Adding internal links to your website is a great way to make it easier for visitors to find the information they seek. Internal links create a navigation hierarchy by helping visitors explore your site's content while improving pages' visibility within your website’s structure. Interlinking also has various SEO benefits, as they help distribute link juice throughout your website while supporting keyword ranking.
Here are the steps to adding internal links to your website.
1. Identify what pages of your website you should link to. Generally, it is good practice to link to pages with related content that could offer the user more value.
2. Once you have identified the pages to link to, you need to craft the link. It is done by wrapping the words or phrases you want to link to in HTML anchor tags.
3. You can also use internal links to other parts of the same page. It is done by using anchor tags with a defined target.
4. It is important to note that the URL, anchor text, and target must be relevant to the content you are linking to. Additionally, you should close the link with the tag so that elements in the page will not have the link attribute applied to them later.
Following these guidelines will ensure that your internal links are correctly set up and will provide value to your human visitors and search engines.
Read Google webmaster's guidelines on writing anchor link text.
Step-wise Guide to Build Your Internal Linking Strategy
When starting out, it is important to have an internal linking strategy in place. It is also equally important to refresh your strategy roadmap when required. This can be done by following these steps:
Step 1: Define your internal linking strategy
The first step in building an internal linking strategy is to define what you want to accomplish with your website. It is essential to understand that every website has a unique strategy. The best way to determine your internal linking strategy is using the SMART framework (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound).
Step 2: Map out your most important web pages
Creating a list of the pages you wish to link together is vital. The pages you choose should be relevant and have content valuable enough for users. You can then start creating links between these pages. Of course, you do not need to have links between all the pages on your website. It’s okay if some of them don’t have any links at all as long as they are logically connected through other links on the site.
Ideally, figure out the most important pages of your website and focus on linking between these.
Step 3: Create a link hierarchy between topics and sub-topics
The link hierarchy is the order in which you should prioritize the internal links on your website. This will help you decide what goes where and how many links can be used for each of the sections. You need to decide on a link structure that is easy to understand and use while at the same time being user-friendly.
Step 4: Start with internal linking to the homepage
One of the most important pages of your website is the homepage. This is where most of your traffic will come from. Therefore, having a robust internal linking structure going to and from the homepage is crucial. You should start by creating links between different sections of your homepage and then go on to create links within each section as well as going outside of it.
Step 5: Create a content map for your website
A content map is a list of all the content that you want to include on your website. Every content must be linked to at least one other piece of content, whether it’s another page, an image, a video, a PDF file, etc.
It's not required that you link every piece of content with another piece of content, but it’s important that they at least have one link going outwards or inwards towards another page on your site.
Creating this structure will help increase the overall search engine visibility for each page and the entire site. Once you have defined what kind of pages you want and where they can be linked within your website, you can start creating links based on their relevance and importance for users visiting your site.
Step 6: Decide on the anchor text for these links
Once you decide which pages you wish to link together, it’s time to choose what anchor text should be used for each link. Anchor text helps users understand where they will land when they click on a link. For example, if a user clicks a link with the anchor text “Learn more about us” and lands on another page with “About Us,” they would be confused and frustrated! So instead, use keyword-rich anchor text that matches with user search intents, and they will be more likely to stay on your site.
The anchor text should also include the keywords you wish to rank for. This will help the search engines understand what you are trying to rank for and how well your site is ranking.
Different Types of Internal Links and their SEO value
Some internal links are more valuable than others. For example, Google has filed patents in which PageRank is distributed differently based on the likelihood of users clicking a link. You can read more in Bill Slawski’s post on the Reasonable Surfer Model.
There are multiple ways to add internal links across your website. Let us discuss some common practices and compare them based on their added SEO value.
1. Body content links (editorial links)
The most common and straightforward type of internal link is one you create from your page's body content. For example, you simply place a link at the end of a sentence or phrase on your page, usually in the form of an anchor tag.
They provide context and authority to the destination page, which is why they are the most important types of internal links for SEO. When compared to navigation links that appear on every page of your website, these types of internal links pass more page authority from the linking page to the destination page.
2. Breadcrumbs
A breadcrumb is a type of menu that allows visitors to browse through your different pages. You can place links to your other pages in the breadcrumb menu, which will result in more internal links to those pages.
In addition to improving UX, breadcrumbs make navigation easier for users since they can jump back and forth between different areas of the content hierarchy. Additionally, they assist search engines in discovering important sections of your site by telling them how your content is organized.
3. Menu/Main navigation link
Menu/navigation links are generally found in the header of a website and are used to communicate to users the website hierarchy. These links are often structured around product categories, services, or critical topic areas.
Interlinking tells the user which pages are “next most important” after arriving on the website. It helps improve user experience and helps search engines crawl and index the website. This is why it’s essential to use keywords in your main navigation links because you want search engines to discover those pages and index them for the keywords you want to rank for.
4. Site-wide footer link
Footer links are usually permanent and stay consistent as the user moves through the website. These links are mainly used to point users to other important pages they may want to reference. Examples of these pages include contact us, help, frequently asked questions, about pages, and similar resource-type pages. They also allow internal linking to related content, helping your pages rank for relevant terms.
You can also add a site-wide footer link at the bottom of each page on your website. These internal links are less valuable than body content links but still pass some SEO value from one page to another.
If you want to create an internal link that passes even more SEO value than a site-wide footer link, you can use breadcrumbs in combination with site-wide footers. This allows search engines to discover more pages on your website and index them for relevant keywords.
5. CTA or links in buttons
You can also use a call to action (CTA) or links in buttons to create internal links. However, these internal links are the least valuable because they are added for conversion and are usually not optimized for the keywords that the page ranks for, and search engines don’t know what each link leads to.
But if you want to add a link to a specific page, this is an excellent way to do it. You can use CSS styling to make the link match the button that it’s placed in. This will make your website more visually appealing and ensure that users don’t click on the wrong button.
6. Sidebar Internal Links
Sidebar links are also used to guide the user to other pages on the website, but they are more contextual. Sidebar links direct users to popular or relevant content and is especially useful on websites with a lot of content. Sidebar links help improve the user experience by making it easier to find relevant content.
