There are two primary methods used in SEO and link building to produce rankings for competitive keywords using internal and external links. Internal links are links occurring from one page in a website to another “typically from the body area” contextually using keyword-rich text.
However, links within primary and secondary navigation also carry weight for rankings, but not as much due to block segment filters that search engines use to minimize duplicity in common areas such as the header or sidebar.
External links are inbound links from other websites that either link to (a) the homepage or (b) to other pages deeper than the home page. If it is not the homepage, they are known as deep links.
Both types of links are crucial to communicate topic preference for specific pages that are optimized for specific keywords. For example, if Landing Page A has 1000 internal links (from 10 variations of anchor text) 100 links per keyword from 100 internal pages and Landing Page A also has 100 inbound links (known as external links) from other websites, that page will rank higher than a page with less internal or external links.
Also, depending on the keywords used within the anchor text for both the internal and external links will produce a relationship of relevance for that page with those keywords. The anchor text (words in the link) are responsible for conveying what keywords THAT PAGE or THE PAGE IT LINKS TO will rank for after the synergy occurs; when those pages get indexed in search engines and those links pass value and authoritative ranking factor.
One of the more popular misconceptions about SEO and link building is that internal links are NOT as important as backlinks (otherwise known as inbound or external links) from other websites to produce search engine ranking factor.
Yes, it is true that citation, occurrence and peer review “like a democratic process of election” does involve gaining valuable and trusted links from other sources to validate the degree of authority your website has.
For example, if a trusted website links to you, your website gains more trust. As a result, that trust allows you to rank higher for keywords and key phrases your website is optimized for.
Internal linking on the contrary, allows you to communicate how important a page is to both search engines and human visitors by how available it is “through links” as well as for “what keywords” it is intended to rank for.
Rankings are produced through (1) the synergy of occurrence “having enough content“ that incorporate the keywords, modifiers (2) a sufficient amount of internal links to specific pages to reinforce continuity (3) enough inbound /external links from other pages that already (a) rank for some variation of the keyword or (b) have enough authority to transfer ranking factor.
When it comes to optimizing competitive keywords, every link makes a difference. The video above on internal linking draws attention to the importance of leveraging content and utilizes Wikipedia, (one of the modern marvels of SEO) as a case study to illustrate the synergy of internal and external links.
If you can apply the same fundamentals within your own website and integrate:
- precise internal linking
- relevant naming conventions
- an optimized site architecture
- a sufficient amount of deep links
then acquiring lucrative keywords (regardless of how competitive they are) is only a matter of time.
Thanks for clarifying the importance of internal links. Some website owners might not see the importance because they’re often trying to gain external links at the expense of optimize their internal links.
Sure thing Mauco, one less granular level to worry about.
If you are using internal links properly (1) they are much harder to detect as a ranking factor when competitors are looking to reverse engineer techniques and (2)it really does allow you to elect the page with the most relevance for any given keyword, so it aids conversion as well.
Internal linking doesn’t have to be a plan. What I mean is that if you do it naturally as you write your articles or web pages after a while it will just come natural. Some people are acting as though this is something new when it should have been done all along.
I agree Al, with your statement, that it should be natural, but with most it is not. Particularly on the level that Wikipedia utilizes in their CMS.
SEO as we know is holistic and increasingly becoming more complex as algorithms adapt. Basic strategies such as this are often overlooked as viable alternatives for building preferential landing pages.
Just wanted to share a very basic, yet, very powerful tactic for those who do not fully grasp the importance of internal links.
Some sites that can really benefit from this are ones with lots of products or galleries with images. Each product page or picture page could, as an extreme example, just have one link to the page you want to pass more juice to.
I just found your blog, & wanted to say thanks for the great info!
Thanks! :)
Hi Jeffrey! Great info! Theare are some SEO companies making a killing, just applying some basic comcepts like this one for their clients.
Of course, when comes to execution, you really have to have the chops to not drop the ball in the project.
You just gained a new reader!
From you friends from Brazil!
Pedro S.
this is definitely true what you write. structuring our site like wikipedia will get your site to the first page on google provided that you have enough internal pages. also use anchor text variation and link from text, just like in wikipedia.
Agreed:
Content volume and theme density for semantically overlapping keywords and phrases (augmented with internal links) over time is a very effective SEO strategy. In that scenario, deep links are a plus – which occur naturally, if the content gets proper promotion.
Thanks for the information on SEO. I am new to SEO and website optimization so I am trying to learn all that I can.