Internal link building: rankings are going through the roof

The simplest SEO strategy is internal link building: a hyperlink from one web page to another within the same domain. What should you bear in mind to get the most out of internal link building? A thorough keyword analysis is, of course, the foundation of this. 

Good navigation structure

The structure of the menus enables visitors (and search engines) to navigate the website. Make sure you use clear, appropriate names that incorporate the most important keywords. Bear in mind that the CMS generates URLs based on the title. This ensures that the keyword is included in the URL structure.

You should also create a hierarchical structure by setting up subpages. These subpages provide more in-depth content on the main topic. Note that this adds value to the key keywords, as this hierarchical structure makes them stand out more to search engines. Google prefers to see important keywords appearing on many pages rather than on a limited number of over-optimised pages. 

Content Hubs

Whenever we talk about content hubs, we always see a lot of puzzled looks. Very few people know what a content hub is, even though it’s very important for SEO. People really value this structure because of its relevance. A content hub is an overview page with links to relevant pages on the same topic. The layout of such a page is determined by a logical structure. The articles within the content hub link back to the overview page. In this way, the content hub builds up link equity.

Creating internal links to new articles

We see many websites where the articles have no internal links. In fact, you can quickly boost the link value of new articles by adding a link to them in existing articles after publication. Existing articles have already built up link value. By linking them to the new article, it becomes easier to find on Google. An added benefit is that the existing pages are also updated, which Google values even more. 

Relevant links within the text are of interest to human visitors. This encourages people to click through the website more quickly and helps them find more information in response to their search query. Ultimately, we need to persuade them to convert. More content helps to achieve this!

Including keyword variations in links

To make an internal link stand out more to visitors, include more words in the hyperlink. An additional benefit is that search engines will recognise references to multiple variations of the main keywords. People no longer search so much using single-word queries; instead, they are increasingly using more targeted searches with multiple words in their queries. 

Keep working on external link building

Internal link building distributes link value across the web pages. The more link value there is to distribute, the better the website’s search visibility as a whole. For this reason, it is crucial to continue to work on external link building(links from external websites to your site). 

When optimising an existing website, we always start by ensuring good internal link building. It costs nothing and you can really go to town on it. Of course, it’s important that the website has enough content. If not, start actively working on writing new content and expanding existing articles. Do you need help with this? We’re happy to assist you.