When hiring an SEO specialist or company, they will focus on link building to improve your website’s search engine ranking. This involves getting authoritative and relevant websites to link back to your site, which signals to search engines that your site is trustworthy. However, internal linking, which is hyperlinks that point to another page on your site, is also crucial for SEO. By strategically linking pages and posts within your website, you can improve your website’s user experience, increase your website’s page views, and boost your search engine rankings.
Importance of Internal Linking
- Better User Experience: Internal linking can improve user experience by guiding readers through your content and giving them a chance to learn more about related topics on your site.
- Establishing Site Architecture: Search engines need to see content on a single page and access a link structure that is crawlable to list pages in their keyword-driven index. Internal links help spiders “browse” the pathways of a site and find all of the pages it contains.
- Link Value: Internal links are good for link equity, which is the flow of links throughout your site that increases its ranking potential. The link value is divided between all the links on a page, so linking from your homepage to a new blog post will give it more link value.
- Signaling Keyword Association: Every internal link uses anchor text, which provides context to search engines and users. When anchor text has contextual relevance, it can signal to search engines that your page should rank for a certain keyword, boosting relevance.
When doing internal link building, look for pages on your site that are ranking for related topics and link them with descriptive anchor text. It’s important to balance the number of internal links with user experience and to make sure link navigation is accessible to search engines. Internal linking can transfer ranking power from one page to another and ultimately improve your search engine ranking.
Best Practices For Effective Internal Linking
Internal linking is an essential aspect of SEO that helps search engines understand your website’s structure, content hierarchy, and relevant topics. A well-designed internal linking strategy can improve user experience, increase engagement, and boost your website’s SEO performance. Here are some tips and best practices for an effective internal linking strategy:
- Plan your website structure like a pyramid: Your homepage should be at the top, followed by categories and sections, and then posts and pages. This structure makes it easier for search engines and users to navigate your site.
- Identify your cornerstone content: This is your most important and comprehensive content. It should be linked to from multiple pages, including your homepage and other relevant pages.
- Use contextual links: When you write content about related topics, link them together. This will help users and search engines understand the relationships between different pages on your site.
- Add a related post section: Plugins make it easy to add a section to your content that shows related posts, which can help users discover more content and increase engagement.
- Link to your taxonomies: Your site’s taxonomies, such as tags and categories, help organize your content and improve navigation. Add internal links to relevant taxonomies to help search engines and users understand the structure of your site.
- Link to your newest or most popular posts: Add links to your most recent or popular posts in your sidebar or footer, so they appear on every page. This can improve engagement and help visitors discover more content.
- Use descriptive anchor text: Anchor text provides context to search engines and users about the linked page’s content. Use descriptive and relevant anchor text that accurately reflects the content on the linked page.
In conclusion, internal linking is an essential part of your website’s SEO strategy. By following these tips and best practices, you can create an effective internal linking structure that improves user experience, increases engagement, and boosts your website’s SEO performance.