Internal linking is one of the most effective aspects of search engine optimization.
It is also one of the most neglected aspects that is often under-done or dome wrong.
Jim Boykin, CEO of Internet Marketing Ninjas, and Ann Smarty, IMN’s analyst, are discussing how to create an effective interlinking strategy to make sure all the important parts and sections of your site are accessible by Google.
The majority of websites have a lot of pages that are never going to rank. Those pages that don’t rank are usually those pages that are buried deep down within a website.
The first step in deciding what to do with those pages is to make your site flatter.
Step 1: Sitewide strategies to improve internal linking structure:
- More (specific) categories: Come up with subcategories (price ranges, by use, etc.) to surface more products (and capture some long-tail opportunities as well)
- Breadcrumbs
- More products on one page (to make it fewer pages). Mind your load time when experimenting with those.
Step 2: Tie in different parts of your site
Most sites have several sections, and many of those sections become islands. For example, a blog is usually something that exists on its own, with few or no internal links tying it to the main site.
This is where linking blog posts to related product and category pages is so important because Google will see this as a cluster containing everything that can satisfy any type of search intent, from informational to commercial.
This thematic interlinking allows link equity to flow within one cluster and help each page within it to rank higher. This is how Google starts thinking of your site as “an ultimate” answer to the whole set of relevant search queries.
Contact ninjas for us to help you create an effective internal linking that will surface your important pages and turn your site into the niche authority.
