We recently conducted an internal link audit at Linkilo to help educate and optimize our growth marketing strategy. Our site has more than tripled in size in the last two years, thanks to the contributions of many freelancers and professional writers.
Unfortunately, executing a large-scale content marketing campaign without a centralized internal linking strategy had hampered the distribution of link authority across our site.
I strongly advise you to examine your internal linking structure to ensure that you aren't preventing a blog article from getting crawled or receiving "link juice." This is problematic not only from an SEO aspect, but also from a commercial perspective. Content that isn't properly connected may not achieve its full organic ranking potential — or be easily discovered by people.
Let's go through some of the best internal linking practices and why interlinking should still be a top priority for your SEO strategy.
Internal links: their purpose and advantages
Function
Your website will benefit from a sophisticated internal linking structure in terms of SEO and user experience (UX). The following are some of the most important features of internal link functionality:
- Provides access to online pages that were previously inaccessible to search engine spiders.
- Aids in the categorization of web pages based on the keyword used in the link's URL and anchor text.
- Provides additional options for users to interact with your site, which improves user navigation.
- To enhance user intent, anchor text keywords are used.
- The "link juice" is passed across online pages (a purported ranking factor).
- Site architecture is organized, and your most significant web pages are communicated to search engines.
- Aids promotional campaigns by highlighting or showing links prominently on a home page or adjacent to content.
Of course, there are some links that search engines are unable to understand. It's crucial to mention them so you don't use them incorrectly:
- Links in web pages that your robots.txt file says aren't allowed.
- In search bars or submission boxes, there are links.
- Embedded plugins, such as Java or Flash, have links.
- There are more than 150 links on a web page.
User experience (UX)
Interlinking is beneficial to your UX, even if the SEO value of internal connections is ignored. To suit user intent, a smart interlinking structure should have a working drop-down menu and navigation bar with links to relevant thematic content.
Clearly labeling each link stimulates more website interaction, which is also beneficial to SEO. Not only does this boost user dwell time and session length, but it also increases the likelihood of a user completing a desired conversion.
Imagine landing on a fantastic web page as a result of a referral traffic source and then trying to locate it a day later. Unfortunately, without optimal anchor text in the URL or deep links to properly index the website, direct traffic methods may be impossible to detect, which is irritating.
The authority of the link
Internal links, unlike backlinks, have no bearing on Google's algorithm. They do, however, increase the flow of backlink authority from one page to the next.
New blog posts are published with little authority or acknowledgment. You can rapidly transfer previously acquired authority to a web page by using a deep link from the home page or a cornerstone page. As a result, the content will be indexed faster and ranked higher.
Best techniques for linking structures
The structure of the website
Your internal connection structure should be in the shape of a pyramid. The top of the page is your home page. Cornerstone pages or category pages are directly beneath them, with deep links to relevant blog or product pages. Search engines will consider all pages within one link of the main page to be the most essential.
The idea is to cut down on the amount of links between a web page and the home page. Because it is the page that will receive the most backlinks, your home page is the most authoritative. Use the authority of your home page to distribute link juice throughout your site and position each web page to rank highly.
This brings us to the significance of menus and navigation bars. These advanced navigation tools will ensure that all web sites remain within two to three links of the home page as your website grows with blog entries, content, and resource pages.
Let's look at the different types of link placements and see which ones are best for our UX and SEO campaign.
Links to relevant content
Content is not only a great area to include internal links for indexing, but it also improves the user experience on our site. Including a link in a piece of content acts as a source of information and informs readers that they can stop reading and get more information “here.”
Content links that are bolded stand out from the rest of the content and entice users to click on them. Links to other relevant blog articles should ideally be included in blog postings. Relevancy is crucial since irrelevant links will detract from your user experience and create bounces.
Make sure your website doesn't have any broken links. If this is the case, redirect the links to the appropriate web sites. It's also critical that your web pages load quickly in order to provide a great user experience and avoid bounces. Ensure that any connected web page is no more than one click away from a conversion page and that a call to action is constantly visible.
Content links, according to some experts, are more useful than other navigational links, which brings up an interesting point about interlinking: What effect does having links on multiple pages have on my SEO, and what are the best practices?
Positions of hyperlink pages
“Position on a page for internal links is pretty much immaterial from our point of view,” says Google's John Mueller.
This isn't to say that the location of crucial internal links isn't important in terms of user experience. Your most significant internal connections should ideally be found on your home page, in the navigation bar, or in a drop-down menu.
It's not necessary to link back to your home page or contact page within content on lower authority pages. It doesn't pass "link juice," and it doesn't encourage a good user experience. It's advisable to just link to other relevant topics in this section.
Links in the footer and sidebar should point to relevant information or product sites. While having a link to a cornerstone page in your footer isn't always less beneficial than having it in the navigation bar, having a wide footer bar is generally a negative UX strategy.
Users will be more likely to connect with your website if you include links to relevant web pages at the end of articles or in a sidebar. This sends good user signals to Google, which may influence website and page rank indirectly.
Placing link tags or keyword tags on content that will signal to search engines the topic of that landing page is a terrific technique to help index your content.
User and site crawler navigation is considerably aided with breadcrumb links and an XML sitemap.
Relevance of the link
Relevance is a key component of Link-building 101 and Internal Linking 101. All anchor text should be optimized to match the title or topic of the landing page being linked to. Your website will be classified as spam if you use irrelevant anchor text on a link.
Make sure your anchor text structure includes keyword variations. Using the same anchor text for every link could be considered spam, and if used for multiple landing pages, it could lead to keyword cannibalism.
Make use of your keyword research and a link audit to find areas of content where relevant internal links might be added. For a piece of content, you should aim for at least three internal links – possibly more, depending on the word count.
Links that lead to a specific activity are called "call-to-action" links.
I can't stress enough how important it is to optimize your call to action (CTA) in order to increase your conversion rate. A call-to-action button should be large and prominent, and it should be tailored to each device. Make sure your CTA stands out against the background.
The placement of a CTA is critical, and I recommend placing one above the fold. QuickSprout frequently employs a slide-in CTA that generates a large number of conversions.
Finally, you want your CTA to appear on every page of your website so that users are never more than one or two clicks away from completing a conversion.
Nofollow links are links that are not followed.
Place a rel=”nofollow” property on your link tag if you don't want a search engine to count the link juice flowing through a specific web page. To avoid spam penalties, these are frequently utilized in links found in comments and user-generated material.
Unfortunately, this tag can have a knock-on effect, limiting the authority that flows via other pages that are directly connected to that page. Google clearly cautions against "pagerank sculpting," and the nofollow property should not be used on internal links in general.
Conclusion
When it comes to link building, we frequently overlook the UX and SEO benefits of creating our own internal link structure. While backlinks are still the crown jewels of SEO, their impact can be magnified by a clever internal link structure that distributes the riches throughout your site.
