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The importance of internal links for website SEO

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Internal Links

When we talk about SEO and links, we generally think immediately of external links coming to our site obtained through link building activities, which are certain fundamental elements for positioning and to allow a portal to rise in the ranking.

However, albeit of fundamental importance, there are not only backlinks  (which then … if they should serve you … please take a seat !). But also another, an important category of links to be taken care of for SEO purposes: the internal links to the site. Internal links are absolutely important elements in the on-page SEO strategy; not only do they make a site more complete and easy to visit. But they also allow search engine spiders to facilitate the search for individual pages. Harnessing the strength of internal links. Therefore, is really important.

Objective of internal links impose are:

  • That of helping, as mentioned, the search engines to index the site by facilitating the finding of individual pages
  • To significantly improve the user experience on the site, thanks to well-thought-out and rational links that allow him to deepen some topics within the portal.

Internal linking, in a nutshell, is really imported to categorize the site and to index it in search engines. Even in the case of internal links. Such as external ones, to manage them you will need to use anchor text. The advantages of internal links to the site compared to external ones concern the great control. That it is possible to have on the links and their quality, as well as the possibility of being able to change the links at will. Add them, update them, managing the anchor text independently.

Set the internal links at best

Proceeding with a correct SEO best practice for internal links is therefore of fundamental importance. But it is necessary to opt for links that are of real value for the visitor, without exaggerating. Better fewer links, but that is truly natural and useful than an exaggerated number.

Try to keep a number of internal links low enough for each page, only where it is completely natural and necessary to integrate or deepen a topic.

Make sure that the link is easily recognizable to a reader, and create updated links, taking care to eliminate the dead links that no longer lead anywhere.

Create an internal linking that is truly consistent and that actually leads to useful pages for the visitor. Use few links to maintain a fairly high Link Juice.

What not to do when setting up internal links

Even the management of these links, in any case, requires some attention to avoid mistakes that could cost you dearly.

Some mistakes to avoid are:

  • link every subpage or every page; use the links only where they are really necessary and above all useful (keep in mind that the user experience is primary for Google)
  • create many outgoing links to a single page (it could be an over-optimization for Google, which could decide to intervene by sanctioning it); in addition to this, the excessive number of links decreases the Link Juice and therefore their single value, which obviously is not good for SEO optimization
  • use the no-follow command in links, which does not allow Google to follow the internal link
  • Create internal linking without external links, such as a document
  • Do not take care to constantly update the site or to delete links that no longer have reference pages
  • Use anchor text randomly and without value, especially without allowing the user to understand what they lead to