What is Internal Linking in SEO and Why is it Needed?

Links are one of the primary factors needed for your content to rank. Search engines find your content easily when they’re connected through links from another reliable source on the web. Internal linking also connects your pages and posts and give search bots an idea of the architecture of your website. Internal links present a defined structure to your site. They help you generate more link value for the most important content vis-a-vis other pages. Therefore, your internal linking strategy can impact the success of your SEO!

Read a more detailed white-paper on internal linking and access the recommendations given to improve your online conversion.

Why do internal links attract the search bots?

It is important to focus on SEO factors like keyword optimization and content quality. However, search bots recognize content only through links. A bot may arrive at your doorway through external links nevertheless, only with good internal linking in place the search engines the relevance and value of your content.

Value of internally linking your content

When a search engine bot arrives at your website it walks through the links you have established between pages. Essentially you guide the bot to understand the connection between various content within your site. This helps search engines extract those pages of your website with related subjects.

There are multiple factors that serve as an effective ingredient for good and strong internal linking. Some interesting factors are sitemap, anchor texts, breadcrumbs, etc. These elements in our internal link architecture help the search engines understand the relationship of content various pages of your website.

SEO Link value

Homepage, as its name suggests, is one of the most important pages of your website. Nonetheless, periodically updating your website with current and fresh content is important. It helps in maintaining the interests of the frequently crawling bots.

Role of SEO internal linking

It is common for a homepage to receive the most backlinks and hence result in having the highest link value. Howbeit, search engines do not award a fixed link value to your home page but divides it between all the pages linked through your homepage. This link value further gets distributed between the links in the internal pages further. Now it must be evident as to why all these linked pages should have fresh, relevant and high-quality content.

While the quality of content decides on the link value, it is also necessary to link your new content pages to those pages with high link values. This is important for encouraging the search bots to reach your newer content faster. When more high-value links direct to your new and important pages it will result in high page ranking which is desirable for SERP success.