Internal links are deeply linked with the SEO of your website. When you want to get your page ranked the three most important factors which you need to consider are
Internal links are loved by google and the more the number of internal links the better will be your Search Engine ranks. You do have affiliate links and backlinking which can be used as well but these two type of links when used extensively, will result in getting your website into the bad books of Google which would result in lower page rankings in the search engine.
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How to Use Internal Links?
When you are writing a post and there is some word/phrase which you want to link to another relevant page on your website so that the user understands the concept better then that link will be known as an internal link. Internal Links are better when it comes with the flow of the content and does not give an impression of being stuffed into the content just for the sake of it.
Try to make it go naturally with the content and keep in mind that the more content you have created, the better are your chances of getting internal links on a particular post. Initially, you may not have enough posts for internal links but once you have enough of them, you can go back to the older posts and start adding them wherever necessary.
How do Internal Links help in Improving User Experience?
The internal links will take the user to the other relevant pages on the website which would result in the user staying longer on your website. The main focus here is to create useful content so that the user finds that useful and relevant to the previous page content where they found that internal link. The more the user clicks on these links and clicks through all the pages, the better will be the user experience on your website.
Google loves lower bounce rate sites and if you get into that side of Google then the chance of your site having better rankings just increases. Although, I recommend that you have internal links on your website, remember to link it to relevant content and not to something which totally out of the topic. Linking to irrelevant pages would drive away the traffic because once people land on a page which is different from what they had been reading about then they would simply leave your website annoyed and look for information on another web page.
Key points of Internal Linking
1. Content
Creating lots of posts and pages can help in internal linking. The more content you have, the more internal links you would be able to include on your web page. The better the internal linked pages, the user stays for a longer time on your website and that would just enhance the user experience and rankings of your pages.
I had a few pages with no internal links initially but once I had a good number of posts, I went back and started placing internal links on these pages. I could see some improvement in the rankings on my page and that really helped me get a few of my pages Google page rankings of 1 and 2. It is sometimes difficult to have internal links on a page, but that is okay. It is okay to not have internal links that to just put them forcefully into the content because that would just irritate your audience and we already have google ads for that.
2. Anchor text
The very typical anchor text is ‘click here’. I think it is high time that we stopped using this one often and rather have texts which tell us something about what would be there on the next page once the person clicked on the anchor text. It gives the user a much better idea and it looks good in the eyes of google so by making your anchor text more descriptive you are doing good to your site and making your site more helpful to the audience.
So try to avoid the typical anchor texts, using them once in a while is fine but overdoing them is just going to leave your website looking like a promotional page. Try to connect with your audience and make them understand where the internal link is going to land them rather than wasting their time like most of the other scammers do.
3. Linking relevant content
It is important to link content that is relevant to the page from which the reader is navigating. When you link some irrelevant content then the user might just get annoyed and take off from your web page. This would affect your website bounce rate and that would just hinder your rankings.
It is not difficult to find some relevant content to link in your posts once you have some considerable content published on your website. It is important to understand that internal links are loved by google but when you have irrelevant links they aren’t going to do anything good for the SEO. In order to have the SEO optimized try keeping relevant links on your pages and posts.
4. Maximum number of internal Links
There is no maximum limit to internal links but I can be sure that you would find some good 4 to 5 internal links in a post without too much effort and that is good enough. It may not be excellent but it is better than stuffing them in your post.
The more the merrier and there are many sites having posts which include around 100 internal links. But, I would say when you are actually writing out content it will be difficult to include so many, so even if you have a couple of them it is fine as long as you do not compromise with the quality of the page or post.
Wikipedia is a good example of having many internal links and since they have a really lengthy content on a few topics, it is easier for them to get more than 100 internal links but that does not mean you need to have so many on your page as well. Your website will do well with a couple of internal links as well since there are other factors involved as well when it comes to ranking.
5. Maintain the flow of content
Have links that maintain a flow for the readers. To provide the audience with a good user experience it is important that you have content that maintains a flow when the reader is navigating. Imagine reading an article on dog food and suddenly you land on a page which is all about toilet training for cats. Pretty unusual and there is no flow of content.
Now, imagine another internal link on the same page about dog food which takes you to a page which talks about the most recommended dog food for different breeds of dog. This maintains a flow of content and the user would be interested to read this information.
Try creating such links which actually prove beneficial to the users and also keep their interest alive till they make a purchase from your site or at least return back to your site for more information.
In the case you want to know how I started making money online then go through my online journey right here. If you have any further questions or queries, leave them in the comment section below and I would be happy to help.
I thought anchor text was the name I gave to the anchor I would add linking to a post section, the name of the anchor hahaha in wix you add those in long pages so you can access a specific zone. I don’t know what there called on wordpress. I wonder if the name of those matters in SEO it does refer to a link. It’s not what a real anchor text is but still anchors.