Taking care of your site internal interlinking is one of the easiest way to increase your rankings as that’s what you can totally get control of. Of course, this should be done with caution: I have previously mentioned webmasters’ experiments sharing that global internal anchor text change can lead to penalty.
So let’s see how you can easily increase your rankings for important phrases:
Step 1: Find your site sub pages that have some ranking potential: i.e. find pages that already rank in top 30-50 for competitive terms that are important and relative for your site.
Actionable tip: I use a new awesome tool SEMRush (previously reviewed by me at SEJ): just submit your domain name and it will collect all useful information for you: the keyword, it’s average Google search volume, your site URL that was found for that keyword and its position in Google.
Alternatively (and additionally), you can dig your Google Analytics (or other stats tool you are using), get the list of most powerful Google keywords your site receives traffic for, run them through rank checking tools and compile the list of your most promising URLs.
Step 2: Find more pages that are relevant to your most powerful pages. So once you have the list of the URLs and the keywords they rank for, find pages that also mention those keywords: run [site:yourdomain.com keyword OR keyword related term ] for each term and compile the list of relevant URLs.
Step 3: Interlink your pages using your important anchor text: add relevant in-content links (that will be both useful to users and search engine crawlers) to your most promising pages to increase their current rankings.
Comments
44 responses so far ↓
Affiliate Marketer on Jan 13, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Ann Smarty you are one of my favorite authors :-)
Yep, similar tip gave randfish / SEOMOZ in New Year giveaway :)
SEO on Jan 13, 2009 at 3:31 pm
At some point don’t we really just spin our wheels? The real true only way to get high ranking and earnings is to have a great site with content or services that people need and bookmark. Too much is made of the little things that seem to bump a site up just a few up. Lets be real and get to true site creation.
arshad on Jan 14, 2009 at 12:09 am
Thanks smarty.I always knew the importance of internal building.But i have also seen certain webmasters just linking from every subpage to the homepage [ with different anchor text] - iam not sure if its a a good thing .
David on Jan 14, 2009 at 6:57 am
great post but im still wondering if we can exist in a land filled with 301 redirects? can there be too much internal linking, sometimes even Wikipedia gives out external links for more detailed information.
you can be too much to everyone and lose sight of why you have the website in the first place
Michael Martinez on Jan 14, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Arshad, people who systematically vary the anchor text to their home page just don’t understand search engine optimization. Sometimes it makes sense to change your anchor text, but if you’re optimizing through anchor text you’re doing it wrong.
Good internal linking helps both search engines and visitors. The anchor text is important to both. People should not be agonizing over how much it helps with search.
website design tipperary ireland on Jan 14, 2009 at 4:29 pm
SEMRush is a sweet tool, thanks for that Ann
Jason Forthofer on Jan 16, 2009 at 9:35 am
Ann - I thought that only the first link’s anchor text on a page held any value. Which would typically be in your navigation. Is that not true from your experience?
If we link to our homepage in navigation with anchor text of ‘Home’ and then again on the same page inside the content with anchor text ‘keyword’ doesn’t just the first one count?
Ann Smarty on Jan 16, 2009 at 11:13 am
@Jason, that’s a question that has no definite answer. From my experience, only 1st anchor text counts but then again, I’ve seen claims of quite the opposite opinion.
Arab E-marketing on Jan 19, 2009 at 8:42 am
Very good post Ann
Also I can link to my internal page from other trusted websites
Thanks
Matt Inertia on Jan 20, 2009 at 8:07 am
@jason - I believe youre talking about the experiments that SEOScientist, David Eaves and Rand did. What i gathered from the experiments is that they cant really make a conclusive decision on whether it does or it doesnt.
@Michael Martinez - would you recommend varying external link anchor text (not too much but a little) to make links look more natural?
Matty Byloos on Jan 21, 2009 at 12:22 pm
doesn’t this still (just about always) come down to pure logic? if the link over to another page will benefit the user and enrich their experience or offer more information, can’t we use that as the final measure of whether or not to do something on our site?
SEO Hosting on Jan 21, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Very informative post Ann. Internal linking to subpages is very important factor.
Sem Consulting services Uk on Jan 22, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I agree with Ann entirely, but the need for good content and freeb’s is big bigger than ever… techie hat off ….thinking hat on …away from the computer screen gives me good stuff….
Mark on Jan 27, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Nice article,learnt alot from this.
Mark
Max Thomas on Feb 2, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Thanks for a great post, Ann. We’re real believers in internal links. Thanks too for the tip on SEMRush.
