Day 15: Internal links

Content with a link ranks better than the one without links. It makes it easier for Google when your page is linked somewhere on the web. Internal links can be described as the link that links one page or content on a domain to some other content or page on the same domain.

Internal links help in:

1. Easy navigation of the website for the users
2. Hierarchy is maintained on the website.
3. Establishes links authority throughout the web

The basic code for internal linking-
<a href=”http://www.same-domain.com/” title=”Keyword Text”>Keyword Text</a>

The links help the Google bots in finding your page more quickly. Google can easily determine what pages have similar content on a website. The homepage of a website usually has more internal links. By this, the link value is distributed throughout the website.

Keep the following tips in mind while creating internal links to your website:
1. Have plenty of content on your website: With a lot of content you can have a lot of internal links on your website, thus helping in establishing linking authority on the web. The better your content marketing strategy will be, the better you can make your internal linking strategy. Place your links appropriately in the content with the right keyword.

2. Anchor Texts: Anchor text is the text on which the internal link is put. It is a clickable link on a domain that will lead to some other content or page on the same domain. It is okay to have image links on your website but make sure they are not the main source of any link. Using anchor texts is much better than image links. Your anchor text can be a keyword that is related to that page on which the link is put.

3. Link to the necessary pages of your website: Avoid linking too much to the home page and contact us page of your website unless it is very necessary. Link deep in the website to the pages that have more valuable content.

4. Keep the user in mind: Having natural and genuine links on your site increases user engagement and the user spends more time on your site. When a user is going through some content on your site and a related link comes up, he is likely to click on it too. The anchor text should be descriptive enough for the user to tell him what is there in the link. This way he spends more time on your site. Good internal linking sends a message to Google and the user that your content is relevant and important.

5. Follow Links: These links tell the Google what pages need to be crawled and what not. For a follow page, we write the code- attribute rel=dofollow. For a no follow page, we write- attribute rel=nofollow. From SEO point of view, dofollow is important to get the page crawled and indexed by Google. The main idea behind using the nofollow link is that the ranking of the website on the search engines does not get affected.

6. Use a generous amount of internal links: According to the some of the discussions on the web, 100 links are sufficient on a webpage. The point to be noted here is that these 100 links should not be there in your content alone, it includes your header, footer, navigation bars, ads, etc.

Proper internal linking can help your website get crawled and indexed by search engines faster. Next, in our series of 30-day challenge articles, we will discuss how backlinks can be beneficial for your site SEO.