How Internal Links May Help Optimize Your Website
Internal links are a simple but often overlooked way to help optimize a website. In addition to helping users efficiently navigate your site, internal links have other beneficial properties. When used well, they can be a great opportunity for a business or organization to distribute page authority, increase incoming leads, and improve overall user experience.
What is an Internal Link?
An internal link is a way to connect two pages on the same domain. Webmasters may underline or change the text color of hyperlink that, when clicked on, directs a user to a different page on the same website. This is different from external links, which connect two pages on different websites. Internal links frequently appear in several places on a website, including the main navigation, page content, and footer.
How Internal Links are Beneficial
A benefit of internal links is that the website owner has nearly total control over the creation, change, and removal of a link. This control allows a webmaster to efficiently use internal links to distribute page authority across multiple pages. As a result, optimized internal links can help establish an effective site structure and hierarchy. This helps Google better analyze pages, understand the relationship between them, and determine their value. Using anchor text in an internal link may also help Google associate a term with the linked page.
Internal linking tactics can also provide other benefits to your business or organization, like contributing to a higher internal link click-through rate. One internal linking tactic is to place links on high-traffic pages that direct users to pages with high conversion rates. However, it’s important to ensure that the linked pages are related and would be beneficial to page visitors.
Tips for Internal Link Use
While internal linking may be simple when compared to other search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, following some guidelines may help maximize your use of internal links. Some best practices include:
- Don’t force a link to unrelated content
- Make internal links seem natural. Abrupt page promotion may turn away visitors
- Create internal links to pages you want to rank well
- Don’t spam your pages with too many internal links
- Update older content or blogs with relevant new internal links
Webmasters that utilize internal link tactics may increase the effectiveness of their website at little cost. This can help a business, law firm, or organization increase leads, create a user-friendly experience, and help improve your overall digital presence.