Introduction.
With a new business project at hand, you rushed to find out the best on-page SEO practices. Digesting one after the other, you got stuck at internal link building. Well, does it include in the on-page SEO? What does it mean? Why should you do it? How to do it?
Worry no more! We’ve compiled all these answers in this blog. From the basics of internal links to their importance in on-page SEO, we’ve made it easier for you. Also, you’ll discover its benefits, do’s and don’ts and a step-by-step SEO link building strategy to upscale your conversions.
So, let’s dive inside to get an insight into the internal link building process.
Introducing Internal Links.
Internal links can be defined as the links that take you from one page of your website to another. However, overlooked, these internal links form an important part of the on-page SEO tactics. With a strong SEO link building strategy, you can help your business even without having quality backlinks. What are backlinks then?
Internal Linking vs External Linking vs Backlinks – Comparison.
As mentioned above, internal links connect your web pages with each other. On the other hand, external links are the ones that direct a user from your website to some other website. Whereas, backlinks are what you get from other websites. These are the opposite of the external or outbound links.
Well, do SEO agencies recommend outbound links? Learn in detail
How Many Internal Links Can You Have?
It has been observed that a search engine efficiently crawls 100 internal links inside your content. So, adding 5-10 internal links in every 2,000 words will do good for you.
Remember, the relevancy of the links to your content and the targeted content is important. So, avoid using irrelevant links to fit the count.
Keep reading for more reasoning and tips!
Why Search Engine Favors Internal Links?
We follow Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices to convince the search engines that our content, our website is valuable enough to rank higher in the SERPs. This is the ultimate truth.
As it is clear by now that internal links are a crucial element of on-page SEO. This section is about explaining the ‘why’ behind this. Internal links help the search engines in the following ways:
Assists in Understanding Site Structure.
You add internal links either for basic site navigation or to direct your users to the important pages of your website. Regardless of the pupose, these internal links assist the search engines in understanding the structure of your website. Moreover, it efficiently discovers your site’s other important pages.
Although these links are helpful in easy site navigation, creating a comprehensible structure of your site can make the trip easiest. So, before you add the links, read this masterpiece regarding an SEO-optimized website structure.
Displays Content Relationships.
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Adding internal links in the page content can help the search engine in discovering the content relationships that your site holds. This is why internal links must be kept relevant to the context.
For example, there is an article on our website about the Role of SEO in Digital Marketing that relates to the blog mentioning on-page SEO tactics. And the latter contains a link to the current article. Well, this can go backward as well.
Looking at this cycle of internal links, the search engine will get a clear understanding of the content relationships. Moreover, it will identify your areas of focus.
The better the search engine knows your website, the better it will present it to the users.
Source of Value.
It won’t be wrong to consider internal link building as an addition of value. The more internal links your web page will have, the more valuable it will become. However, don’t exceed the limit of 100 links.
Remember, the search engines look for the best content to display in the SERPs. And quality internal links will impose a good impact on the search engines. Eventually, you’ll gain more chances of ranking higher in the search results.
Easy Discovery of New Pages.
Keeping your existing content up-to-date isn’t a new strategy. However, once you’ve created a new web page, it is important to add it to the sitemap. This will inform search engines about its existence and they’ll be able to crawl it. But a more fantastic way to introduce it would be through internal links.
Adding an internal link inside your old page to the new page can help search engines easily crawl through it. Because it will consider it an important page of your website.
Hence, search engines would love to see more internal links inside your content. But can they access all the links no matter where they are placed? Here is the answer:
The Search Engine Can’t Access Them!
Although internal link building is an on-page SEO practice, there are a few places where the crawlers can’t reach. Else, there are a few internal links that search engines can’t access. Read below:
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Links Coded in JavaScript.
Using JavaScript to create internal links may make them uncrawlable. Hence, if you want search engines to easily crawl through them then use HTML anchor tags to embed links.
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Links in Plug-ins.
Search engines can’t access any links that are placed inside Java applets, Flash, or other plug-ins.
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Links to Restricted Web Pages.
You might add internal links to the pages that already exist in the Robots.txt file. Therefore, search engines are unable to access them.
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Links from Forms That Require Submission.
The search engines can’t reach the links on the response page which can be only accessed after the form submission. This is because it is unable to ‘submit’ the form.
Unbelievable Benefits of Internal Link Building.
Surprisingly, internal link building doesn’t only assist the search engines. But being an on-page SEO service, it relates to the user experience as well. Eventually, after being beneficial to the search engine and users, the SEO link building strategy offers your business website several benefits that have been stated below:
Passing Authority – Link Juice.
Your site might have pages with high authority, the ones that are already ranking high in the search results. Adding internal links in the respective pages and targeting the pages with less authority can help in enhancing the overall authority of your domain.
