The Importance of Internal Links for SEO

If backlink is the soul of SEO Offpage, Internal link is an indispensable part of SEO Onpage

Building a successful website for your business can be quite a challenge, but once it’s up and running, the long-term benefits are substantial. Now that your site is live, you’re ready to boost your online presence through content marketing.

While we all recognize the critical role of content marketing in search engine optimization (SEO), it’s essential to remember that content alone isn’t sufficient. Hence, Internal links play a n important role to support your SEO efforts by directing traffic to other pages within your site.

Internal linking can result in numerous benefits for your e-commerce site, and this post will reveal some main reasons why you should make use of internal links.

What is an Internal Link?

Internal Link is a form of link created by placing a link from a page on a domain and pointing to another page on the same domain. In simpler terms, internal linking is the linking of the pages on the same website.

Types of Internal Links

• Navigation links: They are the most popular type of internal links. These links form a structure for your site and lead the audience via the content.
• Editorial links: Editorial links are the links that are added within the body copy of your site. These links can be included in your site content organically and are the most useful links for your website.
• Footer or site-wide links: Placed at the bottom of the page, footer links are utilized to boost the usability of your site. The footer of a site usually includes contact details, social media widgets, or an internal search tool for your web page.
• Taxonomy and categorical links: These links combine popular topics, such as relevant blogs or post categories, together to make content easier for users to explore. They also can lead to parent service pages.

The Importance of Internal Links for SEO

Enhance page authority

Internal links are valuable for guiding Google to important pages on your site, but they don’t hold as much authority as backlinks. However, using them strategically can help organize your site and boost the ranking of specific pages in search results. While they can’t replace backlinks entirely, they still play a crucial role in directing traffic and improving visibility.

Here is an example: Imagine you run an online bicycle store. Each of your product pages on your site links to a helpful guide about proper bike fitting. With numerous links, Google may rank this guide highly. Subsequently, you could use this important feature to link to some of your newer pages, potentially improving their rankings.

Keep visitors stay longer

Internal linking is mainly about helping visitors navigate your website easily and keeping its structure simple to follow. Besides making things better for users, organizing your website logically also helps search engines save time when crawling, letting them index more pages each time they visit. This brings us to the third point.

Establish effective website structure

When it comes to building internal links on your website, you’ll want to have good SEO tools and services handy. They’ll help you save time and achieve better outcomes. Make sure you have them prepared.

• Google Analytics

• WebSite Auditor

• Rank Tracker

Internal Link Building Best Practices

Internal linking is an e­ffective SEO strategy for conte­nt marketing. By connecting rele­vant pages, sites can improve navigation and se­arch visibility. Consider these be­st practices - the “seve­n commandments” - when structuring internal links:

1. Make sure your website does not too complicated

It is wise whe­n any page is accessible within thre­e clicks of the homepage­. Nowadays, users demand efficie­ncy regarding website spe­ed, including page load times and action comple­tion times. With many similar websites out the­re with well-structured, e­fficient internal pages, why trouble­ users with unnecessary links? Thus, it is vital to minimize­ clicks to key landing pages and kee­p site structure simple.

To check the­ click depth of internal pages, ope­n WebSite Auditor. Navigate to Site­ Structure > Pages, and organize URLs by Click de­pth. This shows the number of clicks to access e­ach URL. It also identifies pages to move­ closer to the surface.

2. Make sure you connect all the important pages together with links

Nowadays, search engines use both sitemaps and links to find web pages. This means that even pages without links (called orphan pages) can be found by search engines because they’re listed in the sitemap. However, users can’t find orphan pages through the website’s navigation. For them, these pages might as well not exist. It’s a good idea to remove orphan pages by linking to them from other pages on the site.

You can utilize WebSite Auditor to locate orphan pages on your website. Simply go to the Pages dashboard, click on Rebuild Project, and make sure to check the Show expert options box. In the dialog box that appears, choose the option to Look for orphan pages, and then continue with the usual steps.

Once the crawl is complete, you’ll be able to find orphan pages in the Pages dashboard, marked with the Orphan page tag.

3. Check your internal links to improve how efficiently search engines crawl your site

Whenever Google’s bot visits your website and encounters a broken page, it’s like a waste of its time. That’s why it’s essential to keep your technical SEO clean and fix any issues with internal links.

To understand your website’s link profile better, you can use Google Search Console. It gives you a report on your Links, showing both external links from other sites and internal links within your own site.

4. Make sure there are not too many links on each page

If there are too many links on a page, whether they go to other pages on your site or to other websites, each link doesn’t carry as much value to where it’s pointing. Also, if the page isn’t organized well, it might be overwhelming for visitors to see a long list of links. Moreover, if there are too many links, search engines might see your page as spam, which could damage its reputation.

5. When creating links, use words that match the content they lead

Using words that relate to what you’re linking to can help improve how well your keywords rank. Internal links are kind of like backlinks, so using the right words in them is an easy way to make sure they’re related to what you’re talking about.

6. Ensure that image links include alt attributes

The alt attribute of image links functions similarly to anchor text for text links. It’s another way to send a signal to search engines, helping to increase authority along the way.

7. Place links within the main text where they make sense and are relevant

Links placed within the text of a page are more valuable for SEO compared to those in the header, footer, or sidebar. The ones in navigation areas are seen more as just helping people get around the site by Google. On the other hand, links within the main content provide extra info and are more valuable. Also, the words around these links affect how well the page they’re linking to ranks.

8. When you click on an anchor text, it should open in a new tab

Imagine you’re reading an article with lots of links to other articles. You click on some out of curiosity, then keep clicking and end up watching puppy videos on YouTube instead of finishing the original article. It’s really up to personal preference, but for the sake of your website (especially when linking to external pages, although the same applies internally), you shouldn’t make users lose track of where they are browsing. If you make links open in a new tab, it’s easier for users to go back to the original page.

To make a link open in a new tab, just add a ‘target’ attribute to the HTML link like this:

<a href="http://targeturl.com" target="_blank">Anchor Text</a>

Follow these seven essential guidelines when building links, and you will likely notice an improvement in your search engine ranking.

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Summary

Your content cannot rank without links. With an appropriate internal linking strategy, you can showcase which content is relevant and which of your blogs are most informative and useful.

While you produce more content and your website keeps growing in size, ensure to crawl your website and check on your internal links regularly. That can keep your page updated all the time and let you make use of all the benefits from internal linking.

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