Boost your search rankings with internal linking

An important factor Google takes into consideration when ranking a website is the number of good quality links pointing back to it. These are known as backlinks, they are links published on third party websites that point back to your domain and website pages. Google sees backlinks from other websites as a signal that your website or content is trustworthy and relevant.

Think of a backlink like a vote of authority. It indicates to search engines that your website is worth linking to.

Links from other websites are more favorable to your rankings if they are relevant to your own website or topic. Having links pointing back to your own web pages from other “high authority” websites are considered the most valuable links you can earn for higher search engine rankings.

Links from non relevant websites and topics still count towards Google’s ranking algorithm, but they are not as valuable and can sometimes have a negative impact on your rankings. The better quality your backlink profile is, the better you’ll do in organic search results.

Earning backlinks from top high authority websites in your niche can be difficult, time consuming and expensive. There is however another linking method that you can start working on straight away which will help boost your search rankings.

Internal links are links that you have on your own domain and web pages. Google still counts these links like backlinks and can help boost your rankings for two important reasons.

First of all, when you link between the internal pages of your website, it makes it easier for Google and other search engines to crawl and understand your content.

Secondly, when you link to pages that are relevant to each other, it creates topic groups (groups of pages on a certain topic). Topic groups share SEO juice or ranking points between themselves, which can boost their search rankings. Pages you can create internal links to might be things like related services or products, reviews, articles etc. A good way to check for internal linking opportunities is to ask Google.

Try searching Google using the search text below.

site:yourdomain.com ‘your target keyword’

You will hopefully find that the page you want to rank shows up first in the search engine results. It will then be followed by other pages on your site that Google thinks are relevant. The trick here is to make sure you link from these other pages to the page you actually want to rank. By building these internal backlinks you can help to improve your online visibility and start ranking higher.

When linking to internal pages, it’s important not to hyperlink with your keywords all the time. This is called keyword stuffing and can have a negative effect on your rankings. Try and use a variation of phrases that include your keywords making each hyperlink original if possible.

Internal link building is a good strategy to get relevant backlinks for your pages quickly. It can take a little time before you see some benefits from your work but it’s an important part of SEO not to be skipped over.

If you’d like to speak to us about your SEO contact us today and see how we can help.