Internal links for SEO

Are you looking for the right way to make your site optimized for SEO? As with many SEO strategies, one of the best ways to improve search engine rankings is to use internal linking. In this blog, we are going to talk about what internal links are, and why they are important for SEO.

This is what internal links are

Internal links are links that connect a page of a domain to another page of the same domain. They are important for SEO and usability because they help users navigate your site more easily. They also improve the website’s performance in search engines, helping it to rank higher.

Why are internal links important for SEO?

Internal linking is considered one of the most basic yet important aspects of SEO because it tells web crawlers which pages on your site are more relevant than others. Here are 3 reasons why internal links are important for your SEO.

They help search engines better understand your website structure

When you use internal links, you help Google understand which pages of the site are linked to each other. In other words, Google understands the structure of your website much better, especially if you use a silo structure, which consists of grouping related pages under the same theme or category.

That being said, if you have a solid internal linking strategy in place, you make it easier for Google to crawl and index your website pages, because it becomes easier for the Googlebot to know the contextual relationship. between linked pages. As noted in the in- depth guide to Google search , Google may already know some of the pages on your website, but new pages are discovered when it follows a link from a page that is already indexed.

They convey authority to other pages

Internal links are one of the best ways to pass authority from one page on your website to another. Indeed, when you create an internal link, you tell Google that certain pages are important and therefore should be ranked higher.

This happens because Google sees internal links as votes for the most important pages on your site, and when it finds several different pages that all vote for each other, it gets a sense of the importance of each page and thus helps Google rank them in search engine results by distributing PageRank, which is an algorithm that works by counting the quality of links to a page. Thus, whenever two pages are linked, the more important passes some of its authority and relevance to the other.

They help users navigate the website

The better the user experience on a website, the more traffic it generates. Internal links contribute greatly to the user experience, as they allow users to navigate web pages more easily rather than quickly leaving the site after obtaining the information they were looking for. That said, they spend more time browsing the different pages of the site thanks to the internal links put in place.

It is important to mention that setting up internal links allows users to spend a more effective time on your website, and this is because they find additional information and content on related topics, which can still be answered. more of their questions and meet their needs.

Also, if your site is well structured, it is even easier for users to familiarize themselves with each section of the site.

As a result, session duration and pageviews increase, which means your customers are more likely to convert, especially if you include and optimize relevant CTAs in the internally linked page.

Here’s how to optimize your CTAs

There are three main things to keep in mind when optimizing your call-to-action buttons:

Be brief and concise. Clearly state the action you want your visitors to take. If they’re not sure what you’re asking them to do, they won’t click!

Use color or size contrast between the button and its background to make it stand out from the rest of the page.

Test different variations of the same button (for example, “Register” or “Book now”).

Create lots of quality content

To have lots of links on your website, it is important to have lots of content pages to link to. For your links to make sense to search engines, and taking into account the amount of content on your website, it is recommended to have a silo structure to organize your website using categories that group related pages together.

In fact, a good website structure, whether silo content architecture or clustered content architecture, makes it easier for Google to crawl and therefore optimizes the crawl budget, either the number of pages that search engines will crawl in a certain amount of time.

Optimize your anchor text

Anchor text is the clickable text in a link. It plays a major role in SEO as it adds context to links for search engines. In addition to that, it helps users get an idea of ​​where the link is directing them.

Anchor text helps readers to expect content they will see on the other page, so it’s important to use keywords that are related to the landing page. However, it is recommended to use links not for a single short-tail keyword, but for a group of words or phrase related to an intent, because they are now more relevant.