While external backlinking involves placing links to your website on other websites, internal backlinking focuses on placing links within your own domain. Internal backlinking is an effective SEO strategy that allows you to improve your website’s SEO rankings, increase traffic to certain pages, and encourage visitors to engage with your content more. Here we will explain how internal backlinking works and why you should consider using it.
What are internal links?
An internal backlink is a link to any page on your website placed on another page on your website. That means that if the visitor clicks it, they do not leave your website but instead are taken to another part of it. Internal backlinks guide your visitors to content they might be interested in. They also help users navigate your site. Without backlinks, they could leave your website after visiting only one page but, if they encounter a relevant internal backlink, they might spend more time browsing your content.
There are several types of internal links. For example, menu or post feed count as internal links. You can, however, also place links within your content. So, if you are writing a blog post, you can include a link to a relevant page in the text. These links are known as contextual links. They are typically put under keywords that indicate what the page is about.
Why are internal links important?
In addition to making it easy for people to find certain content on your website and improving engagement, internal links are important for SEO. The more visits a page receives thanks to internal links, the more important it will seem to search engines. Consequently, it will rank better and your website will be more visible online.
As the owner of the page, you are in control of internal links so you can decide which page is the most high-value and you can prioritise placing internal links to this specific page. Moreover, by adding the right internal links, you will indirectly explain to Google which pages are the most relevant, what the relationship between pages is, and which pages are the most important.
How to come up with an internal linking strategy
The first step to creating a successful internal linking strategy is deciding what is your most important content. You need to choose which content you want people to find when they look for products or services related to what you offer. You also need to determine which of your pages convey the mission of your business. Once you have an idea of what these things are, you can choose pages that you will be placing internal links to.
Then, you have to start adding contextual links. The best way to do that is write various articles and place links to various pages on your website in the articles’ bodies. You can place links under words or you, if you prefer, you can add them at the end of your post.
What you could also consider is adding a related post section. Thanks to that, you could easily place several backlinks in each of your blog posts and you would guide visitors to other related posts.
Step by step guide to conducting a website audit
A website audit refers to an examination of how an online page is performing. The goal of conducting a website audit is to determine whether it is optimised to achieve one’s traffic goals and to see whether the page needs to be redesigned. Thanks to a website audit, you can improve your website, boost viewers’ engagement, and get more people visiting it.
There are numerous approaches to doing a website audit but here are steps you can follow to make the whole process easy.
- Look for any errors
You can start your website audit by checking your website’s health. That means that you look for any issues such as 4XX errors, broken links, or duplicate content. By identifying these problems, you will know what to fix to make your website be clearer and easier to navigate.
- Make sure your website is secure
To rank well in search engines, especially Google, you need to make sure that your website has HTTPS, which is Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. It encrypts data of those who visit your page, protecting their privacy.
- Review keywords
You should make sure that your website includes numerous keywords related to topics or products you think your target audience looks up in search engines. By adding such keywords, you can improve your website’s visibility.
- Review backlinks
To improve your SEO, you need a lot of backlinks from external pages, as well as many internal links. When conducting a website audit, you should check how many external and internal backlinks you have and think of ways to secure more.
- Do a competitor analysis
An important aspect of doing a website audit is checking pages of your competitors who offer similar products and services. By analysing what they do and seeing how their page ranks compared to yours, you can come up with ideas on what to change.
What are the benefits of doing a website audit?
Every business owner who has an online website should do a website audit at least once. The main benefits of conducting one are:
- Identifying and fixing site errors
- Finding opportunities to improve the website
- Understanding strengths and weaknesses of our website
- Understanding strengths and weaknesses of our competitors’ websites
- Improving our backlinking strategy
- Achieving better SEO
- Improving sales
- Ranking higher in search engines
- Finding opportunities for repurposing content
- Getting an idea for how to restructure the website
- Determining which parts of the website generate the most traffic.
While you can attempt to do a website audit yourself, there are plenty of companies that offer to do it on your behalf. You can look them up online and compare their services and rates. Using the services of someone who does website audit professionally can help you save time and make sure that you identified all the areas for improvement.
Having an easy to navigate, well designed, and SEO optimised website is crucial to the success of your business. This is why it is advisable to do a website audit at least twice a year.