Internal Linking- An important part of ranking (SEO)

Internal linking is a term used to describe the links within one website or blog. I have been hearing about internal linking from many SEO experts and read many amazing posts about it. I have concluded that internal links play a major role in ranking a website or blog.

Later in this post, I will be telling you all the Pros of making internal links to your website or blog. Let me give you some good examples of websites that are ranking on the Google first pages like shoutmeloud.com, Neilpatel.com, backlinko.com, and many others are there. Even if you can check my blog Tricky Enough where you are currently reading this post, I am also doing proper internal linking.

And I am sure that while reading on my blog or even on this post you will notice that there are enough internal links that are related to this topic only.

What is Internal Linking?

Internal links are links that bind a website together. In simple words, we link the related content to the topic in a page or post to make it more helpful and understandable to the reader. When we make links on a single domain only using different posts and pages, then that can be known as internal linking. But when the links are from other domains or domain links pointing to our website are known as outbound links.

Why do Internal Linking?

There are various reasons to create internal links on a website or blog, like

• Navigation to the related posts becomes a lot easier, and we can grab proper information without looking at external sources.
• Helps to make a good architecture and hierarchy of a blog or website.
• The best thing, according to me that this can do; is to increase the page authority of the posts and pages on the website and also help to rank on SERPs as quickly as possible.

The first two points are good, but we should focus on the third point because according to the third point, doing internal linking can help us to boost Page authority as well as Domain Authority. If you do not know the difference between Page Authority and Domain Authority then should read about it. Creating internal links could even help us to improve our Alexa Rank early because of the increased traffic and decreased Bounce rate of our website.

Do Search Engines Prefer Internal Links?

Yes, Search Engines like Google, Bing, and others good search Engines highly Prefer internal links. You can check a post on link architecture by Google Blog does Google check the anchor text of the internal links?

According to the above two links, Google loves internal links and considers them to be the best technique for SEO. So, Internal linking has become an important part of SEO, and internal links can help us to rank on Google SERPs and increase Domain Authority.

How should you do Internal linking for Perfect SEO?

1. Create more and more good content.

The first question that comes to the mind of bloggers and webmasters is how they can create internal links.

So, My Answer to them is to focus on creating lots of content. More content means that you can make more internal links. Less content means fewer internal links, so create content that is related and can be easily interlinked together. Grab one Niche and start writing a series of topics about the same niche. Even the readers like reading the content on one complete topic. Like I have written lots of SEO content, I have written a post about “A complete guide to SEO” and have internally linked the other related posts to the same post, thus making the best and navigable to the readers. You can do the same type of thing to do proper internal linking and better SEO.

2. Use anchor text wisely.

When we do the off-page link Building, then we do not use the same anchor text as the keyword or the title of the post. So, the same is true with the internal links.

You should not use the same anchor text while making the internal links on your Pages. I will recommend you use the different synonym words or LSI keywords for the internal linking. Using the same keyword to link the same page or post will not be considered wise.

3. Create deep links.

Focus on creating deep links.

Deep links mean, making links in the website’s posts and pages that are old enough. Even the new internal links help a lot but linking a new post to the old post helps to get a good page authority in a very short period and as a result of that, the post can rank on Google SERPs as quickly as possible.

And also do not make more internal links to your domain page or home page. Google already knows that your home page is connected to the other pages and posts of your blog. And even avoid linking the Contact Us page again and on your pages. So, Avoid interlinking your Home page or domain name again and again.

4. Use those links which Interest the readers of the post.

What If I am writing a post on SEO and in the same post I do some internal linking, and many of the links are not related to the SEO, the links are related to development, marketing, and selling? So, this post with bad internal links is not going to rank, and even the readers are not going to enjoy it because the links they are getting in this post are different than the posts they are reading. According to my opinion, this kind of post reaches nowhere but the end of Google SERPs.

The only thing I want to make you understand is to create those links that are related to your post. Google’s Rank Brain algorithm is good at this and detects this kind of mistake in a matter of seconds once crawled. So, if you are writing about SEO, interlink content that is related to SEO only, like On-page SEO, Off-Page SEO, link building, etc.

5. Links must be relevant.

Relevant means that the internal link that you are making must make the current post more valuable and knowledgeable. Linking irrelevant content to your post may destroy the proper message that you want to give to your readers. And according to me doing this kind of thing can increase your bounce rate. More importantly, it must interest your readers, and above that, the link must pass a valuable source that must make the visitor read the linked content on your post and help to decrease the bounce rate of your website or blog.

6. Do not make the internal links Nofollow.

Nofollow links are those links that are not indexed by Google and pass no link juice. Nofollow links were introduced by Google in the year 2005 to avoid spamming. If you are making the links Nofollow for the other website which is not trusted even by Google, that’s a good SEO technique, and you are taking your safe side.

But if you are making your website links Nofollow then it is the biggest SEO mistake that you are making, and following this type of technique can hurt the SEO and ranking of your website. I will recommend you keep the links Dofollow while doing internal linking

7. Do not overdo the internal linking.

When I entered the field of SEO and internet marketing, from then until today, I heard that content is king and that somehow it is true. As in the first point, I mentioned that more internal links could be created only if we have more content. So, Content plays a major role always, but it does not mean we can link our whole or half of the websites doing the internal linking.

We must make reasonable links to a blog post or a web page. Overdoing, can spoil our SEO and ruin the reputation of the website. According to the above points, internal links must be relevant, related to the post, interested in the content readers, and pass valuable knowledge and information.

Moreover, making a long list of links in the content can irritate or confuse the reader. Like sharing the same types of content in the post in a row one by one.

Conclusion

Internal links have always been a part of SEO, and in the coming years, they will be. I do believe that the above seven tips that I have shared will help you to do internal linking properly.

If you have any Questions or Queries, please feel free to ask, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.