Question - if a website is small (under 10 pages) and wants to rank for 3-4 target keywords, does it hurt their se rankings to create global links for those target terms that all point to the homepage? Typically we create internal links that point to relevant sub-pages, but with a site this small, we figured the best approach would be to target the homepage with internal links since (i) the homepage is the strongest ranking page of the site and (ii) it is relevant to the keywords.
We welcome any feedback.
Thanks!
Max
SEO optimalizace on Feb 3, 2009 at 10:23 am
I really like to read your articles, you always come up with something really cool.. thanks a lot.
Jon on Feb 5, 2009 at 5:51 pm
We’re always looking for ideas to improve our internal structure and rankings. Ideas, guys?
Muazzam Mehmood on Feb 16, 2009 at 10:39 am
I was looking for the kind of information and it’s been highly successful after reading this article.
thanks though!
Effective Resume on Feb 18, 2009 at 1:34 am
This is something which worked for my site.
Thanks Ann Smarty.
Agriturismo on Feb 19, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Thanks!
Jayant on Feb 21, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Excellent Post. Gained lot of insight.
Jammer on Feb 25, 2009 at 9:06 pm
What great info. Really helpful! Thanks so much!
Pulsa on Feb 26, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Thx..
must learn a lot from you
:))
Antivirus360Removal on Feb 26, 2009 at 7:53 pm
What an awesome informative post thank you.
Maui SEO on Feb 26, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Nice post with excellent information - too many so-called webmasters just don’t realize the importance of internal linking, especially for high competition keywords where every aspect of SEO is more important.
MAGNETCASH on Mar 1, 2009 at 6:48 am
I like this post…keep it up, this is very usefull..
rmvb on Mar 2, 2009 at 6:21 am
Typically we create internal links that point to relevant sub-pages, but with a site this small, we figured the best approach would be to target the homepage with internal links since (i) the homepage is the strongest ranking page of the site and (ii) it is relevant to the keywords.
tom on Mar 2, 2009 at 5:28 pm
you need to make your blog do follow :)
Babang Juwanto on Mar 3, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Tom, you can say that again. In my opinion, you need to make your blog do follow.
Wish you all the best.
Anthony of Plastic Printers on Mar 5, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Nice helpful site, keep it up.
Babang Juwanto on Mar 9, 2009 at 6:39 am
Thank you very much
Paul on Mar 11, 2009 at 5:53 am
Very interesting post .. I must give this a try. Very helpful site!
Top Ranking on Mar 11, 2009 at 5:57 am
Ann, you are a gem .. a very smart idea indeed!
Digitalnomad on Mar 13, 2009 at 9:19 am
I have been doing some of this by accident. Smarty makes it look simple. Thanks for the explanation and tutorial.
Even if your Google score does not improve, this will serve your readers well, and it helps navigation.
duta on Mar 17, 2009 at 12:31 am
Excellence, thanks for the simple and easy to understand tips.
whaong on Mar 20, 2009 at 1:18 am
Really excellence tips. Thanks
Steven Ayres on Mar 20, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I think that internal links are very useful. How many is too many though?
Ann Smarty on Mar 21, 2009 at 5:26 am
@Steven, we discussed this question here: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/keyword-rich-internal-anchor-text-how-much-is-too-much/8036/
Robert H. Salmoni on Mar 24, 2009 at 6:47 am
Nice post
I am not sure whether internal interlinking is the best way to achieve higher rankings. Personally
I would recommend homepage optimisation, relevant keywords & content, a targeted marketing communication and implementation plan, effective e-marketing, clean code, database profiling….ect
Who said “Life wasn’t meant to be easy”…
arun on Mar 27, 2009 at 10:12 am
You are so knowledgeable lady. Your every post is simply the best. I will certainly add your blog to my seo blog. If you please as i think you are better than me.
babeh on Apr 4, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Very useful info for all. I’ll try to practice it.
How about the use of related post plugin?
Is it give an effect too?
Thanks before
Election News on Apr 6, 2009 at 5:46 am
I wants to know whether it is effective for blogs or not???
Carol on Apr 7, 2009 at 8:43 am
Thanks for this post. I have talked to a lot of clients that are trying to get their website ‘ranked’ and so much focus goes onto that without much focus on content and why people would want to come to their site in the first place. I will definitely have a look at SEMrush - sounds cool.
tens unit on May 9, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Interesting - i will give it a try
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