What is internal linking in SEO, and why does it matter?
First things first. What is internal linking?
Internal linking is when you add a hyperlink from one page of a domain to a different page on that same domain.
Why should you bother? How does internal linking help SEO?
It’s good for your user
Your end goal for your website is for your user to take action by making an enquiry or a transaction. Right? But if they struggle to find their way around your website, it’s likely that that end goal won’t happen.
Let’s say, your user lands on any given page on your domain, but then can’t see how to get to a similar informative article, or a service or product page. This will give them a very poor user experience. Instead, we would recommend building an internal linking strategy on site so your users can navigate with ease.
It’s good for Google too
If and when Google finds all of your site’s pages that are crawlable, it will go ahead and crawl whatever it can find. Google needs to properly understand the relevance of different pages, the value of them each, and how one page relates to another. Only then can it rank each of your pages in the most relevant way. So you need to give Google contextual understanding of your site’s hierarchy.
Of course, this is definitely not the only contributing way Google ranks your pages in the search results. But it’s certainly an important one to get right. Let’s look at how you can do it.
How can I use types of coding to create links?
You can create an internal link either in the html or on your content management system (CMS). We’ll go through how to do this in both, depending on what your website is set up on.
How to create internal linking in html
- Go to the back end, which is the code part of your CMS
- Add the code part, which is this:
<a href=”url”>link text</a>
But what’s the code mean?
- URL: this is where you will put your link, where you want your user to go
- Link text: this is your ‘anchor text’, where you’ll want to include a keyword associated with the page you are linking to; we’ll explain how to do this later
3. Click to go live.
And then, in your text, your internal link will appear clickable for your user, like that. Test it by clicking the link and make sure it goes to the page you want it to. If it returns an error page, go back to the code to correct your link.
How to add an internal link in WordPress
- Find the text you want to add your link to, highlight it and click the chain link icon
- Enter your internal link (where you want your user to go from here)
- Hit enter, or click the arrow.
You’re done! But if you’re still a little unsure about how to go about internal linking, we can give a helping hand. If that’s you, get in touch with our SEO experts.
Don’t forget to choose the right anchor text for your internal link!
We know that it’s best practice SEO to add an internal link where appropriate and relevant. But it’s equally important to make sure that the anchor text is right too.
What do we mean? When you add an internal link onto a certain word, or words, in your text, Google will associate those words with the page you are linking to, not from. That is why you need to add a relevant keyword, one that you associate with the page you’re linking to.
For example, let’s say you are an e-commerce website that sells hiking shoes, and you have a blog article that talks about the trends this year for trekking boots. You could add an internal link from your blog to, say, your product category page for women, with the following anchor text:
Example:
Shop this season’s water-protective hiking boots for women.
Not sure which keyword to use in your anchor text? You can use one of the keywords you’re optimising for the page you’re linking to.
Internal linking strategy: top 3 tips on what to avoid
Did you know that there are places you might have an internal link, but search engine spiders that crawl your website won’t access it? If you have included internal linking in any of the below, you’ll want to move it because Google won’t find it, so you don’t get the value.
- Behind submission forms – anything content that’s behind a form fill where a user is required to enter their personal information, crawlers won’t access
- Internal search queries – if you have a search box for users, a spider will not do a search, so any internal links behind this won’t get found
- Plugins – such as the likes of Flash or Java, cannot be accessed by Google, so don’t embed any internal links there
Discover more… all things digital marketing
Now you can create your own internal linking in SEO. If you’re interested in learning more, you can head over to our blog to get the latest updates and heaps of helpful content to help you.
