Internal links may not be the first thing that people consider when they think of improving their website; however, they’re extremely important to SEO. Not only do Google’s crawlers count on internal links to navigate through your site and rank pages based on their pertinent keywords, but a well-designed linking strategy can also lead to more engagement from visitors, which sends a positive signal to Google.

In this article, we’ll be discussing the advantages of internal links and how to make use of them to boost your online visibility and increase the ranking of your site. We’ll first take a look at the major differences between external and internal links.

Internal Links Vs. External Links

Internal links refer to hyperlinks that direct users to different pages on your website, while external links redirect users to other pages on your website. Both kinds of links contain SEO benefits.

The addition of relevant and trustworthy external links can help establish your reputation as an expert in your field and aid search engines in figuring out what your content is about.

Internal linking On the other hand, offers many SEO advantages that are often overlooked:

• They can encourage users to stay on your website for a longer time by sending a high-quality signal to the search engines.
• They allow robots crawling search engines to browse your entire site, which speeds search engine indexing of your website’s pages.
• They boost the rankings of your website pages for specific keywords and send an unambiguous message to the search engine that your websites are relevant to users who type in the phrase.
• They boost the backlink-earning possibilities of the internal page by providing clear pathways to all your content.
• Internal links that make use of anchor text in a proper method can be more SEO-related worth.

How can you alter your website’s content to reap all these advantages? Begin with these steps to improve your SEO by using internal linking.

1. Establish Your Website’s Structure

The organization of your website into subcategories and categories makes it easier to build a suitable interlinking structure. Maintain a logical structure about the way a user moves through the pages. Search engines will be able to recognize how the pages are connected and place them in the right order with specific keywords.

If you are constantly adding pages to your site Knowing where to place any new information is the most effective method of creating internal links that are beneficial for both users and search engines. Finding a webpage on your website shouldn’t be a problem; this is the reason why many SEO experts suggest keeping the paths between pages brief. If you can, ensure that each page on your website is just three mouse clicks away. Be aware of this principle when deciding on the structure of your website.

2. Check for Orphan Pages

Orphan pages are pages that aren’t linked to another page of your website. If Google cannot view the pages, they aren’t able to index them, and users aren’t able to access them as well. While orphan pages won’t hurt your search engine rankings, you could miss any SEO value from the contents.

Utilize a tool such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider to locate an abandoned page. Create an internal link from a page that is relevant. Check that the new page has been integrated into your HTML sitemap as well as your XML sitemap.

It’s obvious that when it’s a landing site designed to monitor the progress of a PPC or email marketing campaign, it makes sense that the site be ad-free.

3. Link Together Quality Pages

It is not necessary to be concerned about linking your site’s principal pages, like the homepage and contact page. they should already have plenty of links directed to them. The most effective internal links are those that connect a quality blog to another.

Find a long-form, evergreen piece of content, and link in the text to another excellent content piece on your website. Be sure that the link is appropriate and relevant to the page it’s directing. Continue this process along with other content on your website to create solid internal linking structures inside your site.

4. Use Unique, Relevant, and Descriptive Anchor Text

Anchor text that is contained within content generally has a higher SEO impact than a navigational link placed in the header, footer, or sidebar. This is because the links within the main content can add information and provide value for the content.

• The anchor text, also known as the content of the hyperlink, should include words that assist users and search engines in understanding your website’s pages. Remember these points:
• Anchor text must accurately explain the page’s purpose. about.
• It should be natural within the text on the webpage.
• Utilize a variety of anchor text, including your company name, and keyword and title tags from the page you want to link to, as well as unidirectional hyperlinks, longer-tail keyword phrases, and LSI synonyms or keywords.

If all your anchors use the same word and you’re not careful, you’ll get penalized by search engines.

5. In Every New Post, Link to Old Posts

Google considers fresh content to be an important ranking factor, and so links on new pages that link to older ones have new value. If a post is related to an old one, include a link. In the same way, link from an older post to a fresher or related post.

To search your site for related pages, use the Google search operator: You’ll then see which pages contain the target phrase, which are all candidates for internal linking.

6. Regularly Update Old Articles

Now and then, return to an old post and write a fresh first paragraph to explain your changes. You can then add new content to the original article, adding new internal links to newly published content. This does not just increase the rank value of older content, but it also gives rank importance to the newly created content.

7. Link from Pages with Quality Inbound Links

If you have web pages with inbound links from other trusted websites, you should consider connecting to different pages on your website through the pages. Inbound links from authoritative websites can add worth to your website as well and your internal link can share some of the value with other pages to which you hyperlink.

To discover which of your pages have backlinks to other sites, you should use an application such as Google Webmaster Tools, Open Site Explorer from Moz, or HubSpot’s Link Grader.

8. Keep Creating New Content

It is only possible to continue an internal linking strategy when there’s content you want to link to. So, regularly creating new pages for internal linking on your site is crucial to building a solid linking structure for your internal links.

If you are focused on creating new and relevant information for your readers, adding new internal links should happen naturally. The credibility of your website and, consequently, your page’s ranking will increase over time.

Little Connections Make a Big Difference

Internal linking should be focused on offering readers more value by redirecting readers to high-quality information on your website. It is not necessary to include many internal links on each page. The most effective links naturally occur and can be beneficial for site visitors. If an internal hyperlink appears unnatural, your visitors and search engines will take note, which can affect your reputation as well as your website’s value in ranking.

In contrast to external links, with internal links, you have control. When you link to pages that are relevant and enhance the anchor’s text, you’ll increase the accessibility of your website, which will lead to more engagement with your audience. Consider following these suggestions, and both Google and your visitors will be able to understand your website better and, in turn, increase your rankings on search engines.