Search engine optimization, more regularly known as the abbreviation SEO, is essentially the lifeblood of a website, and it plays a critical role in any webpage’s ability to achieve a high ranking status on the front page of Google’s search results. Many crucial elements go into creating quality SEO content, but using well-crafted internal links is among the most important.
Below, our team of passionate SEO experts from Content Dog will explain the basics every website owner needs to understand about internal links and explore several known ways to construct them for optimal SEO. Please read on to learn more, and consider browsing our wide selection of other great resources on everything from content writing to social media and beyond!
Related: 5 Best Link-Building Services: Backlink Building Made Easy
Internal Links: The Basics to Note Before Building Your Own
In short, internal links are hyperlinks that connect different pages within a single domain or website. They’re generally leveraged to;
- Help users better navigate the website
Internal links can drastically improve user experience by making websites more navigable. This can increase average time on site and nudge people towards prospective purchasing paths, enhancing overall search performance.
- Spread ranking power (link equity or authority) around the website
Internal links can pass authority around different website pages to improve SEO rankings by appealing to Google’s PageRank (PR) algorithm. High-ranking pages can elevate lower-ranking pages simply by connecting them via internal links.
- Establish an informational hierarchy within a website
Internal links significantly impact a search engine’s (mainly Google’s) ability to understand a website’s structure, locate relevant content, and demonstrate the contextual relationship between two pages and subjects. Internal links also help illustrate a website’s expertise and authority on various topics.
Related: 10 Tips to Building Quality Natural Backlinks
How to Built Top-Quality Internal Links on Your Website
When creating effective internal links, there are several key factors and practices that websites should actively utilize to make it easier for search engine crawlers to go through and assess the website’s quality, authority, and relevance. Below, we’ll delve deep into some of the best ways to build your internal links for improved SEO.
Are you ready to take your SEO content creation to the next level? Content Dog is here to help!
- Leverage an Optimal Website Structure
The best structure to support a quality network of internal links looks similar to a pyramid. The website homepage is the tip leading down into several tiers of relevant web pages based on topic clusters, which are usually connected based on broad keywords. It’s common to see high-performing websites (like Amazon) using this structure to form an easy-to-navigate category and subcategory system.
The structure allows websites to develop a well-connected network of pages using the fewest internal links possible, making it easy for search engine crawlers to look through everything without missing any content. The structure also allows for link equity to flow through the whole site, increasing the ranking potential for every page.
- Use Internal Links to Add Context to Content
This point essentially goes hand-in-hand with the one above. Still, we want to emphasize it precisely because of how drastically it can improve website structure and navigation for search engine crawlers and website users. In short, you want to connect articles with internal links if they both talk about or revolve around a particular topic.
For example, say that a website has several articles talking about what to do when visiting different French cities. Each of these articles should have an internal link to a primary website page about travel to France, but they should also have internal links leading to one another.
One way to seamlessly leverage internal links for added contextualization with specific post topics is to include “related posts” links at the bottom of articles, or interspersed throughout the article to cover issues you’ve already written a lot of content about. The website can also put these internal links directly into sentences within the web page content using relevant anchor text.
- Take Advantage of Primary Site Authority Pages
The highest ranking and most authoritative pages on a website are the ones that have a lot of links leading to them from quality external sources. By using internal links to connect other relevant website pages to those with high authority, people can actively disseminate that authority throughout their website to improve the ranking of several pages at once.
When used strategically, linking content to authority pages can be a great way to improve the entire website’s authority and gain search engine crawlers’ attention. There is a wide range of great online resources websites can leverage to locate these high-authority pages, like Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool.
Related: The Skyscraper Link Building Technique
Final Tips For Quality Link Building
Aside from the three key strategies above, there are several other basic tips and tricks that websites should leverage to help ensure their internal links are structured as effectively as possible and are doing their job to improve overall website SEO. To help ensure the creation of quality internal links for improved SEO, websites owners should ensure they are;
- Creating a lot of relevant content and connecting them via internal links
- Leveraging link placement that readers will naturally want to follow
- Not going overboard with the number of internal links they use on every page
Final Thoughts and Factors to Consider
The construction of practical, top-quality internal links is critical for website SEO and convincing Google to rank a website well within its search results. If you’d like to find new ways to continue improving your website’s SEO, please consider exploring some of the fantastic services offered by our experts at Content Dog today! From SEO content writing to blog post creation and much more, we’re proud to help websites achieve online success, even against their biggest competitors. Do you need a fast and effective way to improve your website SEO for better Google rankings? Take advantage of Content Dog’s tail-wagging good content!
Last Updated on July 28, 2022 by Hilda Wong