Are you one of the many website owners who skip internal linking in their sites to prioritize other aspects of on-page optimization? However, did you know that these internal links are helpful and even powerful in improving the keyword ranking of your web pages? In fact, internal link building alone has an impact on all your SEO efforts.
Why? Only because these internal links are crucial for search engine crawlers to correctly index, justify, and further promote your content. So, in this blog, we will cover everything you need to know about internal linking and why it is crucial to your SEO efforts.
What is Internal Linking?
The process of hyperlinking to the other web pages on your website is called internal linking. Unlike outer or external links, internal links keep your users within your construction website. Moreover, such links also make up the architecture of your website. So, if you picture your website like a pyramid, with the homepage at the top, your internal linking profile can from the structure of that pyramid. Preferably, any page from your construction website must be reachable in three licks or less.
One of the SEO basics is internal linking. If you focus on increasing your ranking, it only goes to show how important it is to invest in internal links.
Types of Internal Links Every Contractor Should Know
Perhaps you are new to the SEO world and know nothing about internal links. As a matter of fact, there are several types of internal links that you most likely have on your construction website that you are unaware of. Understanding the difference between each is crucial because every kind of internal link plays a crucial role in your visitor’s journey.
1. Menu/Navigation links
The most significant internal links on your construction website are those in your main navigation menu. These links are already permanent fixtures within your site header that communicate to users about your web hierarchy. Often, they are organized around product categories, key topic areas, and primary services.
2. Footer
The same as navigation links, footer links remain constant as the user can move through the many different pages of your construction website. They must point to the other essential web pages on your site that the user may want to reference. You will often find FAQs, about pages, contact us, and similar pages linked in the footer of your website.
3. Sidebar
Sidebar links are typically contextual links that serve the purpose of navigation. Your website can use internal links to the sidebar to direct viewers to your popular or relevant content.
4. In-text
In-text links generally appear within the body of your website’s content and are often used in blog posts. So, instead of signaling the navigation, in-text internal links will point to relevant information that the users will access at their preference.
Benefits of Internal Linking to Your SEO
In addition to nudging your target audience on your website, these internal links also send search engine spiders to crawl and index all those pages. Internal linking is very helpful in boosting your page rankings and driving more organic traffic to your construction website.
If you add internal links in the most strategic way you can come up with, they can have significant benefits to your SEO performance, such as:
1. Signal relevance and context
Google heavily relies on the anchor text of internal links to fully understand the relevance and context of different search terms. So, if the anchor text does not alight with your content on the current linked pages, Google is less likely to trust the pages and promote them on the SERPs.
However, using the correct anchor text can help Google understand what the linked pages are about. That is why using the right keywords in the anchor texts is as important when building links.
2. Google finds it easier to crawl and discover your new pages
Any page on your website must ideally be reached in more or less three clicks from the homepage. So, if there is no internal link on a certain page from your website or no display of meta description, Google’s crawlers cannot be able to see it and cannot achieve your desired organic search visibility. We suggest that you make sure the web pages you want to rank are easy to discover by Search Engine Crawlers. Web pages that are successfully crawled and indexed are the first step in making your construction website more visible on the SERPs.
3. Distribute Page Rank
Internal links help distribute page rank across your websites. Page rank is a Google metric that refers to the popularity of your web page, as measured by the overall links pointing to it. So, each time a web page links to another, it will pass along a particular portion of its PageRank and link equity.
Currently, Google uses PageRank in its ranking algorithm. So, the more PageRank your page has, the most likely it is to rank well in the search engine results pages.
4. Help Google understand your authority on your topic or niche
Suppose Google crawlers see that you have tons of internal links pointing directly to your construction website’s relevant content. In that case, they can see your site as an authority in the latest topic areas. For instance, one of your crucial content assets about construction may also be linked to the web pages about the guests posts, anchor texts, backlink profile analysis, and other relevant sub-topics that relate much to link building as a whole.
Best Practices and Tips for Internal Linking
Internal linking is a crucial part of your on-page SEO optimization. However, internal linking the wrong way may affect your overall performance in the SERPS. So, how can you do internal linking to elevate your ranking potential?
1. Use keyword-rich, descriptive anchor texts
The value of internal links can only go as far without boosting the anchor texts that can make up your internal links. The target here is that your anchor text must describe the content on the page. So, if you want your link to rank for particular keywords, ensure to use the exact anchor text to signal strong relevance to Google.
2. Strategic use of do-follow or no-follow
To pass along PageRank, your internal links have to be do-follow. Do-follow is a robot search directive that will tell Google crawlers they can follow the links on the page rather than ignore them. There can be times when you want to use the no-follow tag for some of your pages that do not need to rank, like confirmation pages, and this is applicable in those instances.
3. Link to old posts in new blog posts
In general, no new blog posts must go live on your website without including internal links to other relevant content. If you are not exactly sure where to link to your construction website, you can always leverage the latest software tools and generate some of the best internal link suggestions it will recommend.
Always remember, though, do not force internal links if there is no existing natural relationship between two web pages. This can harm your Search Engine Optimization and you do not like the consequences.
4. Link to new posts on some old posts
You must also add internal links in some older posts that point toward any of the new blogs you currently published. This is an important step that many people forget. But then again – Google cannot find a page if no links are pointing to it and this is one best way to get more and more traffic from your evergreen content.
Right after publishing your new blog, make it a regular action to find relevant, older posts. Update these blogs with internal links that point toward your new content. Depending on the relevance and ranking potential of your new page, you might want to link to the page from your old posts with tons of backlinks so they can pass along more link equity.
5. Monitor and repair broken links
Over time, internal links might break on your website as you update old content, add new content, or change URL paths. At the same time, there are some content management systems that you can use today that will automatically change some key elements. It is still essential that you take time to frequently schedule link maintenance into your strategies while quickly determining and repairing any broken internal links.
6. Open on the same page
To have your internally-linked pages open at the same tab is considered one of the best practices. For instance, users can press the back buttons to find the page they are at before. This is the opposite of external links, which usually open in a new tab.
Build Your Internal Linking with ConstructionMarketing.io
With everything cited above, this only goes to show the importance of Internal Linking. This is particularly true if your goals include getting more traffic to your website and enhancing the overall user experience. Indeed, internal links on your website must not be an afterthought!
If you are interested in making the most of internal linking tactics, we can help at ConstructionMarketing.io. We have the best SEO experts who can pull out the best strategies for your campaign. We work closely and exclusively with construction professionals with a strong background in your industry. We have the tools and experience to elevate your brand presence with marketing expertise, strategy, and flawless execution.
You can contact us today and learn more about how our custom digital marketing services can take your construction business to the next level!