We all know that inbound linking from other web properties is a factor in getting good search engine rankings.
Link building is tedious, boring and in general not all that exciting. We do it however, because we want people to know about our site. It's good PR!
With all the hype and talk about Google’s PageRank and the power of inbound linking, I often find that "Internal Linking" is the forgotten little brother.
So let’s step back and take a closer look at what you can do in your very own back yard.
Let’s look at some internal linking basics.
Internal Linking Suggestions
Internal linking is very important in allowing search engines to crawl through your site. They read the keywords that you highlight and follow where you are sending the traffic. A strongly interlinked site can help your rankings tremendously as the major search engines are then better able to read through your website.
Here is a list of some of my suggestions to help improve your inter linking
- Avoid using images or JavaScript for text linking, search crawlers have difficulty reading and following these links. If you are using images how can you expect the search engines to read what the link is about?
- Use keyword rich words to link to your different web pages. These links are called anchor text. The anchor text tells search bots what the linked page is about. Be careful not to over-use the anchor text with too many keywords, the phrase should sound and look natural.
- Ensure the linked page matches closely to the linked words. If your linked words are “LCD Televisions” then the page it is linked to should be about LCD Televisions, and not home stereos, for example.
- Concentrate on linking to internal pages, and not always linking to your domain name / home page. Again this has to do with relevancy of pages against the linked words. Although your home page may make sense to link to, the home page is generally an over view of the entire site, such as All Televisions and not necessarily focused on LCD Televisions, from the above example.
- Ensure that every web page has a link to your home page, so that you can optimize your SEO and increase inbound links to your domain. This is also proper website usability.
on
There have been chatter for long about internal linking ways, but you chipped in with some refined points. Internal linking strategy for effective SEO cannot be ignored for your website if you aim to get top rankings and visibility in. It is equally important as that of inbound linking. Mia, you’re right webmasters are frantically running after inbound links.
on
A website’s internal linkage system has a great role in increasing its link popularity directly. In fact, some improvements in the site’s internal linking and navigation will help the site in getting greater search engine boost.
on
Thumbs Up Colin.
What I found commonly is that this important optimization technique is often ignored in the frenzy of getting inbound links to the site. I can say providing alluring links to content in other pages will help to engage visitors on your site.
on
Thanks for the interesting handy reminder. You make some good points, I guess it is important to concentrate on the quality of all links, internal and external.
Is there any ratio of internal links to words per page? Do you have any idea on this?
on
I truly agree with you Colin that “Internal Linking is the forgotten little brother”. For most of the sites that I have been coming across these days are the ones which lack content and relevant information about web pages. So the primary step for inbound internal linking starts from the web development phase as a site with relevant pages can have a good internal linking structure followed by a good PageRank.
on
Yea, internal linking is the good way to rank for multiple phrases. It can cause a remarkable difference between your first page and second page rankings, after all itscan be a pertinent determinant when you try to rank your website for multiple phrases.