To optimize our website for the top SERP results, we all strive to use the best techniques and methods. Sometimes, however we forget to use the fundamental but important practices that can help our website rank high in search engines. Internal linking, an on-page SEO technique is one of them. We’ll be discussing this today.
What is internal linking?
Internal linking It is a way of linking or connecting pages on your website. It sounds simple, right? It is important to make effective use of this technique. Many links are already on your website in the navigation panel and drop-down menus. This is a crucial SEO technique that leverages your on-page content for internal linking.
Below is the syntax used for the internal Mesh code
Why is internal linking important
Internal linking is primarily used by Google to index, discover, and understand your websites pages. This allows Google to create a website architecture for the search engine. Strategically, this can help you transfer link juice from higher authority pages to lower pages, which can lead to better rankings.
Google says it this way
“Google must constantly search for new pages and add them to its list of known pages. Google has crawled some pages before. Google will also discover other pages if it follows a link linking to a previously crawled page to a new one.
The user experience is improved by using internal links to navigate through similar topics within content. This allows the user to explore your website. It also reduces bounce rate and increases page views, which can help you improve your SEO rankings.
Pages that do not have internal links to them are known as orphan pages. If these pages are located several clicks from your homepage, the crawler might not be crawling these pages and indexing them. This is done in order to optimize your crawl budget. These pages may also be missed by users, which can have a negative impact on your search ranking.
Google has just released the following statement:
“The number and relative importance of a page’s internal links is a signal to search engines.”
Let’s now see how to create internal links. First, you will need to have some content that you can publish on the website. It is important to update your content regularly and offer new content frequently.
What are the best practices for internal linkage?
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Be descriptive by using keywords in your anchor text
Google and its users can use anchor text to help them understand the content of the page you are linking. Search engines may find it spammy if your anchor text is identical. To help Google understand the page’s relevance, it is a good idea to include keywords in sentence form.
Example: “How important is it to learn technical SEO” or “Implementing technical SEO can help you rank better on SERPs”. This will prevent you from using the “exact matching anchor text” technique that led to SEO penalties after the Penguin update.
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Link from a page that has high authority
Linking to your page via one of the top authority pages can give you some link juice or link equity and can sometimes help improve the rankings of other linked pages. Your homepage is an example page with high authority.
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Add links wherever possible to content
If the link would be of value to users, it should be added. The linked page must be related to the content being read. The user will leave if the link takes them to a page that is not relevant to their content.
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Maintain a minimum number of links per webpage
There is no standard way to indicate the number of links that should be placed on a page. This number could vary from one domain or another. Each page can only have a certain amount of authority. This authority is distributed among the pages. We recommend using between 75 and 100 internal links to a business website, and 200 to 200 links per page to an e-commerce site.
Add the internal links to the start of the content or at the top of your page. This will allow the user to click right away, increasing dwell time on your website. This tells Google users love the results. It can also be a great result to that keyword, which can lead to higher rankings.
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Link your high-traffic page to the most converting pages
Always try to link your pages with high traffic volumes to strong, compelling content. This is how SEO can also be used to generate income.
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Fix broken links
You should check your website for broken links and fix them as soon possible. This can happen if a page’s URL changes. Broken internal links can be detrimental to SEO.
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Link between your new article and your old article
Internal linking doesn’t mean linking to your old content. Your new content should be linked to from the old. This is because your old content is already ranking and indexed. This will give you some link equity for new and unranked content. It will also revive old content, and crawlers will attempt to re-index.
You can also see the video below to help improve your internal link strategy
What are the top mistakes to avoid when building internal connections?
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Use the same anchor text to link to different pages
Avoid linking to two different pages using the same anchor text. This will confuse the crawler and could impact your rankings.
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If they don’t make sense, don’t use keywords.
Avoid stuffing the keyword in the anchor text if it doesn’t feel right to you. These keywords can be added at the bottom of your page in the “Footlinks”, or “Related Links” section. This is another way to internal link. .
You can’t use a plugin or tool to do internal linking. This must be done manually in order to strategize. Additionally, automation can generate a lot more exact match anchor text, which can hinder your internal linking process.
Conclusion
Internal linking can boost your SEO performance. This technique is extremely beneficial and you shouldn’t miss it. Keep your user’s experience top of mind when using internal links. This will help you to build a strong internal architecture, which will result in increased SEO rankings.
Follow the guidelines and let us know what they did for you in the comments below.
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