What Is Internal Link?
Internal links or inbound links are hyperlinks on a web page that link to another web page in the same domain.
What Is the Purpose of Internal Linking?
Internal links have a few functions that improve UX (User Experience) and crawlability.
1. Creates Easy Navigation
Internal links help users navigate a website. This typically leads to a higher level of engagement and dwell time, as the links can act as a CTA (Call To Action).
2. Creates Information Hierarchy
Internal links also allow you to outline your information hierarchy and distribute link value to important pages. It also helps build page authority.
3. Improves Crawl Budget
Internal links help crawlers discover different pages on your website. This is especially important if you haven’t registered a certain page in your site map.
Internal links ultimately help crawlers find and index your page more quickly, which means higher visibility and increases the likelihood of higher ranking in SERPs.
How to Get the Most out of Your Internal Links
There are a few different ways that you can optimise your internal link strategy. Below are a few key approaches.
1. Develop and Expand Upon Your Website Content
This is a sure-fire way to expand your network of internal links. Creating more fresh and interesting content on your website, means you’ll have more pages to link to.
Forget 'content siloing' or complex layers of pages, this way is simple and more effective.
2. Make Sure Links Are Relevant
You need to make sure you contextualise your internal links. Make sure they are related to the content.
After all, you should be catering primarily to the user not the algorithm.
If you include links to relevant pages, the end user is more likely to engage with content elsewhere on your site, which also means a higher dwell time.
3. Don’t Use Too Many Internal Links
It might be tempting to go overboard with internal links, but remember, it’s about quality over quantity. One or two internal links will be more effective than ten. Avoid appearing as spammy.
4. Use Anchor Text
Using anchor text that is natural and easy to understand is an effective linking strategy. But, remember not to over-optimise, otherwise this will land you in trouble with the Penguin update.
5. Link Deep into Your Website’s Content
You need to prioritise links that delve deeper into your website’s content rather than providing a link to the homepage, as users should be able to navigate there via breadcrumbs.
6. Use Follow Links
In the modern SEO landscape, it is preferable to use dofollow links rather than nofollow links. Linking needs to be natural and have an easy flow throughout your website.
Internal Linking Tools
There are tools out there to help you optimise your internal link strategy. Some of these tools include:
- SEO Smart Links
- SEO Ultimate (Deeplink Juggernaut)
- Better Internal Link Search
- SEO Internal Links
- RB Internal Links
How Can We Help?
It can be a tricky web of different techniques to get internal linking just right across your site. It may be beneficial to get another set of eyes (or more!) on your strategy.
So give us a call! We’ll get you matched with a team that knows exactly what’s up and they’ll help you get the most out of your internal linking.
