An internal link is a hyperlink from one page within a domain to another page within the same domain. Internal links help you and your users easily navigate through your website, provide a hierarchy of information and make your website organised.
Why is internal linking important?
Internal links act as the foundation of your website, allowing Google and users to discover your web pages. This helps Google to index your website content more quickly and direct visitors to the most important and relevant pages. Optimising the internal link format will improve your website’s SEO performance and page ranking, resulting in better user experience and conversions.
An internal linking strategy is important for two reasons:
1. Helps develop your site architecture
Site architecture is commonly referred to as information structure. It allows you to structure the information on your website to facilitate navigation, keeping your website relevant and valuable for your users. Internal links are essential to the success of your website as search engines use internal links to crawl the web to find content, indicating that webpages with internal linkings have greater value. Site architecture improves user engagement and reduces the bounce rate – both of which are integral to helping your website rank higher on search engines.
2. Spread efforts across relevant web pages
Google employs internal links to understand the structure of your site and the relationships between pages. The higher the quality of your website’s links, the more valuable your website will be recognised by Google as a source of information, and the higher it will rank in the search engine. This way, link juice is distributed evenly across your site via internal linking, allowing more pages to benefit from authority.
Tips for getting started with internal linking Backlinks?
Following internal linking best practices improves the organic search visibility of your website. Here are a few ways you can achieve it:
1. Add credible internal links: Always aim to have a few internal links on every page. Failure to establish an information hierarchy on your website makes it difficult for Google to understand your information architecture. A clear structure allows users to navigate to the most important pages and click links to access relevant topic clusters.
2. Incorporate internal linking to your most important page: Take the time to think about the internal links you add to your target pages and all the other pages. Internal linking is a great way to spread link equity throughout your website, which can assist underperforming pages to rank higher on Google. Simply use a backlink checker like Ahrefs to find the pages on your site with the most backlinks. Once you find these, focus on adding internal links to pages that have little or no links from those pages. Not only does this help poorly performing content, but it also increases page authority for new pages on your domain.
3. Optimise anchor text: Anchor text is the word you click to navigate from one page to another. It provides context and relevant information for both search engines and users. If the anchor text on a web page closely matches the content of the linked page, Google is more likely to trust the page and promote it on search engine result pages (SERPs) for relevant keyword phrases.
Some tips to optimise your anchor text for SEO include using descriptive anchor text that summarises the page content, keeping your anchor text concise, and choosing keywords wisely to improve your page ranking.
How to fix broken links on your website
The good thing about internal links is that you have control over them. This means you can repair a link that no longer works. Below are some common causes of broken links:
- The destination web page has moved to a new URL or no longer exists.
- Website restructuring on the same domain can cause problems when pages are renamed or deleted. In this case, links need to be updated.
- The web page has been taken off the website.
The best way to tackle internal linking is to use tools like Google Search Console to regularly monitor your internal linking structure and fix it quickly before it impacts your SEO and user experience. Always check for typos and if possible, re-publish the page to maintain the authority of your page and prevent broken links.
Conclusion
Internal linking is an easy way to make your content accessible to search engines and users. Without links, it would be difficult for Google to crawl your site and drive more traffic.
