Internal Linking Strategies for Effective SEO

If you are putting your website together and want to ensure it has a good chance of ranking highly in the search engines then you need to think about your internal linking strategy. Firstly your internal links are those links that take you from one page of your website to another and enable people to navigate around your website.

When considering how to link your web pages together it is important to consider how the search engines will move around your site and how they will find your content. However it is important to point out at this stage that search engines will put some importance on how easy it is for visitors of your site to navigate around your website. So when deciding how to put your website together remember to consider your visitors first, how easy is it for users to find information. If you get this right it will put you a long way towards good rankings with the search engines.

It is important to point out at this stage that internal linking is only part of the battle in achieving that elusive first page on Google. Everybody looking to embark on an SEO campaign will be all too aware of the importance of links coming into their website, however you can also improve things with a good internal linking strategy.

Below you will find a list of tips and things to think about when linking your website to make it optimized for search engines.

1. Use text links in menu bars

Many web designers like to use images in menu bars as there is a much wider variety of fonts and you can get a great look. However the problem with this is that search engines cannot follow the links in these menu bars. We would always recommend using text links in the menu bars and footers of your website. This will enable search engines to read and follow the links on your site and will make no difference to the user experience.

So remember, if you want a search engine to index a page on your site make sure you include a text link to that site to ensure it can be found.

2. Use descriptive text in your links

Search engines will read the text in any links on your site and use it to rank your website. So if you sell pink dresses then it will be useful to have a link to that page where the text in the link is "Pink Dresses". However try and be as specific as possible so the text link "Affordable Pink Dresses" may have more of an impact. Search engines will read this text and will then rank your website for the search term that is in the text.

If possible try to vary the text that you link to a page in different places on your website, this will enable you to rank for more than one search term. So for the example above you may want to link to your page selling pink dresses with the search terms "Pink Dresses", "Affordable Pink Dresses" and "Dresses that are pink".

3. Use links in the content of your web pages

Try to make some of the text on your website into links to other pages on your website. This has the advantage that it makes it much easier to use relevant text in your linking. In addition to this, if someone is reading about your services and there is a link to a particular product or service it is more likely someone will click on it to find out more information. The longer you can keep people on your site and engaged the higher your chance of converting that person into a sale.

4. Create a Site Map

Search engines love site maps as they are usually a structured list of text links that includes all the pages on your website. If a search engine can easily find your site map (should be able to get to it from your home page) then they will easily be able to find all the pages on your website, even the deep ones. Your site map will probably not be used by visitors to your site but is a valuable resource for a search engine.

5. Make important pages no more than 2 clicks from your home page

The further away from your home page something is the worse it will rank. So if you want a particular page to come up in the search engines results make sure it is as close to your home page as possible. The other advantage to this strategy is that it will be easier for your visitors to find it and so you will be getting the important information to the right people. If important information is hidden deep within your website, search engines will not realise it is important and in addition your visitors may never find it and what is the point in that?

6. Use the "no follow" tag

If you have pages in your site that you do not want to rank in the search engines results then it is a good idea to use the no follow tag in your links to that page. By doing this it means that search engines will not follow the links to that page but your visitors will be able to. By doing this you allow the PageRank of your site to be shared amongst the important pages with none being given to the less important pages.

Follow this strategy and you increase the chances of your important pages ranking higher in the results and the pages that you are not bothered whether they rank or not will not appear.

7. Relevant linking to your home page

If your website has been structured properly then every page within your site should have a link to your homepage. However as with most websites the text in this link will probably be "Home". We have already mentioned the importance of the text used in links, so unless you want to rank for the term "Home" it might be a good idea to use something else.

The problem with doing this is that it may confuse your visitors as they do not know how to get back to where they started. There are two options to get round this problem. The first is using the no follow tag in the links to your home page so as to eliminate the "Home" ranking problem. The other alternative is to use breadcrumbs on your site. This will be displayed as a series of links at the top of your page, showing the user where they are and how they got there and so enables them to go back quickly.

The above is a list of our top tips for how to optimise your internal linking strategy and if followed will help you enormously in making your site search engine friendly and increase your rankings for your selected terms. These strategies cannot be taken on their own in order to rank highly in the search engines however when combined with a comprehensive SEO campaign will only help with increasing your ranking.