At its core, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) relies on a thorough understanding of control: Strategic maneuvers in areas you can control affect your success in places you cannot – e.g. B. the latest search engine algorithm from Google.
One tactic can be to provide high quality, content-rich keywords and phrases that your customers are looking for.
The main goal of natural search engine optimization is to take measures to optimize the ranking factors and thus to influence your ranking on Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs).
There are, of course, many components of a successful SEO strategy, but real control over your results can be of paramount importance.
Fortunately, in addition to content creation, there is another powerful SEO technique that you can develop 100% in your favor: internal links. This is one of the most important and least understood SEO strategies a digital marketer can employ.
This article serves as a quick guide to building your internal link profile and will help you learn the strategies for link placement, the types of links you should include, and the numbers required to build a strong link profile thereby achieving better search engine optimization.
What are internal links and why are they so important?
Internal links, like any other link type, are a digital path to other online pages: External links connect to pages on another domain; Internal links connect the pages of your domain with one another.
Internal links help your human users and artificial crawlers from popular search engines to navigate your website and find the content they want to read or index.
Developing an effective internal link system and building a strong internal link profile serve a number of key purposes:
- It enables websites to be indexed. In order for Google and other search engines to rate your page and for human website visitors to click on your website, they must be able to find that page among billions of others. Providing external links to your page enables site crawlers to start indexing your site. Then they use internal links to discover new pages.
- This will make your website easier to navigate and your website’s performance. It’s easy for real people to go from page to page on your website by providing a reasonable internal link structure. By creating internal links, users get to relevant information as well as your sales or conversion pages.
- It helps spread expertise, authority, and trust. If you want to take advantage of search engine optimization opportunities, you need to develop quality content and drive traffic to your highest-converting pages, possibly by setting up backlinks from external sites with high expertise, authority and trust or EAT.
EAT performance is effectively spread across your website by alerting Google that other website owners consider your content or products to be extremely valuable, thereby increasing your potential page ranking.
Similarly, setting up an effective internal linking strategy will distribute your ranking performance across the individual pages of your website, increasing your chances of ranking higher on the SERPs for their content and driving traffic to where you need it most need.
These five SEO tactics will maximize your internal linkage performance
By building a solid internal link structure for your website, you can leverage the full power of your SEO strategies and thus increase your page rank.
How do you do this effectively? These five SEO tactics are a good place to start.
1. Provide links to relevant, valuable content
Although your menu hyperlinks and contact links are important internal links, the most valuable internal links that you can use are in your page content.
Linking your content tells your users that the linked content is high quality and important enough for them to view it as quickly as possible. The EAT of the content is also displayed to Google’s crawlers.
With that in mind, make sure the linked content is relevant to the current content to ensure that both human users and website crawlers see additional value while viewing it.
2. Use natural anchor text
By linking your best content to other valuable pages, you want your ranking to flow on your website. However, the focus of your readers is on your content and product or service offerings, not on the inner workings of your SEO. Making sure your anchor text flows seamlessly in your content will keep the user experience intact.
Adding relevant keywords that accurately describe the content of the anchor text links will indicate what both human users and crawlers can expect there and will boost your SEO in the process.
3. Link to (and from) important and popular sites
Although internal links embedded in the primary content of your page provide the most SEO benefit, you can use your page’s headers, page and footers to your advantage. Make sure your site menu is comprehensive and accurately reflects the hierarchy of your page. It should contain your most important pillar content.
Consider adding a footer or sidebar section that walks with the user through your website, pointing to your most popular or recent content. This is likely your most heavily trafficked content that carries the highest ranking.
4. Link to pages deep in your site structure
It is also important to route links to pages deeper in your site structure to ensure that crawlers and human users can access every corner of your website. As important as it is to promote easy access to important pages like your home page, contact page, and primary service pages, you probably already have prominent links provided in your site menu.
Take the time to link to more detailed, relevant content in new content you post. This will ensure that as much of your website as possible can be thoroughly indexed. A good rule of thumb is to provide enough internal links so that users can access any page within five clicks of your home page.
5. Use the correct number and type of links
Much analysis has been devoted to the optimal number of internal links on a website with average values between 75 and 100. While this number seems high, it includes all of the internal links in your page menu and in the content.
Unfortunately, pasting links in your content will seem like spam and can send users to other places. Worse still, an indiscriminate link can undercut your ranking performance and Google’s crawling budget (determined by the perceived value of your pages).
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By properly considering your internal linking strategy via the strategies outlined in this article, you can regain much-needed control over a factor that attracts user traffic and determines how your pages rank on Google’s SERPs. They also ensure that you are delivering the most useful and relevant content to your users. This encourages them to stay on your side and convert into paying customers.
The use of your ranking performance and the creation of a more robust internal link profile go hand in hand. If you pursue both through a comprehensive SEO strategy, you can generate lasting website traffic and therefore sales. .
Additional resources for internal linking
The Most Effective SEO Tactic
Effective link building for B2B marketers
The Most Effective Link Building Tactics According To SEO Pros
