Internal links are probably the most overlooked yet powerful SEO strategy. When most people think of links and SEO, they think of backlinks, but when used correctly, internal links can provide massive boosts to your site's ranking power.
When we talk about an internal link, I’m referring to a link on your website to another page on your website. The same website part is critical to the term. When backlinks are referred to with SEO, that is, links from other third-party websites apart from your own website. This distinction is very important.
If you leave this article here, then the takeaway can be point links, of any kind - internal or backlinks to the pages you want to rank well.
Links serve 2 uses:
- User - links direct users to different parts of your website. You want to direct them to the information they need, including the important and relevant parts.
- Search engine - as mentioned, links are very important to search engines, both internal links (which are the focus of this article) and backlinks from other websites, apart from your own.
Internal links help search engines
- Make important pages easier to find. When you point many internal links to a page on your website, you are telling the search engine, “This is an important page, please take notice.”
- Helps get content quickly indexed. Similar to above, when you point many links to a page, you are telling Google, “Please index this page quickly.”
- When you link to certain pages, it focuses the crawl budget to make sure it’s used efficiently. especially for larger sites. You want to think of your site's content as a spine with links sprouting off in various directions, yet many connected with tissue.
Think of search engines looking at your link structure and evaluating which pages matter most. Remember the rule - If it’s an important page on your site, you want to link to it a lot.
Linking well helps bots and gets the right areas noticed.
When you link your site up correctly, it prevents authority from being trapped on high-level pages. You want the bot to access as many pages as possible, right? You have spent a lot of time creating content, therefore it's vital that these pages get the attention from search engines and users they deserve. The number of pages created is also an indicator to the search engines how well you have covered topics in certain niches, another reason for making sure your pages get crawled and indexed.
When you have deeper content on your site, links help these pages, which can sometimes be 7 levels(of course, depending on the size and structure of your website), rank more effectively. These pages rely on links to get found.
Relationships
When you link internally, you are creating relationships between content, and Google likes that. By linking a page to a similar or related page, you are saying to Google, “Notice the connection here; these pages are related”
User Experience tip
Don't have short links too close to each other in terms of physical space. When links are close to each other, at a glance, users could well see one link and not many different links. Break the links up with content.
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Placement of links
A link is just a link, right? From reading this article, the answer should definitely be no. Links placed in different parts of the page have different weights when it comes to search engines. The links that really matter are in your page content. Where the main text of your page is - that’s the important area.
I’ve heard the following.
- In body content links are like nukes.
- Sidebar links are like machine guns.
- Main navigation links are like pistols.
- Footer links are like pea shooters.
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I hope that gives you context for the different weight given to links in different areas of your page. Links in the body of your content are MUCH more powerful than the other links on the page. Especially footer links, they really are ineffective when it comes to ranking pages.
So why have footer links then? Remember, we are not interested in building sites for search engines; we are interested in the user experience, too. I hope that message comes across clearly on this blog, as I say it over and over. User experience is a big factor in search engines, and we shouldn’t just build sites for them. In fact, every time you have a dilemma, favour the user over search engines.
Craft CMS and links
As I have reiterated over and over on this blog, Craft is that we have complete control over ALL aspects of the site, and it’s no different with links. We have empty templates to create with the main navigation at the top, possible sidebar links and footer links. Of course, we also have full control over the body links, and usually this is a custom field powered by CK Editor. We can easily control the anchor text and where the link goes.
Anchor text
Anchor text is the important factor in a link when it comes to ranking. The words in that link tell the search engines what the page it is linking to is about. Using keywords in your anchor text is very powerful. Mix your anchor text up, though and don’t use the same words to link to the page all over your site. You want to keep it natural, that’s the key.
Effective anchor text tips:
- Use anchor text that clearly describes the destination page.
- You want to avoid vague anchors like “click here” or “read more” when possible.
- Use natural language
- Fits contextually within the content - meaning if you link to a page about dogs, don't have surrounding text all about cats!
Written by John Macpherson