Your business may already have a strong SEO strategy of creating and updating good page and product content, but there may be one element of your approach that you may have overlooked. Overall, the main goal of your site is to drive users and convert sales, and have them spend time on it to read all of that great content. One easy way to keep them on the site is to create a strong internal linking strategy so your readers can easily find and access the information from your site.
As you are working to create new pages on your website, part of your strategy should be how to include internal links from other priority pages so that new content is quickly found. Creating internal links doesn’t only create a stronger experience for the end user, but it also makes ranking on keywords and phrases easier as you share your overall content from page to page.
From a search engine’s perspective, they are working to pull the very best information from your site and products about certain topics that are related to a user’s search interest. What makes internal links so important in this situation is that they will show the search engines that your content is very valuable so you make it easy for readers to find it. Just like inbound links from other sites become relevant based on the source that they are coming from, internal links are almost like creating that relevance for your own site.
As you are trying to increase your links, you need to think of how a search engine values each link. A search engine is looking at how many pages on your site are linking to that page, and if all of your site pages are linking to different topics, then it must be important to you, so it is obviously important to others as well. Making your main pages a part of your top navigation is also a good way to show search engines what is your most important topics.
So, now that you know that internal links are important, you may be asking what are the ways we can improve our internal links; well, below are three quick ways to make sure your links are being used effectively.
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Website Flow: Almost like a map of where to go next, sketch out a list of all of your web pages and the paths that users will take to get from one to another. Start from your main navigation and move down. Using this map will help for you to uncover pages that pay be too hidden in your site and also help you to realize that you may need to add additional links to help readers access those pages effortlessly.
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Topics: If you have common updates to certain topics on your site, make sure that those new topics are each added as a new page. If the new item is a promotion, it should have its own landing page with its own content included. Then, throughout your site, drive users to that new page with links from your most popular pages. If you have a blog that you consistently update and is frequently read, these links are necessary and will eventually help with assist users to your new, important information.
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Create a Game Plan: As you are adding new pages, look at that website map and plan out all of the pages on your site that should link to the new page. Creating this plan will help you to drive users to your new content, and will also make it easier for the end user to access it without any trouble.
You know that your website has great content that you know your target will love to read, but if they cannot find it once on your site, they will never get to experience all you have to offer. So definitely take the time to create a plan of attack to make sure your website pages speak to one another to not only increase the overall experience, but also boost your rankings for search results.
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