For on-page SEO, different factors matter. There are various aspects that you must follow to optimize content. And internal links are one of those factors that matter. It is important for SEO success, yet it does not have the importance it should receive.
Most of the time, site owners forget about internal linking on their websites and focus more on the other aspects of on-page optimization. However, these small links can improve the keyword ranking positions of the web page.
Building links internally majorly impacts various areas of SEO performance. Internal links are important for crawlers to index properly, understand, and promote the content.
Internal links are nothing but hyperlinks that redirect you to another page on the same website. Unlike external links or outbound links, which point you to someplace on a different website, internal links keep you on the same page.
Internal links also help build the website architecture. Think of the website as a pyramid. Your homepage is at the top, and your internal linking profile creates the pyramid’s structure. With the help of internal links, you can reach your website in less than three clicks.
Internal links are practical ways of taking a visitor from one piece of content to another. However, they play an important role in the internal linking strategy. There are three main reasons why internal links are important to SEO.
When internal links are used strategically. You signal to your visitors that the page they are on is linked to another page. This helps the search engine understand the context of the page and how it is related to the other pages.
A good structure of internal linking helps the crawler and index the pages on the site. Just like Google mentions in its guide about search, “Some pages are known because Google has already crawled them before. Other pages are discovered when Google follows a link from a known page to a new page.”
Internal links help pass authority to other pages on the site. PageRank is one of the algorithms used to measure a webpage’s importance in ranking.
Internal linking is helpful and improves the user experience of the site by helping visitors find related content. For instance, if a person is reading an article about “on-page SEO,’ you can include internal links about the “best ways to optimize content.”
The motive is to keep the users on your site, so you get what you want. If you want them to purchase something or get feedback, this is the best way you can do this. Showing users useful and relevant content on the right pages is the best way.
You currently have various internal links on your website. You must know the difference between all of those, as they play an important role in the visitor’s journey.
The most important kind of internal link is the navigational link. These links live permanently on the main menu and also make up the site’s main navigational structure. They are often found on the sidebar or on top of the menu and cover the main content topics, categories, and services.
Like navigational links, footer links remain permanent as the user passes through different website pages. These links point to other important pages of the site, which could be useful for the user. Some common footer links are About Us, Contact Us, FAQs, and other reference pages.
Sidebar links are also a kind of navigational link that some sites use to direct users to relevant and popular content. These are quite common for websites with many recipes or news sites, as the user might not be looking for anything specific but just browsing from one page to another.
Contextual links are mostly placed in the body content of the page. These do not direct users to other navigational pages; they direct them to relevant content. These links are mostly placed in descriptive anchor texts.
Blogs often feature contextual links, pointing readers to relevant and related content therefore, helping Google understand how these pages relate to one another.
Internal links help Google understand, understand and index all pages of the site. When used strategically, internal links can send authority to other important pages. However, here are some tips and tricks that can help improve the process.
Google takes the anchor text as a signal to understand the context and the page you are linking to. For instance, when you use anchor texts like “the best restaurants in NYC,” it provides Google with a better context than some generic anchor texts like “NYC” or simply “click here.”
Anchor texts significantly impact on user experience. When a user comes across the link while reading content, a good anchor text helps them identify the context of the page they are being referred to.
As mentioned above, Internal links can be classified into various categories. They can be classified into navigational links and contextual links. Navigational links are consistent throughout all the pages.
However, contextual links are places with content that have similar trends or ideas. Even though navigational links help crawlers and users navigate the site, contextual links are more relevant and help Google understand the linked page.
In simple terms, placing too many internal links in content is also bad. This means the content is going to be over-optimized and every page will get less link juice. You must keep this in mind if you’re using internal links to boost the page’s PageRank scores.
It is good to audit the internal links regularly. This will help you determine whether your site has issues related to them such as internal links, like broken links, nofollow internal links, or excessive links to redirecting URLs.
This will also help you identify the website’s orphan pages, which may lack the potential of internal links. You can use some site audit tools to identify issues with internal links.
Find opportunities for internal linking and make this a part of your SEO strategy. Just look for the target keyword in your site and you will find the content that you can link with the current one.
Never use the same anchor text to link two different pages. This is going to get Google confused. For instance, if you have two different contents, one being “Five best restaurants in New York” and the other being “Cheapest restaurant in New York,” you cannot use “Restaurants in New York” to link both content.
When you put internal links at the beginning of the page it reduces the bounce rate and improves the Dwell Time. When users spend more time on the site, it tells Google that people love the site and its content. And this bumps the site up a few spots.
When the internal links are placed at the top, people find something to click right away. Which encourages them to spend more time on the website.
If you are thinking of sending PageRank around the site through internal links, you will have to use normal dofollow links. People sometimes use a plugin that automatically adds a nofollow tag to the external links. A setting or buf makes the internal links nofollow as well.
If you aim to get more traffic to the website and improve the user experience, you should never ignore the internal links. With a little planning and time, the internal links can help you with better ranking and Google’s index.
All these efforts will benefit the important stakeholders, the users, and help them discover more of the content you have on your website. However, ensure you are using too many internal links for one page, or it can over-optimize the content.
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A self-proclaimed Swiftian, Instagram-holic, and blogger, Subhasree eats, breathes, and sleeps pop culture. When she is not imagining dates with Iron Man on Stark Tower (yes, she has the biggest crush on RDJ, which she won’t admit), she can be seen tweeting about the latest trends. Always the first one to break viral news, Subhasree is addicted to social media, and leaves out no opportunity of blogging about the same. She is our go-to source for the latest algorithm updates and our resident editor.
