For SEO backlinks (external linking) is very important. But do you know that internal linking is as important as external linking for your SEO strategy? But Many SEO practitioners are focused on building external links and neglect internal linking.
Internal linking has a great impact on SEO performance and other factors. Moreover, internal linking is not only important for SEO but also for enhancing the user experience.
So let’s understand What is Internal Linking and ways to optimize it.
What is Internal Linking?
An internal linking is a hyperlink on a webpage to another webpage within the same website or domain. Customers and Google use internal links to easily find content on your website.
Internal linking allows easy navigation of your website. It defines the hierarchy and architecture of your website. Besides this, internal links help in page authority and ranking.
Importance of Internal Linking for SEO
Internal linking really matters for SEO and the following points prove it
Internal Linking aids in understanding your site structure
A strong internal linking strategy helps search engines index pages of your site. It helps Google to discover appropriate content on your website. Internal linking also helps in evolving the contextual relationship between two pages.
Internal Link improves rankings
A well-organized internal linkings helps to pass authority which will improve the rankings of your website. If a page has the higher authority it will pass to all the internal linkings of that page.
Internal linking helps in easy navigation
Internal linking can improve the user experience of your website as the users can find content easily. It improves the UX of your website and all in all it enhances the search performance of the store.
7 Ways to Optimize Internal Linking for SEO
Now as you know the importance of internal linkings let’s take a closer look at ways to optimize internal linking to gain an SEO boost.
Create an ample amount of content
To have a lot of internal linkings, you need to have a lot of internal pages on your website. For this, you need to write tremendous content for your site, and for that, you need a solid content marketing strategy. Hence, internal linking and content marketing work parallelly.
Once you create a lot of content, you will have plenty of linkable content. The more internal links you add, the better the internal linking strategy. For internal linking you don’t need a plan, just add the link to a relevant place that matches your content flow.
Use the right anchor text
Using anchor text for internal linking uses natural sentence fragments to not make your link look spammy. Stay relevant with your internal linking while using anchor text. Find natural opportunities to place internal links without losing relevance.
Choosing the proper anchor text for internal linking instead of images. In case you want to link images, make sure you have written alt tags properly. Highlight the text, link it and you are done with internal linking using anchor text. If all links have the same anchor text, try to use diverse anchor texts to some extent.
Use deeper links
Deeper the link, the better it is. While practicing internal linking, you should avoid two mistakes.
- The first misstep is linking to the homepage. The homepage is the main page of your website which will have many links already. So instead of building links to the homepage, emphasize building links to internal pages of your website.
- The second mistake is linking to the contact us page. Linking to this page is not recommended until and unless necessary. As the homepage will have links to these significant pages of your website, focus on linking pages that are deep inside your website navigation structure.
Over and it is a good practice to avoid linking to the top pages of your website.
Use relevant and contextual links
User experience comes above all. Google will love you if your website content offers a better user experience.
If you add internal linking to any content, that means you are telling the user that the linked page is relevant to the content. Hence, use internal linking smartly and see that the page you are linking relates to the content.
Contextual and relevant internal linking will boost the ranking of your website and the user will find more information on a particular topic.
Use a moderate number of internal links
You do not need plenty of internal linking for a single piece of content. Use internal linkings depending on the length of your blog post. Also, keep in mind that the links are far from each other rather than close to each other.
Although there is no exact number of links that you can use, keep it moderate. Use internal linking that is useful for users. It is recommended to use 2-4 internal links per blog post.
Link high authority pages to new
Some pages in your website have high authority due to rich content or you have links pointing to them from other pages. You can take advantage of high authority pages for building internal links and improving rankings.
You can find high authority by using tools like Ahrefs and adding internal linking. You can pass the link equity to others by using internal linking.
Keep links in the beginning
Using links on the top of your article or blog post will increase the time spent on your website and reduce the bounce rate. When an internal link is placed at the beginning of the page, people will be engaged with your content. They will spend more time on your website.
Indeed you must put internal linking throughout your webpage. But keeping one or two at the top does not do any harm.
Final Say:
A strong internal linking strategy will have higher chances of ranking on Google. Follow the above-mentioned ways to practice internal linking for your website. An internal linking strategy will improve the SEO of your website. You can even go to your old posts and check whether it has enough internal linking.