Internal linking is just as important as external links. Most webmasters, content developers and marketers prioritize link building but the focus is often on backlinks and external link wheels. There should be equal focus on internal linking as it can boost the optimization of the website and improve its ranking. Internal linking is a complex process so it is imperative for webmasters to be proactive with the site architecture to avert a crisis.

Importance of Internal Linking

Internal links establish the relationships or connections among different contents. Every webpage on a website may have some correlation with another. This needs to be made lucid for search engines to understand. Internal links help better indexing of a webpage, the navigation of the website is simplified and made more sensible, visitors find the sitemap convenient and they will be more likely to explore related content, there will be an impact on the conversion rates and the overall website will fare much better in the assessments of search engines.

A webpage with more internal links is deemed as significant and search engines like Google identify the page as valuable. External links also have a similar effect. Internal links help search engines to make sense of the various pages and how they are related to one another. This enables the crawlers of search engines to properly rank the website in the larger context and for the specifically targeted keywords. Internal linking can also help low value pages to rank higher. Not every webpage is equally valuable on a website but they can matter in the grander scheme of things.

How Internal Linking Boosts Rankings

Reduced Page Depth Boosts Rankings

Internal linking can reduce page depth and this has a direct effect on ranking. Google does not prefer websites that have a deep architecture wherein many pages are too distant from the homepage or the landing page. Google prefers pages to be as close to the main webpage of a website. Internal linking will help you to come up with more categories and then the various pages can be linked closer to the homepage.

Page depth can be simply assessed by calculating how many times a visitor will click on a website to get to the particular content. There are websites where visitors have to click four or five times to get to the relevant webpage. Massive sites like Amazon have scores of categories. They consciously choose to create new categories so they do not have to come up with plenty of subcategories. Every time you need to create a subcategory, every webpage in that section is basically going one click farther away from the homepage or landing page. This does not augur well for rankings. Internal linking can easily resolve this problem.

Content Hubs Boost Rankings

Many websites have a limited number of pages. They have fresh pages when a new product or service is launched. Other websites do not have a finite architecture. These are those that rely on content creation and marketing to keep growing. Most websites, including the official sites of major brands, have blogs and use content delivery networks. It is necessary to rein in the manner in which the architecture of the website expands. An uncontrolled expansion will not be of much help in the context of website ranking.

Webmasters must use internal linking to create content hubs. All related contents can be compiled into one hub. This hub can be a distinct section linked directly to the homepage. Let us imagine a blog having five categories and those being split into ten subsections each. Even the subsections may have further linked content. These pages are simply expanding the architecture of the site and making navigation difficult. The growing form of the website also confuses the search engines and their crawlers fail to understand the importance of the new pages from the perspective of what the company primarily does or offers.

Content hubs will make growing websites more sensible, organized and easier to decipher for the crawlers. Search engines will focus on pillar pages and straightaway understand that internally linked contents are related to the hub. The classification and hence indexing will be simplified. The effective understanding of search engines will boost the ranking of each of those pillar pages and subsequently the rank of the website.

Relevant Internal Linking for Temporary Pages Boosts Ranking

There are many companies that require temporary pages on their website to promote seasonal events. Most websites use landing pages and there are a few fresh pages that provide more information about the development. Such pages should be smartly linked within the website. Landing pages should be linked to the homepage. Pages showcasing new products can be internally linked to existing products. These links will establish relevance and provide a boost to the ranking of a particular webpage and the website.