It means that the authority of the ranked page will be distributed among the linked pages. This authority is often called link juice that is poured in other pages from the page that contains enough of it.
For example, the home page of your website has high authority. It would be good to embed internal links inside it. As a result, the authority or link juice will be passed to other important pages of your website as well.
Note: Beware of the link juice leakage. Don’t link irrelevant pages or the ones that don’t need to be ranked.
Efficient Site Trip – Navigation.
The internal link building facilitates easy site navigation for the users. Be it in the top navigation bar, footer, sidebar, or between the content, it efficiently helps in navigating the site to the fullest.
Being specific to the internal links inside your content. They help in discovering the topically related content on your site. In this way, the users won’t need to visit your blog page after every read. Instead of that, they can simply navigate to your other blogs and services while reading the first one.
It is interesting to note that people prefer visiting websites that offer easy navigation. They feel at home at such websites.
Premium User Experience Leading to Conversion.
Certainly, internal links are a great way to improve user experience and offer a premium one on your website.
For example, there is a blog post stating the importance of a particular technique in the ranking of your website. Here, the user might want to know more about its implementation. You can sense it. Hence, directing them to the next blog post as per their interest can develop a premium user experience.
Indeed, when you’ll satisfy your users, telling them that you are with them and all you want is to help them. They are likely to convert into your potential customers.
Be authentic, be genuine, and let the conversions be a by-product.
Improved Dwell Time.
Internal links allow connecting different pages of your website. Consequently, the users are less likely to bounce back after reading a bit of your introductory content.
Certainly, it is a good practice to place the internal links at different positions of your page content including the introductory part. This will decrease the bounce rate while enhancing the dwell time. Undoubtedly, it’s an efficient way to keep your users engaged.
For example, the users visit your home page. As you’ve placed your top blogs in a section, they’ll click it. Next, the internal links inside the blog will lead them to more blogs and they’ll stay on your website for a bit longer.
In the other case, they might bounce back thinking that your website isn’t interesting enough or difficult to navigate.
More Page Views.
As stated earlier, linking the pages with less authority with the high authority ones can help in passing the link juice. The effective transfer of link juice is only possible when you’ll get more page views. And undoubtedly, internal links also facilitate getting more page views by linking the relevant pages altogether.
Surprisingly, pages with more views are likely to get ranked higher in the SERPs. This is because search engines consider them useful sources of information as they have made a history of more visits.
The result: Successful transfer of authority.
Strengthen Your Conveyed Points.
Although you have written a blog post that contains your opinions along with authentic information, the readers might stumble. They might need to read more to get convinced.
Here, linking your content with other related content on your site can help in strengthening your conveyed point. As the users will come to know that you have gathered enough information, they’ll easily understand your perspective.
Creating a good understanding between the users and your content will benefit your business in various ways. Believe me! When they’ll need to clarify their doubts, they’ll visit your website.
SEO Link Building Strategy – Step by Step.
Whatever kind of work you do, it needs to be strategical to be effective.
Hence, after learning about the benefits of internal links, Let’s see, how you can create the best SEO link building strategy to leverage them. Here you go:
Identify Your Hub Pages.
The most important pages of your website are called the hub pages. These are the center of information and are linked with many other pages of your website.
You can consider our site’s example, we have written a blog on the topic ‘SEO’. Indeed, it’s a vast topic. Therefore, it will contain a variety of topics related to SEO such as its types, importance, tools, etc.
We can add several, internal links inside it and create a topic cluster around it. So, identify the pages that cover various aspects of a broad topic and proceed with the next step.
Create Topic Clusters.
After identifying your hub pages, create a list of topics that you can interlink with them. The hub page will act as a pillar, supporting the topic cluster around it.
Continuing the above example, we have created topics such as on-page SEO techniques, off-page SEO tactics, technical SEO, and SEO-optimized content around it.
The mentioned topics will also lead back to the hub page representing it as the most authoritative source of information.
Find Out Your High-Authority Pages.
After linking the hub pages with their cluster topics, look further for your high-authority pages.
To find the high-authority pages of your website, you can either prefer a paid SEO tool like Moz or a free tool by Google such as Google Search Console.
If you want to use Moz then you’ll find a list of high-authority pages in the ‘Top Pages’ report. Here is the respective report of backlinco.com showing the top pages and their authority:
Determine the Pages That Need a Boost Up.
There are certain pages on your website that are almost ranked and need a little boost up to rank higher. After finding the high-authority pages, now you have to find the almost-ranked pages.
Here is how can you do it:
Go to Google Search Console, use the advanced filter, sort it by average position. Next, set the condition in the highlighted box to Greater than 10.
This is custom heading element.
