It is no longer a secret that internal links improve rankings on the Google search engine. Website structure is the be-all and end-all. It allows crawlers to crawl a company’s website more easily, and readers can easily get from landing page to landing page and find content relating to their search. Internal linking is one of the four layers of SEO, making it an important part of the basic framework. All links within a website are called internal links. Crawlers store information about a website. Internal links inherit so-called link juice, which distributes the authority of a web page. The amount of link juice reflects the authority of a web page. Internal links usually link to further information on a specific topic. Readers should be offered a relatively high value, which encourages them to spend more time on the website and minimizes the bounce rate.
The goal is a good structure of the website so that users are guided through the website and can find the content they are looking for. Subdivided main categories and subcategories that can be reached via a menu item are obviously essential for this. Subpages must be thematically related to the main pages. In addition, using the footer area and the sidebar for navigation play a relatively large role for visitors. The number of links should be kept to a minimum so that the website doesn’t get too chaotic. Links should be checked for their function, because nofollow links that lead to absolutely nothing and have no real use are just annoying for users and also worsen the link juice. Regarding the position of the links, it is advantageous to place them as high up as possible, because they “inherit” more link juice. The sidebar logically inherits more link juice than the footer, because it is higher on the website. The more often an internal link is clicked on by users on a website, the more link juice it inherits. So-called breadcrumbs set links automatically and thus help to optimally display the hierarchy.
Navigation should be placed in the sidebar as well as in the content so that the reader has a user-friendly overview. In addition, content links have more link power. Old articles can refer to new ones through them; this can enable better search engine ranking as the website is kept up to date.
The anchor text also plays a role in link creation. For search engines, this is of particular importance since it tells them the topic of the target page and thus acts as an indicator for the keywords for the search engine. A distinction is made between the following anchor text types:
- Brand mention: brand names are mentioned in the anchor texts.
- Generic anchor text: all call-to-actions, e.g. “click here”.
- Partial match: keywords are mentioned in these anchors (improving ranking).
- Exact match: anchor text and keyword are identical, this can also improve ranking.
The latter two types have an impact on ranking and thus hold the greatest potential for improvement. However, anchor texts should also be informative and meaningful. They should be easy to read for users, relevant, and make sense.
In addition to anchor texts, there are also image links, which receive less attention from search engines than text links. Only the first link on a page gets link juice. However, if this is a subpage, then the text link counts first.
Internal links of course offer the advantage that they can be self-determined, as opposed to external links (target and placement). In addition, subpages can be highlighted in this way to distribute the authority evenly. Good rankings can be achieved in the long tail keyword area even with barely any backlinks. Additionally, there is no restriction on internal links. Google recommends using anchor texts with keywords to show the user what kind of page to expect.
The combination of internal and external links is very effective. Internal links provide a clear overview and are very advantageous, especially in combination with a backlink strategy. External links, i.e. links that refer from other websites to your own, increase the trust of the user, since external links usually refer to good content. If this trust is particularly high, this also of course plays a decisive role in the inheritance of link juice. Using various types of links also increases visibility.
To get a better idea of the kind of structure needed, it could be useful to take a look at larger websites as an example. A good, optimal example is Amazon. Here, not only manufacturers are linked, but also categories, similar products, and further information, in order to offer users as much information and material as possible. Of course, this also speaks for the trust and security that is placed on this website.
If you take on the optimization of your website yourself, there are a few important things to consider here. One is to draft a plan so that optimization can be carried out in clear steps, avoiding confusion.
- Start by capturing the moment and analyzing the structure of your website. This way, you can directly solve the problem that needs to be addressed in the first place.
- Also, look at your main pages and sub-pages and how they are currently related to each other thematically.
- Then you can start working on a concept for your website. Points like the structure of your website, the number of clicks from links to get to certain pages/subpages, navigation, and internal linking are basics.
- Also, pay attention to the functionality of links and make sure they stand out from the rest of the text in terms of color, for example.
But, this alone is not enough. After the implementation of your plan, it is important to update the website regularly.
