Linking to your content is essential in order for it to rank. Google finds your posts and pages best when they’re linked to elsewhere on the web. Internal links connect content and help Google understand where your site is organized on the web.
You can use them to provide the most important pages and posts on your site with greater link value than other less important ones.
So, using the right internal linking strategy can boost your SEO!
What are Internal Links?
An internal link is a hyperlink that connects one page of your website to another page on that site. Internal links are completely different from external links, which actually helps to link another site with yours.
Internal links differ from the inbound ones, as they link to your website but they are coming from some different website.
Links also guide search engines through your site. A page won’t be seen if it doesn’t have links.
Some Examples of Internal Links are:
Site Navigation
Navigating a website is primarily done through the main menus, which contain links to the website’s navigation menus. The links are known as the Main navigation or the site navigation links.
These links are very easy to find as they are available in almost every page of the website because one can navigate to very important pages of the website through these only.
Usually, navigation menus will include lengthy lists of links to the main pages of primary and secondary sections.
Now you can perceive why site links are so important, since they are a key element of navigation on the website.
Footer links
The links in the footer typically represent web pages that may be important, but less important than the main navigational links. The footer links are usually located at the end of every webpage of the entire website.
These are also very important types of internal links, because they lead the visitor to some of the most important and most frequently visited pages on the website.
Content Links
At the bottom of an article, related content links are usually displayed. These links suggest to visitors what content they may be interested in reading next.
In addition to making the post engaging and encouraging visitors to stay, these related content links also serve as a type of internal linking which makes it easy for the spiders to find the website.
Contextual Links
A contextual link is an embedded link in the main content of a page, linking to another page using anchor text (hyperlinked text) so that the link appears along with the main content.
They are extremely useful because they will increase engagement as well as act as a call to action for the related businesses.
Some Advantages of Internal Linking are:
● Helps in making the content of the website easily accessible
● Establish connection with the spiders to make it easy for them to search
● Help search engine to find more pages on the website
● Pass link value from one webpage to another
Easy access to Content
Links on the webpage allow the content to be accessed easily by the visitors because the visitors can simply click on the desired link to find the information they need. This type of link building in the webpage also creates a sense of curiosity in the visitors by enabling them to find deep information for themselves about the subject.
Makes it easy for the Web Crawlers to find your website
Building internal links to a website allows the spiders to easily read the patterns of the links which makes it simpler for them to find related content on the website. This is only possible when the internal linking is done well. By now we should have an idea about the utter importance of internal linking.
Increases the readability of website for the Search Engines
Google keeps coming up with new algorithms and its spiders are becoming more and more intelligent day by day, so now the marketing teams just have to do a little extra hard work in terms of SEO and internal linking cannot be neglected because it makes the crawling of your website easier.
Passing of link value across Web Pages
If a webpage has a high value, and it links to another webpage internally, Google’s PageRank algorithm passes some of its value to the page it links to.
Consequently, your chances of ranking higher in the Google SERP increase by a significant amount, and the PageRank algorithm increases the overall value of your website.
How to set up a good Strategy for Internal Linking
(1) Plan your website structure
The website structure is crucial as it actually creates a fixed hierarchy of the web pages in your site, which is helpful for internal linking. In a pyramidal or triangle like structure. The homepage should be at the top of the hierarchy, followed by the other pages.
(2) Create maximum links to your best content
You should segregate the normal content on your website from the best content on your website because the best content on your site should be presented to visitors wherever possible since it has a higher chance of generating revenue.
So the marketing department should create multiple links to that content through various means by putting it in the main navigation links, in the footer links or just embedded that link in the content itself.
(3) Try to link the hierarchical pages of the Website
Whenever possible, link parent pages to their child pages on your website and vice versa. Also make sure to link siblings to siblings, since they should all be connected on a well-organised site.
(4) Do not forget to add links of Related Post
By including a link in your related post section, your website has a greater chance of increasing its content search volume. There are so many plugins available nowadays in order to serve the purpose right but sorting the related post manually is the best practice in order to sort the best content for your related post section.
Ways to fix broken Internal links
You can fix broken internal links, unlike external links. A broken link refers to a link on your website that isn’t working, because it is experiencing one or more of the following issues:
· Page no longer exists
· An invalid URL in linked
· Linked webpage is removed
With tools such as Google Search Console or Ahrefs, you will be able to detect broken internal links on your own website or resolve them quickly before they affect your SEO and user experience. Broken links may result in higher bounce rates, decreased user trust, and lower conversion rates as they act as a “dead end” on your website.
1. Check for typos
The most common cause of broken internal links on websites is typos. Check to see if the 404 error is caused by a misspelling and fix it
2. Re-publish the page
In terms of SEO, this is one more way to fix broken links, especially if the missing page has backlinks pointing to it. Instead of recreating the page, just republish the old one so that you can maintain the authority of the page and prevent broken links from appearing on the website.
3. Redirects
It is a good idea to use 301 redirects to resolve broken internal links. Ideally, you will redirect to a page with relevant content, such as a blog or a category page. Redirecting broken internal links may take a bit of time, but it will keep the link juice flowing and thereby boost your SEO.
4. Delete the Broken Link
After you’ve exhausted all other options, you can simply delete the broken internal link. Do be aware that deleting the link will reduce page views, time spent on the site, and link value to relevant pages. We recommend doing this only if you don’t think the link is valuable.
Conclusion
Webmasters often overlook the importance of internal links. They either do not use any internal links or they treat them the same way as external links, which is the wrong approach.
A website that follows these above-mentioned best practices will only benefit from internal links and improve the user experience and make the website more usable.
You can always add internal links to an existing page of your website if this will help your users discover related content. So, consider internal links as a way to create your own web and don’t forget that you can always update an existing page of your website to add a couple of internal links.