What is an Internal Link?
Internal Links help people and search engines understand what your website is all about. They help people find relevant information and can help your website’s SEO.
There are two types of Internal Links:
Navigational Links:
Navigational Links
- Hyperlinks in a website top navigation
- Category pages
- Dropdown menus
- Sidebar
- Footer
Contextual Links
- Hyperlinks placed in the body context (text or image) of a page.
Difference between Internal Links and Backlinks
Backlinks connect external pages / posts whereas internal links “link” internal pages/posts or Links that are Part of the domain.
In terms of SEO benefits, Backlinks have more value, authority or power compared with Internal links and are difficult to get.
Internal links can be both contextual and structural working together allow users navigate a website and spread link equity.
Internal Links Tips and Best Practices
- Build SEO Friendly Site architechture with internal links. Internal links are known for establishing site architechture and spreading link equity.
- 3-4 internal links recommended for a blog post with average 600 keywords.
- 2-3 backlinks recommended for a blog post around 600 keywords.
- Both internal and backlinks links should read natural and not be overly optimized.
- Best practices recommend add the links top section of page. Paragraph 1 or 2 for stronger SEO benefits.
- Add focus keyword relevant, clear and simple anchor text.
- Link deep in your website hierarchy
- Use rel-follow links
- Give internal link priority to links that are already ranking on Google. vs links that are not ranking or crawled by Google.
- Use descriptive anchor text
- Link to relevant and related content
- Ensure every page has at least 2-3 internal backlinks
Internal Links Benefits
- Improves overall user experience
- Improves page rank and link equity
- Boost page views on important pages
- Decrease Bounce Rate
- Improve Site Indexing
- Helps Google Understand Your Website.
Why are Internal Links important?
Internal links play an important role in helping Google better understand and rank. Links are chasable, meaning Google crawl spider react to links and follow along with the simple and clear anchor text. Adding links helps Google better crawl and works as an indicator pages that are important and help understand through anchor text what the page/posts are about.
Lastly, inteernal links are also proven to impr0ve user experience and increase user engagement.
What are orphan pages?
Pages of a website with no directing links are called orphan pages. Orphan pages are in complete isolation. The only way visit, or access would be to type in the URL directly or navigate from the backend or a menu if added to one.
Or
Pages on a website that have 0 internal links pointing to them.
What are Topic Clusters?
Mutiple pages on your site that are all related to the same topic and interlinked to one another.
What is meant by Crawl Depth?
How many clicks someone has to take to get from the homepage to a specific page on a site using only internal links.
Common Internal Links Problems
- Broken links
- Too many internal links (for example, a page with over 3,000 internal links)
- Nofollow attributes in outgoing internal links
- Orphaned pages
- Pages with only one internal link
- Pages with a crawl depth of more than 3
- Permanent redirects
- Redirect chains and loops
- Links on HTTPS pages leading to HTTP pages