Internal linking for SEO: Do’s and Don’ts
Internal linking for SEO is an important concept to grasp when you’re interested in improving your search engine optimization (SEO). As the name suggests, internal linking allows you to link together various pages on your site, giving readers more options and making it easier for search engines to track how relevant your site’s information is.
Here are some tips on how to use internal linking to improve your SEO in the long term.
In addition, the increase in external links does not affect the User Experience.
In this blog post, we are going to go over what links from the pages of your website to the other pages on your website. This blog post will go over what external links and what type of internal links to build on your website for your optimization efforts.
➤ What Is Internal Linking In SEO? The Definitions, Characteristics, And A Comparison
➤ Guidelines for Choosing a Good Internal Linking Strategy: Dos and Don’ts
What Is Internal Linking In SEO? The Definitions, Characteristics, And A Comparison
A combination of internal linking and SEO can boost the ranking of your posts and pages in search results. This effect is similar to that of external links on destination pages. How do the two differ?
Internal Links vs. External Links
External links help improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages by passing the PageRank algorithm.
The same is not true of internal links, since search engines value what others say about you more than what you say about yourself.
However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use them. Take a look at the way you can control the placement of links. Internal linking provides you with opportunities to link to your most popular pages and passes on link value, link equity, or link juice to your site’s secondary, closely related pages.
Use internal links to direct the search engine to your important pages so that it can crawl through them more easily. Internal links will increase your search ranking potential.
As such, here are some things you may want to keep in mind to accomplish this goal:
1. Define Your Site Structure
Ideally, your site will follow a pyramidal hierarchy (Yoast 2020) of the home page at the top, followed by category pages, subcategories, and individual pages.
You should make sure that many of your internal links point back to your homepage, and that your homepage links to your high-level/category pages. By providing a logical path for search engine crawlers, it makes it easier for users to navigate your site.
2. Leverage Navigational Links
From your homepage, users and search engines should be able to find links to all important sections and pages. In addition to the header and footer, these links can also be found in prominent areas, like the banner area below.
With this navigation system, the road is very clear, but here are some tricks you can apply to take advantage of its capabilities:
➤ When answering a question about internal linking for SEO, John Mueller said that Google looks at how many clicks it takes to get to a page from the homepage. So, your pages that are most visible and linked to from the homepage are the most important and should be easily accessible from the homepage in the top three.
➤ Utilize anchor text that addresses user intent in navigation headers. Based on the results of your internal link analysis, you can choose this option. Alternatively, if your company specializes in mobile app development, you can replace the About header with something like “World-Class Mobile App Developers.”
3. Bolster Contextual Links
Links inside the text, such as the link here, are called contextual links. They provide links to related or relevant content on the same website. In addition to making your most valuable pages rank higher on SERPs, contextually-oriented link building has an impact on other SEO metrics such as page views, time on page, and bounce rate.
Given the option, visitors are more likely to click on content links over navigational links, according to recent studies. So to ensure your contextual link structure aligns with the user journey, for example, you can create several pieces of content about a topic and have them point to one comprehensive version, which is the most valuable page. If your site has an internal links checker, it probably calls pages like this “pillar content.”
These pages link back to other related content on your site. Below is an image showing how content clusters interact.
4. Optimize Your Anchor Text
A web link that you can see and click on has a text string called an anchor text. Its primary purpose is to convey to the user what the page at the other end of the link is about and let them decide whether to click or not.
<a href=”http://www.sample.com”>anchor text</a>
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Target Link Anchor Text
There are various types of anchor text, but the following should be avoided according to SEO best practices:
Anchor text should be meaningful and relevant to the surrounding context. Using generic or keyword-stuffed anchor text is no longer effective, as Google’s algorithms are now sophisticated enough to recognize and prioritize context over the anchor text.
➤ Using keywords in your anchor text is no longer effective, as Google’s algorithms are now smart enough to recognize and give more weight to the context around the anchor text.
➤ Therefore, your anchor text should be meaningful and relevant to the surrounding content.
It is crucial to be vigilant in tracking the external and internal links and anchor text of your site during a site audit. Check to see if any of your internal links require reevaluation in the next section.
Do’s and Don’ts of Internal Linking
These are a few things to remember when implementing your internal linking strategy:
1. Avoid Link Spamming
With the knowledge you’ve gained about internal linking, you may be thinking about the ideal number of links to include on your page or in your content. In Moz’s estimation, a source page can have approximately 150 links (internal and external) before it no longer obtains additional crawling from destination pages.
That’s another thing to consider:
Regarding link importance for SEO, John Mueller said that Google might consider one or two links important, but 20 links won’t be considered important in the same way.
2. Limit the Number of Nofollow Internal Links
It will be better if you remove the “rel=nofollow” tag from your internal links. Why? When you attach the Nofollow attribute to a link, it communicates to Google that you think the content in that link cannot be trusted.
Why would you harm your website’s ranking on Google by asking Google not to pass PageRank or not to crawl a link?
3. Include Related Posts
Another way to place your internal links on a page is to offer related posts, either with the help of a plugin or with a third-party link analysis tool. On the other hand, use a manual method if your plugin cannot do this job effectively.
4. Point to Popular Posts
You should also promote new or popular posts on the homepage. Sending people there not only attracts more viewers but also improves engagement, resulting in more page views and average sessions.
5. Use an Internal Links Checker
The internal links checker is especially useful when you want to analyze a site for improvement, such as poor construction of links or inappropriate nofollow tags.
Internal Linking Done Right
The effectiveness of your SEO internal linking strategy is affected by various factors. A few quick tips on what to do and avoid can be found in this blog.
It is though better to work with experts if you are starting from scratch. In other words, internal links only make up one part of an overall SEO strategy. There are other requirements you need to fulfill as you improve your search rankings: page speed, duplicate content, and so on. If you want to win, you will need more than your trusty link analysis tool.
As an internet marketing agency, iRankPro is dedicated to helping you gain an edge. We provide an all-encompassing solution to your SEO challenges while also focusing on the specifics of internal linking. We provide long-term optimization assistance for your long-term goals through internal link analysis and technical SEO strategy development.
With our help, map out your internal linking strategy. Ask one of our marketing consultants about your next step, and make your internal links work for you.
