Internal Linking is an important matrix of On page SEO. Google has led down some guidelines for getting ranked on search engines. Following and applying these guidelines are known as Search Engine Optimization.
Internal linking means linking one page of website to another page of the website, on a same domain. Links which are going to other domains are called External links.
Internal linking is important for many reasons, besides a better navigation on website and Hierarchy of website. It helps both-google and the audience, to relevant pages on the website, also it helps the audience to stay longer on the website, thus helping the website to rank higher in the search engines.
Internal linking also shows to Google, that your site has valuable content that can be beneficial to your audience, and so rankig higher on search engines get easy.
On the other hand, it is very bad SEO practice to add only external linsks to a website, as it gives Google bad signal of a wbssite full of affiliate links and no value to its reders, which can harm your site’s ranking on search engines.
But if you are a newbie, it is possible to mistake while creating Internal links, so what are the mistakes that one shold avoid?
Mistakes You Should Avoid While Creating Internal Links
1.Linking to Irrelevant Pages
The main purpose of the internal linking is to guide the audience and the web spiders to a relevant page. Relevancy is the major factor while creating Internal Linking. The major mistake that one can do is to create internal llinks to irrelevant pages. It serves no purpose, and gives negative signals to Google.
From audience point of view if you send them to a page which is not relevant to them, they will instanatly leave your website and increase the drop rate.
2. Arbitrary Internal Linking
Arbitrary Internal linking lead your reader to irrelevant category or product, if you linked to wrong or irrelevant product.. If your reader searching the information about winter clothes and you link one of your product of summer, it will harm more than good to you.
As mentioned aove, if the internal linking is not valid and relevant, your audience will leave the website or may not convert well.
3.Wrong Anchor Text,
Anchor Text is a word or a phrase which is internally linked to another webpage. As a rule of thumb, an anchor text should clearly indicate the page towards which is directing to. Sometimes you will find the generic anchor text like “Click Here”, which makes no sense to its readers, where the link is going to lead them.
The best practice is to add keyword if possible as an anchor text, or it should be clearly indicating where this link leads to like “Check the Latest Price On Amazon”, now this Anchor Text clearly indicates that this link goes to the Amazon.
4.Invisible Links
Sometimes Internal Links are not visble to its readers, as they are not underlined or not used some different text colour, which makes it invisible to its readers. Make sure all of your links are underlined or strike out, so that Google spiders and visitor can identify it as an internal link and navigate through the site easily, which helps in the better rankings for the site.
5. Not Including Internal links
Another major mistake is not including internal links in your post. Internal links are important for Google as well as from readers point of view. For Google it is easy to crawl a website, easy navigation for your audience and also creates a hierarchy in website pages and posts.
If you don’t include internal llinks, your reader will not be able to find another piece of relevant content which may help them.
6. Adding too many Links
Adding too many links in your post may not affect your Google ranking, but way too more internal linking may annoy your reader. So try to add relevant and necessary links which will ehance their user experiece with website., it is
With latest updates it is not harmful to add too many links to a page, as google spiders can crawl 100′ of internal nd external links
7.Using Over Optimized Anchor Text
It is a good SEO practice to include keywords in Anchor Text, but it is possible that sometimes we use the same keyword for Anchor Text. It is not a good practice, to use over optimized Anchor Text. You should create relevant anchor text for each of your internal links.
Conclusion
Internal Linking is the foundation of opeimization strategy for a Website, a good internally link website get ranked in search engines. But simple mistakes. of internal linking can harm a website to no limit. Try to avoid the above mentioned mistakes of Internal Linking, simple mistakes like linking to irrelevant pages, categories not only give bad user experiece, but alos impact your site’s ranking.
Google and other search emgines mainly aim at better user experiece to the audience and so if your linking is not good and irrelevant, it will be very difficult to ranke website in the searcch engines.
Hey, have I missed any of the inter linking mistake that we should avoid? what is your internal linking Streateg, which of the above tips do you use pl let me know in comments below and if you like this post pl share with your friends and family.