Once website owners learn the benefits of internal linking, they can quickly begin creating connections between pages across their site. But before you begin this mission, check out these common mistakes to avoid.
1. Never force a connection
Your mission is to connect relevant pages so that people click on those internal links and explore your site. But if you click on the connection, visitors won’t click, and if they do, they’ll quickly leave when they realize the content isn’t really related. The goal of interlinking is to create enticing, clear links that invite your visitors to stay and explore for a while.
2. Don’t use unnatural keyword anchor text
When interlinking pages, your goal is to use the main keyword of the target page as the anchor text of the source page. But if the target keyword for the target page does not fit naturally with the content of the source page, do not use the exact keyword or make it sound unnatural. This will be a red flag to Google that you are simply trying to build as many internal links as possible and are not focused on quality.
3. Link beyond product and service pages
Chances are, you have pages with products and services that make you money. Amateur managers may be tempted to only create links to these money-making web pages. But don’t make that mistake.
Other content pages, such as blog content, are also important. Links to other blog content will invite your visitors to stay and continue reading, increasing time on page and reducing bounce rates. These are important metrics for improving and growing your site’s SEO. And ideally, each blog post should be optimized for conversion so as not to bother site visitors about moving on to other content.
4. Place internal links higher on the page
The higher up the page an internal link is, the country email list more likely your site visitors are to click on it. And the more clicks you get on an internal link, the more weight it will carry. Place links prominently throughout the page, and don’t forget about the top of the page.
5. Make sure links are natural and complementary to the content
Site visitors are most likely there to learn or solve a problem. Internal links should be natural and direct users to additional content that answers their questions or furthers their research on the topic.
6. Use your blog to add depth to your site
You probably don’t want to have a thousand-word about us page that tells your entire story. Instead, it’s more like a few hundred words long and well- afghanistan business directory written. But you can write a blog that tells the whole story, giving context to your name, services, and success stories.
Websites that use their blogs to develop a theme and then link to that content from relevant pages are good at meeting their customers’ needs. On service pages, you can link to a blog post that explains more about your process and what to expect. Blogs offer depth that you might not want to see on top-level pages.
7. Analyze key metrics
Once you start building internal links, you should start looking at important website metrics like time on page and bounce rate. Look for pages with the highest bounce rate and the lowest time on page. Then look for ways that internal links can help improve these metrics to achieve your SEO goals.
Internal Linking as Part of SEO Strategy
Internal linking is just one aspect of an effective SEO strategy. You will also want to use relevant external links, build backlinks, optimize your site what to do before creating a website for your business for speed, and more. Internal linking alone will not lead to impressive SEO results.
New Light Digital helps create SEO strategies that deliver long-term results for businesses in all types of industries. Schedule a free consultation today to start your journey to SEO results.