Why is Internal Linking Important for SEO?
Search Engines Use Internal Links to Crawl Your Website
Using internal linking makes it easier for search engines to understand, crawl, and index your website. Through links from one page to another, search engines discover and index new content on your site. By creating a good internal linking strategy, you help search engines understand and crawl your entire site quickly and effectively.
Providing Stronger Signals About Content to Search Engines
Internal links also provide search engines with more insight into the topic of your page. You can provide strong signals about the anchor text and the content of the link. This allows search engines to properly understand your content and rank it correctly for relevant search queries.
For example, we see that the anchor text below is compatible/relevant to the page from which the link is provided.
Crawl Depth
Crawl depth refers to how deep a search engine must go to reach a specific page from a website’s homepage. Internal links affect this depth because they provide search engines with ways to navigate your site. Strategically used internal links allow search engines to crawl more of your site’s pages, making it easier for them to index them. Large websites can make it easier for search engines to reach deeper pages with internal links.
Link Juice (Page Rank) Distribution
Internal linking helps distribute " link juice " on a website . An internal link from one page to another transfers some "link juice" to that page. This use helps increase the authority of the target page. Therefore, it can improve search engine ranking.
Increasing the Time Spent by the User on the Site & User Experience
Internal links can also increase the amount of time a user spends on your site (dwell time). Internal links that point to relevant and valuable content help users spend more time on your site and visit more pages.
For example; if you have a different blog content about a topic overseas chinese in europe data mentioned in a content, using the relevant anchor text and linking to that page will allow users to visit the relevant page as well.
A well-thought-out and organized internal linking structure will make it easier for users to discover content on your site and access relevant information quickly, which will increase user experience and satisfaction. This can lead to higher conversion rates.
What are the Types of Internal Linking?
We know that in its simplest form, we can create internal links to other related content by using anchor text in a piece of content. Let's examine other types of internal links together.
Breadcrumb
Using breadcrumbs shows the navigation path on a website and helps users understand where they are within the site. These types of links are usually at the top of the site and show the user where the page they are on is within the site hierarchy. Using breadcrumbs is also a type of internal linking.
Breadcrumb links make it easier to navigate within your site and also help search engines understand the hierarchy of your site.
Header
Internal links in the header are usually located at the top of your website and are links that link to the most important pages of your site, usually categories. In addition, internal links in the header provide links to other important pages (Contact, About Us, etc.).
Therefore, internal links on the header not only allow users to quickly and easily discover the main categories of a website, but also show search engines the main structure and hierarchy of the site.
Sidebar
Internal links in the sidebar are located on the side panel of a website (usually on the right or left side) and typically provide links to related or popular content, specific categories, or items that encourage a specific action (for example, a newsletter subscription).
Internal links in the sidebar help users navigate your site easily and direct them to related or popular pages. They also give search engines more information about various sections and popular pages on your site.
Footer
Internal links in the footer are located at the bottom of a website, namely the "footer", and usually contain links to the site's contact details, privacy policy and other similar pages.
In addition, the footer section is often used for links that provide quick access to the main sections of your site or the most visited pages. Links in the footer section appear on all pages, which helps draw more attention to the main section of your site or to specific pages.
Internal links in the footer provide both users and search engines with more information about the overall structure of your site.
Bookmark Usage
Bookmark linking structure is a link that points to different sections within the same web page. These types of links are often used on long content pages to allow the reader to quickly jump to a specific section.
For example, a blog post might have a table of contents at the beginning that links to different sections of the post. In this case, each heading would have a bookmark link that quickly takes the reader to that section.
