HA! Got your attention.
What I was referring to here is link building, but more specifically, internal links. Internal links are those links to other pages ON your website. As it indicates, internal links don’t go to other pages (duh, right?) but those that users can click on that will take them someone else. The other type of link would be an external link which leads a user off of your page. Be sure when you do this that it opens up in a new window or tab as you don’t want the consumer to lose sight of your website.
The benefits of internal links
There are many benefits of internal links but of most importance is that they provide a better user experience , they are helpful in search engine optimization (see that internal link there? ) for your website and helps the search engines crawl your website. That’s a triple win so why wouldn’t you do it, right?
Internal links help the user experience in that it makes it easier for the consumer to go from one page to another when discussing a topic. Sure, hopefully you have a navigation bar directing the consumer to the right page, but if they are reading about, say Pay Per Click advertising, and want to know more, they can click on it right away and get that information. You want to make the experience on your website easy so the consumer will stay there and less chance of them bouncing, hitting that dreaded “back” button or just abandoning your site all together.
Internal links help your site with search engine optimization in that Google ranks your site partially based on your backlinks, you are telling the search engines that keyword or topic is important enough to help your consumers find it, but also it passes the “link juice” to other pages or blogs in your website. These things can help increase your ranking in the search engine results.
Lastly, internal links help the search engine spiders index your site. Again, it is similar to that of the user experience, making it easier, but it also gives the search engine crawlers a way to naturally go from one page to another. Hopefully you already have a site index which will do that for the spiders, but it is still helpful as well.
Be sure that you take advantage of using the right anchor text (keyword rich) when linking. Anchor text is the actual text that is being linked. Of course, don’t overdo the keyword part as it needs to be relevant to what it is being linked to.
Hopefully this has been helpful and I hope that you will check out some of my internal links and see what other stuff is going on with my blogs and website. However, should you have any questions on social media marketing, SEO, PPC marketing or consulting services, please do contact me as I would love to help your small business be more visible online.
~Kristen
I had always heard that those kind of links were a smart thing to do. I try to link inside my own website if I reference a past article or sometimes it links itself if I use the matching keyword phrases. I know its horrible when you are reading posts and you can tell that they have been keyword stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey. It seems very unnatural.
Now that I know its a good thing for SEO, I’m going to make sure to try to have at least 1-2 in every post. Thank you for the reminder! Great post!
That’s true too Heather that having too many in there is distracting… but it’s a link… if you don’t want to go there… don’t click on it. But yes.. good for SEO! 😉
This is a timely post for me. I have been posting on a regular basis so I can now use more internal links than I had in the past. I agree with Heather about thinking how distracting it is when reading a post that is stuffed with keywords and phrases.
Thanks Patricia… true… but think… everything in moderation! 😉
Great info Kristin! I know I need to do this on a more regular basis. Now, after reading this I have a betteridea of WHY it matters so much! Thank you for sharing this! 😉
Glad to help Daveda… thanks for stopping by.
So many perks and benefits to having those internal links throughout the entire site. Very helpful and I do appreciate you providing all those examples of ways to utilize it. AND, well done in terms of practicing what you preach as well.
Awwww, thanks Edmund. I appreciate the kudos and confirmation! 😉
This is a nice summary of the value of internal links and how to use them. Thanks!
Thank you!
Interesting! If I am reading this correctly, then I used internal links quite a bit. They are very convenient and I try to keep the key words out there without being too obvious. Thanks for the information.
You are welcome Yakini.. glad to help and if you are using them moderately, you are on the right path.
Lots of great examples there Kristen. I must admit that I often forget to go through my blog posts and articles to add internal links. It’s so easy to do and I agree, worthwhile. I will make it my mid June resolution to add internal links as part of my proof reading process prior to releasing content. Many thanks.
Thanks Clive, I try. Yea, I make a point of when I upload a blog to do everything right then and there… upload a picture, optimize it, be sure to add categories and tags, be sure I have a proper meta description and title… so yes, a great resolution. If you start new going forward and maybe even go back to one blog each time, you will have all the old ones done too. 😉
Internal links. Yep. I was actually thinking yesterday about doing this. I appreciate the reminder. Great minds think alike!
Glad to hear Jackie… yes, get on those. 😉