Internal Links
What are Internal Links?
When it comes to optimizing the website, all search engine optimizers know the importance of external links directing users to their web pages. At the same time, one cannot ignore the importance of internal links and how it can help in optimizing the webpage. The homepage content and link is the most important of all because it is the landing page of your website. However, all your internal pages should be systematically linked to the home page which will provide a better user experience to the visitors. Using internal links you can quickly improve the usability and performance of the website and provide users information that they seek.
Importance of Internal Links
When users visit your website they usually land on the homepage. From there on, users generally look for other information or links that interest them and move on to various internal pages that are a part of your website. Using internal links correctly allows users to seek the information they are looking for in a convenient way.
Most online visitors are impatient and will soon move on to other websites if they don’t find the information they are looking for. With the help of internal links, you can allow users a seamless experience as they can click on various links and get connected to other pages on your website. This enhances their browsing experience and makes them stay longer on your website.
From a search engine’s point of view, using internal links can allow your website to get better page ranking. When search engine crawlers visit your website to index, they need a structure that would let them crawl deeper into various web pages on your site. When the internal pages are not linked correctly it would hamper the crawlers’ ability to list those pages in the search engine indices and those pages will never show up in the SERPs.
Using the right internal links through keywords can also boost the site rankings on the SERPs. Most internal links are hyperlinked to important keywords which allows search engines to understand that there is another important and relevant page connected for the users that can benefit them.
How to Use Internal Links Effectively?
To effectively use internal links, it is important that the link is hyperlinked to an anchor text that can help search engine crawlers determine what a given web page is about.
It is also essential that all your sidebar menus and links in the main body contain keywords in the anchor text of your internal links.
You also need to include the Site Map page with your website and connect all the pages that you have on your website with it.
Finally, link all site pages back to your homepage for easier navigation.