When optimizing your site for search engines, links are a known to have a major impact on how your site ranks. Within the SEO world, there are really two types of links: Internal Links and Backlinks. This blog is to highlight how and why internal links are important for your SEO efforts. To learn more about the equally or arguably more important backlink, learn more here!
What is an Internal Link?
Internal links are links within content on your site that direct users to other pages on your site. There are a few reasons why these are important. Most importantly, when search engines see internal links it allows the engines to better “crawl” the page and index within their database. If internal links are done properly, this will provide those using the search engine with relevant results, giving them a positive experience getting to your site. Along the same narrative, internal links give users a better experience within the page, and when used naturally within content, it can give the user an easier experience navigating your site.
Best Practices
Content– The more content you produce on your site, the more opportunity you have to create internal links! Aside from the internal links providing the user with what was described above, the additional content will help your site remain “fresh” in the eyes of Google and other search engines, also helping your SEO efforts.
Anchor text– As mentioned earlier, internal linking works best when written naturally within the content. Anchor text allows you to associate a link to words within a sentence. You want to be sure the link is not only relevant to the current page and the page it takes the user to, but the anchor text itself should use relevant keywords if possible. As you can see from this blog, the internal links keep this principle in mind.
Link Responsibly– Have you ever been to a page that is inundated with links? More likely than not, you felt it looked spammy and left the page. This goes back to keeping the user experience in mind! Be mindful of the user and use an appropriate amount of links for the amount of content per page. When the user enjoys the experience on the site, they are more likely to reference your page within their own site or navigate the page until completing a conversion!
Does your site need more internal links within its content? Boston Web Marketing’s team of SEO specialists take the time to understand your business and create relevant, engaging content while utilizing internal links to strengthen your SEO efforts. Give us a call today and learn more about how we can help your site get found quick!