How is internal linking important in SEO?
It is not a secret that content is the king when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). However, content alone is not enough; it’s essential to entice search engines as well as visitors.
Internal linking supports the SEO by driving traffic to other pages. However, while turning to the tactics of building external links, we often underestimate the impact that an optimized internal linking strategy could create. As a result, internal links are undoubtedly one of the most neglected link-building tactics in SEO marketing. Yet, it is essential for any website since it helps to establish site architecture and spread the link juice.
What is an internal linking?
Internal links are hyperlinks that point to pages on the same domain. These are different from external links, which link out to pages on other domains.
An internal link is any link that points from one page to another page on the same website. Both your users and search engines use links to find content on your website. Your users use links to navigate through your site and to see the content they want to find. Search engines also use links to navigate your site. They won’t find a page if there are no links to it.
There are several types of internal links. In addition to your homepage, menu, and post feed, you can also add links within your content. We call those contextual links. Contextual links point your users to interesting and related content. Moreover, they allow search engines to find out what content on your site is connected to and determine its value. The more links a significant page receives, the more important it will seem to search engines. Therefore, good internal links are crucial for your search engine optimization. There are a plethora of benefits of internal linking. Let’s take a look at some of them:
- Improves user experience and conversions
Internal link building is an excellent way to deliver a premium user experience while moving potential customers deeper into your conversion funnel. As users consume your content, they’ll have more questions. When you anticipate those questions, you can guide their thought process. Then, by strategically adding internal links to your content, you’ll prompt action.
When you serve users what they want, they’re more likely to remain on your website instead of returning to Google for answers. This amplifies brand awareness, builds trust, fosters brand loyalty, and increases sales.
- Help Search Engines Understand Your Site’s Structure
A solid internal linking SEO structure can help search engines find and index the pages on the site. Using optimized internal links is an infallible way to allow Google to regularly discover relevant content on the site. An additional internal link can also help to demonstrate the contextual relationship between the two pages. For example, using internal links correctly provides a signal stating that page a is related to page b. This can be a great way to illustrate your expertise if you have a wealth of authoritative content to weave together. If you don’t show Google how your content is connected, your users won’t make the connections either.
- Improves the time spent by visitors on site
The more time readers spend on your website, the better!
Internal Linking aims to keep the readers on site. While most of the visitors immediately leave after viewing one page of the website leading to an increase in bounce rate. Internal linking helps in reducing the bounce rate and increasing the time on site since it retains the visitors on a site for much longer by linking relevant and valuable information offering real value to the content.
- Help Users to Navigate Between Relevant Pages
Internal linking is an excellent way of improving your user experience since it helps your visitors find more exciting content. For example, this might entail taking users to a product page to buy something mentioned in a buying guide or another piece of content to expand on a particular topic.
From increasing average time on-site to nudging users down the paths to purchase, internal links can be leveraged to improve your user experience as well as overall search performance.
- Allow readers to crawl to your website
Links are the most effective way to discover new content. It could take much longer for Google to find if a URL doesn’t have internal or external links. Googlebot and other web crawlers travel the web from one link to another. So the more links a new page or new post has, the more likely it will be encountered by Google. Internal pages with no links are called orphaned pages. Therefore, you must ensure that your website has at least one internal link on every significant page.
Final Thoughts
Internal linking is an easy yet efficient part of SEO that makes a big difference. It has become one of the most crucial factors of nurturing your online business and improving the user experience of your web visitors. Therefore, start focusing on your internal linking strategy now to avoid missing out on your potential customers and rankings.
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