When it comes to effective digital marketing in Asheville, NC, a comprehensive internal linking strategy is one of the most powerful SEO techniques in your arsenal. That’s because internal links help Google determine how relevant your pages are, their general value, and their relationships to one another. As such, it provides a convenient route for crawlers to access your pages. If this is one area where you know you need to improve, read on. In this article, we are going to explore how internal links work and why they matter.
What Are Internal Links?
Internal links are basically links that point to a specific page on a domain from a different page on that same domain. They are often used for main navigation and are useful for a variety of reasons. In addition to boosting your ranking power, they facilitate easy navigation for your visitors, which will greatly increase their session times.
Develop A Strategy And Generate The Content
First off, you need to have some concrete content to work with. To figure out where to start with your pages, it is best to develop an effective digital marketing strategy, which often requires tactful social media engagement. Because there are so many moving parts, the easiest way to do this is usually by hiring a digital marketing agency. If you’re in NC and need some marketing or Asheville social media services, hiring a company like Barking Dog should do the trick. In their case, there’s no better service for social media management in Asheville.
More Content Is Always A Good Thing
How would you have copious amounts of internal links without a comprehensive selection of pages to link them to? Indeed, having a broad array of pages interlinked with other pages in your domain is the key to a professional internal linking strategy. At this stage, there is no need to worry about complex diagrams and organizational spreadsheets. Those will just get confusing and distract from the task at hand. Instead, just focus on linking your pages to one another in relevant, intuitive, and helpful ways.
Anchor Text Is A Must
Always make sure you are using anchor text as opposed to linked images. While the latter is usually permissible, they should never be used as the primary source of the link. If you do opt to use some linked images, make sure they are alt-tagged. With regards to anchor text, any Asheville digital marketing agency would agree that there is no need to optimize. Using natural bits of the sentence is completely fine and there is no reason to overthink it.
Link Naturally And Avoid Linking To Top Level Pages
One mistake many businesses make is not linking deep enough. Instead of linking to relevant pages, they link to pages that are already visible in the primary navigation menu. These include the homepage and contact us pages. Instead, link to pages that exist deep within your site that visitors might otherwise miss. These pages should naturally extend from the topic of the page they are linked from. For example, if you have an article about pianos but link to a picture of a golden retriever, visitors may look elsewhere (i.e., another website) for the desired information.
Internal linking is about one thing: optimizing value for the reader. If completed correctly, this should result in improved user engagement across your entire site. This is because users are more likely to click on links that operate within the context of the content they are engaging with. In this circumstance, it is fine to include links to external sites, just make sure you understand that linking internally wherever possible will ensure that users are consistently interacting with your site.
Don’t Be Too Excessive
Despite the benefits, there is such a thing as too many internal links. But don’t take my word for it, the oracle at Google hath spoken: “Keep your links on a given page to a reasonable number.” Unfortunately, Google does not provide a definition of “reasonable number,” leaving the guessing to the rest of us. Many digital marketing professionals have concluded that it is reasonable to have at least two to three internal links per article, depending on the overall length of the post. Of course, this does not count the homepage and about us links, as well as any other links on the navigation bar.
When It Comes To Asheville Digital Marketing Services, Barking Dog Is The Way To Go
If you’re looking for an Asheville digital marketing agency with years of experience providing proven marketing solutions with demonstrable results, look no further than Barking Dog. As far as digital marketing in Asheville, NC is concerned, our quality of service is unparalleled. So, if you are in need of stellar digital marketing services, be sure to contact us as soon as possible. The time to optimize your site’s performance is now, so why not go with the highest quality of social media management in Asheville?