equity, also known as ‘link juice’, is a ranking factor for search engines based on the idea that certain links can pass on authority or value to one page.
There are many factors that influence the value of an equity link.
Google and other search engines use links that add equity to a site to determine a page’s rank in a specific SERP.
PageRank is a term that you’ve probably come across if you have done your own research on link equity.
Google’s initial algorithm calculation to determine the rank of a website is called PageRank. It was primarily based on its backlink profile.
But PageRank is not the only factor Google considers when determining where your site should appear on your targeted SERP.
Link equity is the transfer of one web page’s ranking power from one link to another. Let’s say a page with high authority includes a follow link to an article from a less authoritative site.
The linked page receives a confidence vote, which spreads authority from the larger site to the smaller site through the following link.
It is important to realize that both internal and externe links can create link equity. It is vital that your company has a link-building strategy.
How do you transfer link equity from one page to the next? These are the top four things to remember when spreading link equity across your site:
Is your link relevant? The link you link to may not be the most appropriate if it is linking to a page that tells the story of how your business was started. This type of internal linking is not recommended by Google.
In other words, irrelevant links are not of much value or authority when it comes down to SEO for your website.
Are search engine bots able to crawl your link? Google’s crawlers will not be able to crawl your site if it is blocked by crawlers using the robots.txt files.
When it comes to the Best Internal Linking Strategy and Internal Linking Best Practices, take into account where your link is located. Your link in a sidebar won’t have the same weight as the one in the main content of your page.
Google uses your website architecture to determine what content is most useful for site visitors. This allows you to see where a link is located using a user experience.
Consider what your website visitor is looking for when they land on your site. How can the links on your page help them reach their goal?
Take into account how many links are on each page. We would love to be able to give an optimal number of pages with links. Unfortunately, there isn’t an established rule.
Your link should not be lost amongst the rest. The likelihood that a visitor will find and click on your link is lower if there are more links.
Six types of links are possible and appropriate for your company to use on your website:
1. Navigation links
2. Contextual Links
3. Anchor text links
4. Images
5. Footer links
6. Taxonomy, categorical links.
The navigation link is by far the most popular internal link. This link is used to organize your website and help the user navigate through your content. Most likely, each page on your website contains at least one navigation link.
Contextual links are embedded in the content of your web pages. They direct site visitors to other pages on your website.
Anchor text links are words and phrases in your content that contain a hyperlink to another page, a different section of your website, or an entirely distinct website. Anchor text is usually in blue, and may also include an underline.
Optimising your anchor text can boost your SEO strategy. To help you, we have created a step-by–step guide for optimising anchor text.
Images can and should be used to link to internal pages when it makes sense. Images that can be used as internal links include graphs, charts and infographics. This link will allow your visitors to search for additional information about the image and improve the user experience on your website.
Your website’s footer links are located at the bottom of every page. They can be used to enhance the user experience. The footer of a website often includes contact information, social media widgets, and intelligent search functionality. This allows site visitors to quickly find what they are looking for on your site.
Categorical and taxonomy links link to relevant topics, such as blog posts or related articles, making it easy for site visitors find all the content on your website. These links are essential for sites that have a lot of content and more than average resource sections.
As we have stated in the article, there are no strict guidelines on how many pages should contain internal links.
Google previously stated that they could crawl at most 100 links per web page. Google now indicates they can crawl more links, but webmaster guidelines recommend that less than three thousand be crawled.
When it comes to the Best Internal Linking Strategy and Internal Linking Best Practices, we recommend keeping the number of pages with links to a reasonable level for each page. If possible, keep it below 100. This will ensure that you strike the right balance between user experience and SEO optimisation. First and foremost, ensure that all links you provide are useful to site visitors.
If used correctly, internal linking can be very helpful to your website’s SEO. Our best practices for spreading link equity on your website will help you improve your ranking in Google’s SERP.
You will outperform 95% of your competition by focusing on the relevancy of your links, their crawlability, where they are located, and the number of links per page.
CONTACT US if you would like us to help you with your internal linking and get your website on page 1 of Google.
We hope you found Best Internal Linking Strategy – Internal Linking Best Practices helpful and make sure to check out our next post.
You can also find more SEO Tips like this by checking out our last Blog post: How To Rank A Website On Google Without Writing Content.
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