Maximise your internal links with these top tips

Jan 15, 2021 by
Maximise your internal links with these top tips

A wiser man than me once said that you should always get your own house in order first and foremost. The same is also true when it comes to link building because, while it’s a practice that’s often frowned upon, internal linking remains one of the cornerstones of every tactical SEO campaign.

Indeed, you can get just as much value from internal links placed on your own high-value pages as you can from inbound links. As long as you know what you’re doing, of course.

Driving engagement

One of the most vital things you can do as far as your internal links are concerned is to actively drive engagement by adding links that are actually relevant rather than just for SEO value. Work on building internal links into your content that are genuinely helpful rather than just convenient. It’s in your best interests to make your links clickable and to have them link to content that is relevant and engaging.

Best foot forward

People are much more likely to click on links at the top of a piece than they are to click on links at the bottom. So, try to keep most of your internal links towards the top of the page, if possible. It’s a delicate balancing act to perfect but once you do perfect it you’ll be laughing!

Thinking about topical relevance

People are fickle by nature. So, why not take advantage of this by ensuring that all of your internal links are as topically relevant as possible? Google’s Topical PageRank means that the more topically relevant links are more valuable so it’s in your best interests to make these internal links make sense on a topical level.

Adding context

If there is legitimate context to your links then they will feel that much more organic and clickable. If you add text and visuals around a link and give it some context then users are far more likely to engage with it. Of course, you can’t do this for every link but if you even tried it out every once in a while you’d probably start noticing the difference in traffic.

Being unique with your links

If you run through your content highlighting every time you use the keyword and linking out to an internal page then you’re doing it wrong. This might have worked ten years ago but Google is smarter than that now. Every internal link should be completely unique and natural. Use natural words and try not to worry too much about ratios. Remember, Google will be able to detect and punish over-optimisation so don’t go overboard and keep things readable, simple and eclectic.

Cutting the low value links

Sometimes in life (particularly in the creative industries), you have to kill your darlings. The more low quality links you have on your page the more it will dilute its value. If the links are not engaging, not relevant and are not being clicked then they are probably doing more harm than good. I know it can seem like cutting off your nose to spite your face but it’s often the case that less is more these days.

So, if you want to give yourself and your brand the best fighting chance with your internal links then don’t be greedy!