I won’t be wrong to say that your business can’t thrive online without a solid SEO plan, as it’s the only way to make your website more visible online and attract more leads. But Developing an SEO strategy for your business online is not a simple job. It requires extensive studies and proper use of techniques. SEO also involves many fine details that should never be ignored if you want favorable results out of your SEO plan. One such SEO technique is internal linking.
Internal linking usually doesn’t get the attention it requires. As a result, its potential is often underestimated while developing an SEO plan. When internal linking can make a significant difference in your search engine ranking, and emphasizing it can get you better outcomes. We will talk about all the strategies and techniques through which you can strengthen your internal linking and up your SEO game in 2022. But first, let us analyze why it is crucial for SEO and how it can benefit your business online.
What is Internal Linking in SEO?
Let me explain internal linking to you in a pretty simple way. It refers to linking one page of your website to another page. But why do we need to do that? Why is it so essential to internally link your website pages? Well, it’s crucial both from the perspective of the search engine and your website user.
Internal linking makes it simpler for search engines and your users to find content on your website. Users can jump from one page of your website swiftly through internal links. It makes navigating through your website relatively more straightforward for them.
On the other hand, the search engine also gets the idea of your website’s structure through internal linking. It helps the search engine to explore new content on your website. That was the basic idea of internal linking. Now, let’s see why it is essential to boost your SEO.
Why is Internal Linking so value-able?
It has many positive aspects that are often overlooked by many. But in my opinion, strengthening your internal linking web can produce some refreshing results for your business online. Here are some crucial pointers that will make you comprehend why internal linking is so valuable:
Firstly, the most advantageous attribute of internal linking is its capability to distribute page rank. It helps in maintaining ranking power around the website. A page with a higher Page rank can help improve the rank of other pages linked to it by spreading link juice to those pages.
Relevant internal linking can improve your website’s conversion rate. Users tend to read more content on your website if they find the links relevant. Therefore, it will create a boom in your page views.
An intelligent internal linking architecture can act as a perfect map for google bots. They can visit your website, follow the internal linking map, and visit the deeper pages that aren’t usually explored. It can help the search engine to index your website more effectively.
Tips for implementing internal linking more effectively.
So it’s decided that internal linking is crucial to boost your on-page SEO. But now, the questions are how to do internal linking? How can you improve your internal linking network? And how can you utilize it for boosting your business? Well, to answer these questions, we will discuss some simple yet powerful strategies here through which you can strengthen your internal linking architecture. So let us have a look at them:
Link within the main content
Linking in the main content or the primary content can be highly advantageous for you as these content-rich web pages are usually the most visited pages of your website. As a result, users tend to click and follow the links on these pages more often. In return, the search engine will give more weightage to such links.
Add Links within the Site Navigation
Website navigation has a significant impact on your conversion rate as it allows the user of your website to jump from one page to another relevant page without any difficulty. If your site navigation is up to the mark, we guarantee that your customers will leave happy and visit back soon.
The “header navigations” are present right on top of every page and have introductory information. Internal linking in header navigation will give users some extra advantage to surf through your website more swiftly. It can help significantly pass the rank juice and ultimately impact your page rank positively.
The footer nav might not seem as important as the header due to its placement, but using links in the footer nav can also impact. Google also values the links in footer navigation as they are present on every page. So using links in the footer nav can never go wrong.
Internal Link to your Most Valuable Content
Another excellent practice in internal linking is to link the page that gets the most traffic to the pages that bring you the most business. Usually, the pages supposed to bring you more business are seldom visited. It is because of their commercial properties. But you can easily divert the user flow to such pages by simply linking them to main content pages.
Utilize Breadcrumbs Logically
Breadcrumb is a form of internal linking whose significance is ignored by many. But Google is greatly emphasizing the importance of breadcrumbs. So how can you miss them? Breadcrumbs trails are usually shown at the top of the page. They help in navigating through the website. For example, it indicates a path to go to the home page from the page the user is on. Breadcrumbs are significant for both users and search engines. For example, Google uses them to get a clearer idea of your website’s architecture.
Utilize contextually Relevant Anchor Text to establish topical Relevance
Search engines get the idea of the context of a link through its surrounding content and especially the anchor text. Which makes them both very crucial factors to a better ranking. Endure that your anchor text has the following things:
- It should be super relevant to the link
- Should be descriptive
- It must have your important keywords
- It shouldn’t seem unnatural
Using stereotypical anchor text like “click here,” etc. doesn’t indicate the search engine about the link context; thus, they have no or minimal credibility from Google’s point of view.
Why is Regular Internal links Audit Important?
These were some pretty helpful tips on making your internal linking network up to the mark to get the best out of it. But that’s not it. Constantly checking your linking network is also super essential. Here is why you need to audit your internal links regularly:
- An efficient and effective internal linking web allows the users and the search engine to have the best experience. Any technical errors can lead to frustration among users, and you can also lose search engine’s credibility
- Technical mistakes in internal linking can make you lose rank equity for some pages. For instance, if your link is connected to a page showing a 404 error, a certain amount of your page rank is wasted. And you certainly don’t want that. It is why a regular internal linking audit is mandatory.
- Auditing your internal linking network helps you identify the underlying problems like broken or bad links. These problems can negatively impact page rank. It is why it’s essential to identify these problems and fix them regularly.
- Your website’s conversion rate is somehow linked to your internal linking. If your content is not appropriately linked to the other relevant content on your website, you might be at risk of losing users’ interest. And hence it can elevate your bounce rate. Regular audits can help keep the Relevance of the links in check to provide a better experience to your users.
Final Thoughts
It was all about internal linking. After reading this, we are sure that you can fully comprehend how extremely crucial internal linking is for your website. It provides a better user experience and helps visitors navigate your site more efficiently. It also assists the search engine in understanding the structure of your website. It is why you must up your internal linking game. By making slight improvements in your linking architecture and regularly auditing it, you can achieve excellent outcomes for your website’s ranking.
