Best internal linking strategy to boost website traffic 

Internal linking strategy can help you make your pages discoverable by prospects’ on the search engines. Along with backlinking, internal linking can help you increase your search engine ranking.

Internal linking can be simply defined as linking one webpage to another webpage on your site. By implementing an effective internal linking strategy, you can increase your website traffic. Here, in this blog, we will discuss internal linking best practices that can help you boost your website traffic and increase conversions.

What are internal links?

Internal links are links connecting one webpage to another on your site. It incorporates the navigation buttons on the site to call-to-action prompts. The image links, banner images, and other links that lead back to your web pages are also included in this.

For example, you must have seen many sites linking their one content post to other relevant content posts on their site.

Why is internal linking important? 

Now, you must be thinking about how internal links can help you increase your website traffic. The organic traffic that comes to your website is driven through the search engine. To clearly understand, you need to know how search engine bots work, search for content, and index it. Internal links enable search engine bots like google to find pages on your website.

It’s simple, if the pages can’t be found, they can’t be indexed by the search engine. If your pages are not indexed, then they won’t be seen in the search results. This means that internal links help to increase your website’s visibility.

Let’s understand how they actually aid in increasing website traffic.

1. Increase engaging time and reduce the bounce rates 

Marketers and SEO executives look for ways to boost website traffic. Supposedly, your site traffic increases but most of the visitors leave without finding what they were looking for. This would be the worst-case scenario.

A good internal linking strategy can help your site visitors to find the content easily, This will aid you in reducing the bounce rate of your website. However, make sure that the internal links that you create are relevant to the existing content. This helps the site visitor to find the related content easily, and they end up spending more time on the site.

You can use different tools to determine the ranking on Google search, like RankBrain. This tool helps to know the dwell time and bounce rates of your website. By analyzing this data, you can optimize your search engine strategy accordingly.

2. Gets your content indexed 

Internal linking can help search engine bots to find your content and index it quickly. By getting your content indexed quickly, you can make more people discover it when it’s just uploaded.

Blogs are the best choice for internal linking. For instance, you have added a feed to your homepage, and you link it to your recent blogs. This can help you to boost your page ranking. However, make sure the content that you are linking is relevant to the added feed content.

3. Search engines can navigate the breadth of your topic 

Most of the websites have distinct sections for products, services, information, and support of the company. That is made for the navigation purpose of the site visitors. Nonetheless, it is also the breadth of your content.

Having navigational segments at the top of your website helps users to find content easily. Publishing good quality and a lot of content on specific topics can boost authority for page rankings.

Keep the depth low of your content so that people find what they’re looking for at the earliest. By depth, we mean the number of clicks that users have to do after the top-level navigational content. For example, if a user has to click six times after navigational segments to get to specific content. It will affect the page rankings negatively.

How to improve internal linking? 

If you think just adding tons of internal links would drive traffic to your website, then you are wrong. You should consider where different types of links should be included to get the maximum benefit.

1. Landing pages

Landing pages are a breadth of content where you should add links. See from your users’ perspective and think about what would drive them to a landing page. Then, tailor the links that would lead them ahead in their buying journey.

Depending on the main objective of the landing page, you can do internal linking. It’s not necessary that you add content links to the landing page. You can directly add CTA buttons that drive users to take a desired action. For example, if the landing page is about a particular service, then you can add a CTA that states, ‘Talk to our experts.’

2. Blog posts

Blog posts are ideal for internal linking. Adding links to a blog post related to the same topic can help to increase the page’s authority for search engine ranking. Usually, when users come to a blog, if they see links related to the topic, they tend to click on them. This way, the website traffic stays on the website only.

Here, let’s take an example. You have posted a blog on Robotic Process Automation. You can link it to topics like RPA tools and the RPA service page. This way, the users will find the relevant information regarding RPA in one place. The search engine bots will also analyze the relevance of the links and use them as a ranking criterion.

3. New and previous content

To make your new content index quickly, you can link it to your landing or other web pages. Ensure you use your new content to link to and from the older content on your website. This will also help to revamp your older content and increase the authority of your page and domain.

How to improve internal link building strategy? 

From the information above, you would have understood the importance of internal linking and why you should do it. In this section, we will tell you the ways to improve the internal linking strategy.

1. Map out the layout of your website

Search engines determine the relevance of your website based on its structure. Your website structure should have a natural hierarchy so that the search engine could index it. Don’t create ‘orphan pages’ that aren’t linked to other pages on the site.

Make sure you create different categories & sub-categories that make sense and can be accessed easily. Create a site map and link it to your robots.txt file to ensure faster crawling and indexing. This will enable Googlebot access to prioritize crawling pages that are important for search engine ranking.

2. Plan content creation and internal links

Plan content curation and how you want the internal links to work with it. To get the maximum benefit of internal linking, link your SEO content from webpages with high authority. Make a proper plan to prevent duplicate content SEO mistakes.

With content marketing, you should have a purpose for publishing each content piece. This will help to keep your site organized and maintained. In the long term, it will benefit your site ranking and authority.

3. Include internal links on every page

Avoid creating dead-end content with no links. For instance, if the users find themselves on a site page from where they can’t go back, they’ll undoubtedly leave your site from there. However, you should avoid linking back from your landing page to every page. If a web page doesn’t lead anywhere, it’s better to have a backlink to a landing page than nothing.

4. Use contextual links and check for broken links 

You can increase the authority of your newer content by linking it with the older content that’s already ranked. If you include links in your content, that’s even better. Try to find the best anchor text for your link. So the readers see the text instead of the hyperlink. Ensure it’s contextually relevant and blends with your content seamlessly.

Also, you should check if the links work perfectly. If the search engine bots detect broken links, this will affect the health score and overall ranking of your website.

5. Include links and CTAs based on your buyer’s journey 

You should include links and CTAs based on the customer’s buying journey. For instance, if the customer is in the awareness stage, you show them a CTA to purchase. Then, surely they’ll leave, and this won’t lead them to purchase. You need to go step by step and see from the customers’ perspective, what they would be thinking. You don’t want to be forceful in your approach.

Think about where the customer is in the sales funnel and represent the links and CTAs accordingly. For example, if the customer is in the consideration stage. Then, you can send out emails letting them know about your USPs and how you are better than other choices in the market.

6. Get users’ attention with well-written anchor text 

Anchor text plays a vital role in leading customers to conversions. Based on the SEO keywords, you can create a good anchor text for your webpage. Keywords are the terms that people search on search engines to find answers or relevant content. Therefore, if you add them to your webpage and in the anchor text, it would result in high visibility. However, remember that you don’t overstuff keywords on your web pages. As this could harm your overall page’s ranking on search engines.

7. Ensure pages are crawlable and every link is properly coded

For your pages to be ranked and indexed, they must be reachable by search engine bots (crawlers). You need to do enough backend work to improve analytics. You can use various audit tools for this purpose. For example, if you have repetitive links to a contact form, you can use nofollow links to avoid wasting the search engine bot’s time.

Don’t link back to your homepage from everywhere. The homepage already has the highest authority. You should think about how you can link the pages deeply into your website.

Along with it, you should also consider the mobile experience of users. Make sure it’s consistent without any technical glitches. Google AMP SEO plays a critical role in page ranking. Make sure your coding is proper, so the users have a good experience on both desktop and mobile.

The Bottom Line 

To build an effective internal linking strategy, you should keep relevance and user experience in mind. Try to convey authority from your web pages with the tricks we have given above. Keep a shallow depth of your website throughout. Make sure the backend of your website is coded properly. By following the above best practices, you can create a robust internal linking strategy that helps you bring traffic to your website.

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