Inbound links can be a huge boost for your site’s SEO, but you shouldn’t forget that your internal links can be just as helpful as well. One of the major advantages of internal links is that you have complete control over them. While you have to rely on the kindness of others for your external links, or other link building tactics, your internal links have exactly the link text, position and frequency you desire.
Many businesses overlook their internal linking structure for long periods of time. This is understandable. It can be hard to keep on top of your site’s structure, particularly if you’re adding constant fresh content as well. Maintenance of your internal links should make up part of your regular search engine optimisation maintenance routine. It’s important to make sure that your link structure is up to scratch to begin with.
Planning is vital
Planning out your internal structure is vital to your site’s relationship with the search engines. Clear paths need to be set out throughout your site so that search engines spiders can crawl through it easily. Without proper planning, however, your link structure can easily become tangled and messy.
It’s a good idea to sit down and plan out your links visually, using a piece of paper and a pen, or a whiteboard. Drawing up a site map in this way enables you to see where potential problems are. It also helps you to redesign your structure so that pages follow each other logically. When this physical map has been drawn up, you can use it as a base for your site map, providing another way to reinforce your link structure.
It’s important to remember that every page can be used to reinforce your internal link structure. Your navigation bar, footer navigation and content links should all be used to help SEO.
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