Internal linking is a necessary part of any SEO strategy. It's one of the best ways to help Google understand your site's structure and can even help improve the overall user experience on your site. Internal Linking is what allows Google to index your content and rank it in search results. But you can't just throw up a set of links to every page on your site and stop for the day. You must understand how Google works and use internal linking to help them do their job.
What are internal links?
There are two types of links: internal and external. Internal links are hyperlinks within the same domain, while external links point to another website. So when we talk about internal link building, we're referring to building links between different pages of your website. This can increase the popularity and authority of those pages, as well as improve their placement in search results.
There are two kinds of internal links:
Anchor links: These are the links that you see in your content. They are usually written with a “click here” or “read more” type of language.
Hidden links: These are the links you don’t see in your content, but they still help with SEO. They can be keywords or URLs and they match the topic of your content. You can add them in code, images, or footer links.
Why do I need them?
When you create a piece of content, the single most important thing is that people find it. And one of the best ways to get found online is by using internal links to structure your web pages in such a way that they show up in search engines. These are known as ‘natural’ results because they’re produced by actual people who are browsing your site instead of being paid for by an AdWords campaign or similar.
Google finds content on your site best when it's linked to from somewhere else on the web. To make it easier for them to find you, you can create internal links between relevant posts and pages on your site. The more quality internal links you have pointing back at a piece of content, the more easily that content will rank in Google search results!
A well-planned internal linking strategy can boost your SEO and help you get better rankings over time - not only for page one but for all the other pages on your site as well. Today we're going to talk about why you should use internal linking for SEO, and how to do it right.
Internal vs external linking
Every website you've ever seen is made up of both internal and external links. Internal links connect pages on the same site, while external links connect your site to another website. Let's focus on internal links here.
Internal linking is important for SEO because it helps search engines understand exactly what your content is about. When people click on a link, they expect to be taken to a page that has something related to the page they came from. When they get there, they should be able to find out more information quickly, so they can decide whether it's worth reading the whole thing.
When you link between pages on your site, you create a path that lets Google know what your content is about based on the context of each page — this gives it much more information than if you simply put every piece of content onto one big blob of text with no structure or connectedness to other pieces of text. So internal links help search engines figure out what your content is about when someone searches for a specific topic.
Internal linking is the most neglected SEO tactic by far. Most people don't even know they have an internal linking strategy, and that’s why they suffer from low rankings, conversions, and sales. One of the best things you can do for your site is to set up a comprehensive internal linking strategy.
Let’s look at some examples of internal linking done right:
Structuring your website: The ideal structure of a website is a pyramid. On top of it is your homepage, below that you can have some sections or categories, and further down there are individual posts and pages.
To put simply, it can be beneficial if you have created an internal linking structure on your website like this:
Home Page – Category – Subcategory – Individual Post
With this structure, you can easily reach all the content on your website from (almost) every page. You just have to include the main categories in your menu, and you will be able to link to all your content from within each section.
Internal links that pass value: adding an internal link that passes as much value as possible from one page to another helps search engines determine the overall value of your site’s content and increases its ranking ability. Using no follow on all outbound links in your site’s footer is one way to strategically apply this technique while still providing value to users.
Add contextual links: Internal links are links from one page to another page or post of your site. They are also called contextual links or navigational links. You can use internal links for SEO purposes, and you should.
It all begins with the cornerstone article. A cornerstone article is a key article that you’ve written on a specific topic. Usually, the cornerstone article is the most complete and informative article about this topic on your site. That makes it the best page to link to when people search for that topic!
Anchor texts are also a particularly important part of contextual internal linking. When you’re linking between your posts, use an anchor text that makes sense to your reader. If the anchor text is descriptive, you can use the same anchor in multiple posts.
Anchor texts like “Read more” and “Continue reading” are a no-no because they don’t give your reader an idea of what they will find when they click on the link. Even though these links still work, they can hurt your SEO efforts if you use them too much.
Link hierarchical pages: You can use internal linking when you have hierarchical pages on your website, like an organizational chart or navigation tree. For example, if you have a product page and that product has a few different options, you can link directly from the product to its options and from the options back to the parent product. This creates an internal link structure that makes sense and helps users navigate easily through related pages.
The top-down approach is also extremely popular among website owners and bloggers because it allows them to showcase their content’s hierarchy on their homepage. For example, if your blog post has been published on your site as a permanent page, then you can link directly from your home page to this page so users will know exactly where they are going.
Linking To Related Post: When we link to related posts manually, we first ask ourselves a question: are the posts related?
We’re not as strict with this as our related post-module is. We don’t look for exact matches in terms of keywords, but we do make sure that the topic is similar, and that the post has been published within the last six months. If so, we place a link to it at the bottom of the article.
This is a straightforward way to let people who read the current article know about other content on your site.
Add links to taxonomies: When you add internal links to your taxonomies, the search engines will understand them as relevant keywords and will count them as such in their algorithms. As a result, you can be sure that your website will rank better on search engines.
All these factors should make the need for internal linking obvious. Make use of this feature to give your website the boost it needs and deserves! Managing your website and business can be a commanding task, you can hand over this task to the best SEO agency in Sydney.