Also, you can use the SEMrush SEO tool that is paid but worthy enough. Follow the route: Domain Analytics, Organic Research, and then Organic Search Positions. Select 11-20 in the dropdown. That’s it.
This is how the results will be shown:
The tool also shows the URLs that are ranking. Give it a try.
Linking – High Authority to Almost-High Ranking Page.
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Now, as you have found the high-authority and almost-high ranking pages. Add the internal links in the former pages directing the users to the latter pages. This step will help in increasing the authority of the pages that are ranking on the second page of Google.
But don’t forget that the relevancy between both the pages is important. So, add an internal link accordingly.
Linking – High Traffic to Most Converting Page.
Some pages attract more traffic than other pages. Hence, they are ranked higher in the SERPs. We call them traffic experts. On the other hand, there are pages with perfect copies that make fast conversions. We consider them conversion experts.
Yes, you got it right. We have to link the traffic experts with the conversion experts. But before that, I’ll tell you how you can find both these experts:
Open Google Analytics, Click on Behavior, Site Content, and then Landing Pages Report. Set the date range to 3 to 6 months. You’ll get a list of your site’s traffic experts like this:
Note: While you make a list of traffic experts, don’t add those pages that got traffic for some time due to email campaigns or other such activities.
Now, to find your conversion experts. Stay in Google Analytics, set the goal to newsletter signup, and turn the condition to greater than 4. This will show the list of pages that have efficiently grown your email list.
Great! You are ready to create another trap. Link your traffic experts with the conversion experts to make more sales.
Add Internal Links With Strong CTA.
If you want the user to take action then creating an internal link with a strong call-to-action (CTA) is important. Well, it’s your choice to create a text hyperlink or a button. Both of them work if implemented wisely.
You can create compelling CTAs by following the tips given below:
- Start with strong action verbs such as Buy, Order, Shop, etc
- For giveaways, you can use Download, Claim, Grab
- Using learn more, check it out, find out can help as well
- Use numbers to display a time duration, sale, etc
- Make it urgent by adding now, or today
Tips for Effective Internal Link Building.
Holding tight on the above SEO link-building strategy can help you in leveraging internal links. You’ll see the results because you’ve applied strategy at the back end. And you aren’t adding the internal links randomly. Here are a few more tips that you need to consider:
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Prefer Natural Link Building.
Don’t stuff your content with internal links. Also, it is not encouraged to connect topically irrelevant pages. Therefore, go for natural link building. Remember that your audience can sense it when you are faking the connection.
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No Fancy Anchor Texts.
Indeed, it’s good to add your focus keywords in the anchor text. Note that the focus keyword should be the same as used on the target page. But excessively using the same keyword, again and again, isn’t good practice.
Moreover, you can use the title of the linked page as an anchor text. Also, this will show the readers that the internal link is relevant to the context.
Make it simple, relevant, and keyword-focused.
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Don’t Go Extreme.
We’ve already discussed the number of internal links that the crawler can crawl effectively. Hence, don’t exceed the limit of 5-10 internal links per 2,000 words and an overall limit of 100 internal links inside your content. Otherwise, your links won’t be crawled and it will be a waste.
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Audit Your Internal Links:
Let’s not forget that auditing your already embedded internal links is equally important as adding new ones. So, use Ahrefs Site Audit Tool to crawl your website for any internal link issues.
After completing the crawl, discovering the issues, and resolving them, it would be good to look for the actions leading to these issues. This is what our next section is about. Have a look.
Actions Leading to Internal Link Problems.
Here is a list of actions that you need to avoid if you don’t want to end up with a stack of internal link issues on your site:
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Embedding Broken Links.
Beware of adding links to the pages that have been deleted or moved. If it’s important to delete or move them later, align the changes with the respective internal links as well. You can do this by either removing the links or redirecting the pages.
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Incorrect Link Format.
While adding an internal link, you provide an incorrect link format. Hence, it isn’t recognizable as it doesn’t exist. So, copy-paste the URL instead of writing it word by word to avoid such issues.
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Adding Nofollow Tag.
You have added an internal link with nofollow tag inside it. Removing such kinds of links is better than adding the tag.
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Deep Way to Important Pages.
You have planned the internal links in such a way that the user has to pass through more than 3 links to reach the desired topic. It’s a big no for this. Keep the path as short as possible.
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Pointing to HTTP from HTTPS.
You are directing your HTTPS page towards an HTTP page. This will create problems because the latter page isn’t secured. Resolve it by securing the latter page before linking it.
Conclusion.
This guide would summarize that internal links are an essential element of web pages. Regardless of their position, their role in creating a circle around your website is noticeable and crucial. And a strategical internal link building process can help in empowering the overall authority of your website. However, proper anchor texts, optimized number of links, and topical relevancy among the linked pages should be considered. While in the end, using SEO tools to audit the links is a critical step to follow.
