Internal Linking SEO 2016 – What, Why and How?

SEO basics

In the world of SEO, they often say "content is king". That means if
you want people to find your website on Google, you need to have lots of
words on your website, and those words should be the keywords you think
people would be looking for on Google.

What is internal link building?

Internal linking is the technique of Search Engine Optimization to
link one post to another in such a manner that increase blog or
website’s usability to the readers and provide them more relevant
content to read.



In plain words,



Internal link building or internal linking is the process of
connecting one page/post of a website to another page/post with relevant
information by means of a hyperlink. Here both the source domain and
the target domain are the same.



Why should we do effective internal linking?



Effective link building comes with many benefits that would
ultimately help you in proper rankings. Here are some of the benefits of
internal linking.

Proper navigation:

Internal links on a post and a page help you to access other pages of
the website through them. This will help a visitor in navigating
through your blog posts.

Providing relevant data to readers and search engine bots:

With internal linking you tell the audience that there are other
posts/information on the site that is related to the text they are
reading or has some additional information. This also tells the bots the
same thing and increases the credibility of the site.





For ex: In my post on Genesis child themes I gave a link to the post that contained my review of Genesis framework. This will help bots, as well as readers to know that I have another article that is relevant to the context.





Moz has an interesting image to illustrate this:

Help decrease the bounce rates:

Yes, when a reader reads an article on your blog and finds a link
that relates to a similar post or a post that takes the discussion
further you can expect him to stay longer on your site. This will in
turn lower your site’s bounce rates.

Pass the link juice to other pages:

When one page of your site is ranking and has a higher page rank or
authority you can place a link (in the high ranking page) to a relevant
post on your blog that is low in rankings. This will pass the link juice
to the linked page and that page will start performing better.

How to do internal link building?

Internal link building is a form of art; the “art of SEO”. This is in a way like building backlinks to your blog
on your own blog. It does everything that a backlink does from passing
link juice to bringing more traffic and enhancing search engine
rankings. In order to do effective internal linking you have to take a
look at the following points.

Have lots of content:

In order to link and index more you need more content. You cannot
simply go with seven posts and start link building. In this way you will
end up making very few internal links. What’s worse is you won’t have
relevant links unless all those seven posts of yours are on different
topic.





So, for this you need to write content. Write huge number of articles
on your niche topics and then internal link them to other relevant
posts you have written.

Link pages and posts and vice versa:

WordPress pages and posts are similar in appearance but are two
different things. For example your about page is a page and the regular
blog posts are your posts. In order to pass the rankings to your pages
too you need to show them the light of the Google sun. Yes, you should
link your pages equally on your posts.





For example: I have linked my about page
at a relevant and convenient place on this point. You can link your
services/ tools and resources and any other pages in your posts as far
as they are not totally different in context.

Do follow your internal links:

When you link to some of your posts within that same domain you would
want the bots to actually crawl them. It is also a common believed
fact, as stated by Danny Sullivan
that  no follow links will help you get recognition by showing you
don’t sell influence. But in this case, internal links should be allowed
to pass freely.





In 2005, when no follow attribute “rel= nofollow”
was brought into SEO scene it was not taken much seriously but nowadays
it is used and recommended to no follow links that pass link juice to
any external site that has less ranks than yours. Passing link juice to
your own site is always a good practice so follow all your internal
links.

Practices to Avoid Black hat SEO
techniques

Black hat SEO
techniques focus on satisfying ranking requirements rather than user
experience. It results in low-quality content that is often useless to
the visitor. Using any of the following black hat techniques can result
in heavy penalties:

• Keyword stuffing involves saturating text
  with keywords and phrases. It’s used to trick search engines into
  indexing a web page higher based on keyword density. Write for the user
  and not for search engines.

• Meta tag and description
  stuffing involves saturating meta tags and meta descriptions with
  keywords and phrases. It’s used to gain higher indexing based on keyword
  density. If you do manage to get a little bump in rankings, it will be
  short-lived, and your site could end up in a poorer position afterwards.

• Cloaking
  is a coding technique that creates two versions of a single website.
  One version for users, and another for search engine crawlers. The site
  viewed by users is filled with user-friendly content while the site
  viewed by crawlers is keyword and meta tag stuffed.

• Hidden
  text is similar to cloaking. It uses unreadable or invisible text to
  increase keyword density or redistribute internal link structures.
  Hidden text is registered as spam by crawlers.

• Article
  spinning is the duplication of written content. Bots are often used to
  do this, resulting in badly written and repetitive content with low
  value to the user. Article spinning is used for keyword stuffing and
  backlinking purposes.

• Doorway pages are low-quality
  pages optimised for specific keywords. Doorway pages use call to actions
  and links to redirect visitors through multiple pages to a single
  landing page. They are often used to redirect traffic to a specific
  website without the user’s knowledge.

• While not
  necessarily a black hat technique in itself, link farming can have a
  negative effect on your SEO. It’s important to ensure that any links you
  purchase are high in quality and content and are relevant to your
  website.


• Content spamming is a common technique among more
  blatant black hat practitioners. It involves posting comments on blogs
  and websites featuring backlinks to your website. Google, Bing and Yahoo
  use a nofollow feature to bypass such links when indexing websites.

Practices to Use White hat SEO
techniques

White hat SEO
techniques focus on user experience to increase search engine rankings.
These practices are in line with search engine rules and policies, and
it’s advisable to include as many of the following as possible into your
SEO plan for 2015.

• High-quality content is a central element
  of SEO in 2015. Search engine algorithms now focus on content quality
  and keyword relevancy rather than keyword density. High-quality content
  features appropriate keywords, so focus on the content and the rest will
  follow.

• Visual-based content such as images, graphics
  and videos are high performing assets. Content featuring both text and
  visual elements performs better than text-based content. It is also
  easier to consume and share.

• Mobile device optimization
  is a big SEO focus this year as mobile Internet usage has finally
  surpassed desktop usage. Ensuring your website is optimized for mobile
  devices guarantees proper indexing by crawlers.

• Search
  engines now use keyword context as opposed to just keyword matching when
  indexing websites. The focus is on long-tail keyword phrases, so engage
  users in conversations to ensure that the right phrases are on your
  website.

• Proper link building in 2015 focuses on brand mentions, content relevance and social popularity.

• Search
  engine algorithms incorporate the social signals of content when
  evaluating ranking importance. The more shares a piece of content
  receives, the more valuable it’s deemed by crawlers. Create online
  profiles on all major social media platforms and link your profiles to
  one another through shared content.