Despite its importance, internal linking is often overlooked and misunderstood. One of the most straightforward tasks, but there’s a lot more going on than meets the eye.
There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to internal linking, but I can tell you that it’s not as simple as making sure that your new post has a direct link back to your older posts.
What Happens When You Ignore Link Strategy?
It was considered magical to cram as many hyperlinks as possible into blog posts and website content back in the day. There is no harm in having a lot of links, even if they have no apparent connection to the content of an article or web page. Even if the content wasn’t relevant, traffic was the goal.
However, this tactic is still being used, albeit as click-bait with relevant keywords serving as links. However, at what price?
The ability to stand out from the crowd in a crowded online market is made possible by high-quality content. Readers see random links as spam or a waste of their time because they don’t make sense. Confusion, increased bounce rates, and a deterioration in customer satisfaction are all consequences of this practice, damaging a company’s online reputation.
There is a high price for a poorly planned and executed link strategy. Potential customers have no idea what to do if there isn’t a clear purpose written into the content and linked to. As a result, they’re having a hard time landing. The time, effort, and money invested in developing the content are lost.
What to do and what not to do in your link strategy
Using links to connect much-related content without competing for attention is a great way to help content grow as a network of interconnected streets.
Due to their importance in overall content marketing, it is critical that the streets we create and the locations we place them in play a role.
Blogs are the most regularly updated sort of material on a site. As a result, it is one of the best sites to implement a link strategy. While providing readers with actual content and topic-specific support, a regular blog posting schedule also allows brands to implement SEO link-building techniques, both internal and external. You can hire professional SEO services to help you.
If you’ve followed these guidelines, you should be fine.
Do: Include a Link Above the Fold
Over eighty percent of a user’s time on the web is spent looking at information that appears “above the fold” or “what you view before sliding.” What are you waiting for? Promote recent or best work at the top of the page to entice visitors to stay on your site after reading the most recent article.
Add a signup form to the sidebar at the top of your website to increase email list signups. However, keep in mind that your content should have some breathing room. The content should not be sacrificed for cramming ads and other distracting elements into the top of the page.
Don’t: Overwhelm Your Audience
When it comes to effective link building, less really is more. You’ve gone overboard if you include multiple links in each blog post paragraph. The ideal number of inbound and outbound links per thousand words is three to five. This number may rise for a content-based site with research and educational content.
Do: Have a Clear Single CTA
Incorporating multiple links into a blog post can be tricky because the call to action can become muddled. If there are so many alternative routes, the main course of action may get lost in the shuffle,
Include links that support the article’s main topic or add to its depth and credibility to keep things concise, clear, and moving toward a specific call to action. Avoid “link piling” or relying on a single blog post to handle the bulk of your marketing efforts.
The best strategy is to write a series of posts to increase the amount of real estate and spread out important links while enhancing SEO and content pathways at the same time.
Don’t: Be Afraid of a Linking External Resource
Regular, well-written blog posts provide Google-friendly opportunities to connect with other credible external sources outside of inbound links and within the blog itself.
Good SEO is made possible by sharing information that other well-known websites can support. This creates opportunities for referral linking. If you want to link to a well-known and trusted site, this is a legitimate way.
Building authority for your content and the brand site is accessible by regularly referencing high-quality external resources which helps in content marketing.
Do: Experiment with the use of CTAs based on the content you want to promote
Blogs for brands are an excellent way for potential customers to taste your expertise, and the specific methods featured practices or products improve their quality of life.
An alternative to including links promoting products, services, or special offers would be to include links pointing to recommended content instead. As a gateway to newer, fresher pieces of cornerstone content that readers may not have even realized they needed, this is a great way to drive traffic. Using CTAs to link to recommended content positions a brand as an industry expert.
Don’t: Be Dishonest with Gated Links and Confuse the Reader
It’s expected that when you click on a link on a website, you’ll immediately be taken to the information you’re looking for. It’s frustrating when a reader clicks on a link to read more and discovers that they need an account and password to proceed.
As part of a sound business strategy, brands must have a healthy mix of free and gated content, and they must be upfront and honest.
Do: Implement a Link Building Editorial Calendar
Many brands can plan and produce content that aligns with their marketing campaign goals with an editorial calendar. Using an editorial calendar, marketers can more easily incorporate related content links into their newly created blog posts.
Don’t: Forget to Refresh Your Approaches
Link signals degrade over time, and popular websites can become stale if they don’t receive any new links from other websites. A link’s freshness is a significant factor in determining its popularity, as well as its relevance.
To ensure that the content is current, avoid using more than two-year-old reference links in a blog post, depending on the subject matter.
Do: Place Crucial Links in the Menu Bar
An internal link leads to another page within a web browser or application. Landing pages, contact pages, and FAQs pages should be placed in this location.
Getting to these pages should be simple for customers to do so. As a general rule, the most important pages should only require a single click to be accessed. Search engines are less critical for pages that need more than three clicks to access.
There is a good flow of authority to the pages in the navigation bar because the links in the bar are also sitewide.
Conclusion
Although backlinks are preferable, internal links should never be discounted. Having a bad internal linking strategy could be why you aren’t getting better rankings. Concentrate on increasing the number of inbound links pointing to your most important pages, and then do the same for the rest of your website.