To rank your site content to rank, you require to include links.
Very often we view websites spending a lot of time concentrating on forming backlinks that make them forgo their internal linking tactic.
Do not get us wrong as getting links from various other sites is important in regard to your SEO value even.
However, with this said, towards the end, you technically do not have much control over what is going on another site. This is definitely not the situation in the case of internal linking.
In the situation of internal linking, you and just you have overall control over all your internal links.
Let us cover the basics first. What is internal linking? These are nothing but links that attach 2 web pages on similar domains. Internal linking has various distinct purposes and advantages.
Firstly, because the users can navigate through the website. For instance, how do you get from your website’s home page to your about us and contact page? It is all through internal linking.
Internal links assist in establishing a hierarchy for your site’s architecture. They disseminate the ranking power & web page authority around your site.
On a base level, internal linking is entirely a simple concept. But only because one has internal links on their website, it does not automatically infer that they will get the advantage of higher search ranking & website traffic. This is the reason why we have created this guide.
Here, we will explain proper measures to apply to the internal links on websites from the viewpoint of SEO or Search Engine Optimization.
Definition of website structure
Content and web pages on your website require having a hierarchy that is logical. Else, you will end up with multiple unrelated pages in Google’s eyes.
When the search engines rank the sites, Google’s crawlers utilize website architecture to understand how crucial webpages are context-wise to know their relevancy.
The higher the number of clicks it takes for getting from the homepage to other pages on your website, the less powerful the webpage will be.
Thus, you require using internal links for creating shallow depth, which means you want only 1 to 2 clicks for navigating anywhere on your website.
Keep producing the content
Once you have optimized your site structure, you cannot sit and relax. You require continuing with the process of creating high-quality content regularly.
Through a higher number of contents, you get to add more linkable assets to your website.
It makes it simpler for you to place in as many links as possible and then build such links at a scale. Doing so ameliorates your entire internal linking tactic.
Thus, what kinds of content should you produce? There are various options that you must factor in:
- Videos
- Blogs
- Photos
- How to guides
- Tutorials
- Infographics
These are only a few options that you may factor in. Have a look at the advantages of creating more content for using the internal links from a technical point of view.
Those pages with a lot of internal links are usually scrawled on a frequent basis. It endows your content with a higher chance of getting ranked.
As per the research, a webpage having 200 do-follow links from various sources on the same domain is about twelve times more probable to get crawled than those pages with no internal links.
However, if you have just fifty content web pages on your website, you will never accomplish this at scale.
Content as known is the king, and will always continue being so as strong content acts as a driving force for all SEO tactics.
As per data, 66 percent of the bloggers publish content at least numerous times every month.
Out of this about 66%, only 2% are publishing regularly and about an additional 2% usually post more daily.
To get the benefit, one would require publishing frequency so as to get closer towards the spectrum’s end.
However, ensure in this process your quality does not get compromised when your quantity increases.
Utilize relevant contextual links
Google’s algorithm is highly advanced as it can recognize the relevancy among content pages.
Thus, you cannot just include any random internal links to pages on your website and expect that it will get your work done.
For instance, let us suppose you are running a site, which deals with extreme sports & thrill-seeking tasks.
You have received a blog post regarding skydiving and the next blog post regarding mountain biking.
Do you think both the pages should be linked? The connection between both the topics is irrelevant and adding links contextually will become challenging.
In place, you can have internal links to post regarding how to transport the mountain bike in the guide on mountain biking safety norms. Relevancy between them is way higher.
Deep dive
One of the most common errors that we find that sites make every time is the link wrong web pages.
For instance, let us suppose you have an extremely comprehensive guide based on a particular topic.
This guide should not have any internal link to your home page. Homepage already comes with higher page authority.
Additionally, that link does not really add any value to the target audience and Google knows it very well.
In place of you, focus on taking crucial measures for ameliorating the strength of your internal page that is deeper in your website. It will actually ameliorate your site’s whole SEO value.
Look for creating pillar pages
The concept of having pillar pages is a present way of thinking in regard to internal linking. It often refers to different things such as silos, pillars, or even topic clusters.
No matter what you address it by, all of them are similar concepts. Pillar pages actually double downs in reference to the concept of having relevant links that we discussed before.