If your goal is to create an effective, internal linking strategy it will be helpful to have some strategies to make the task more manageable. Internal linking will help your website to have more authority which in turn will allow them to get indexed more frequently and overall, just carry more weight with Google.
Benefits of an Internal Linking System
Internal linking systems give your online visitor value, allowing your readers to find related materials within your site quickly. When users can easily navigate your website it increases their overall user experience, keeping them on your site for longer periods of time and decreasing your bounce rate. Search engine spiders don’t always index sites comprehensively, however they are really good at indexing text and following links, so when you provide internal linking you vastly increase the odds of having your site indexed by Google and other search engines. While internal linking won’t automatically put you in the prized first slot in the search engine, it will allow you to gradually move up the ranks.
How Do I Build Internal Links?
A sitemap details your website’s organization for your visitors. Sitemaps are usually placed at the footer of your site and will contain such pertinent details as your contact information and technical information. WordPress and other websites have plugins which allow you create a sitemap which is automatically updated anytime your site expands, although in some cases you will have to manually create your sitemap. Your sitemap will offer useful internal links which can get your visitors quickly from one spot to another, meeting their specific needs more quickly.
FAQ Page
A frequently-asked-questions page is informative as well as a valuable way to add internal links to your site using your most highly targeted keywords. Create a series of questions which you believe a large portion of your readers would find helpful. When doing this you must think like a visitor to your site rather than the owner who already knows the answers to the questions. It could be helpful to get a friend or relative to jot down any questions they might have after visiting your site. Partially answer the questions, providing a link to one of your articles or blog postings to provide further answers. When phrasing your questions, use the specific keywords you would expect your visitors to use in order to get to your site and use your keywords in the anchor text of the links to your articles and blog postings.
Links to Related Posts and Links to Sidebar
If you want your visitors to be able to find additional content on your site which is of interest to them, link one post to another related one. If you are blogging, include links to other specifically related posts which are in your sidebar. This is an excellent way to build your internal linking system as well as increase your overall page views.
Write a Series of Articles
A relatively easy way to build your internal links is to write a series of articles with an underlying theme. As each article or blog posting in the series is written and published, you can add links to the others. Long articles can be broken down into a series, however be careful to use this tactic judiciously so your readers won’t feel as though they are being used to further your SEO. Once a month, or even once a week, wrap up the prior period with a posting which links to your recent posts, offering a brief description of each of them. While this obviously adds internal links, it also gives readers who may have missed an article which would have been of interest to them the opportunity to use the link to go directly to the article. You can also include internal links in your footer space, or add a promotional link at the end of specific articles which offers your readers something of value. While there is much more involved in internal linking, these basics can get you started, jumping you ahead of your competitors.
Tags: Lawyer Website Design
