Whats the best practice for internal links?
-
Hi our site is set up typically for a key product (money page) with 6 to 12 cluster pages, with a few more associated blog pages.
If for example the key product was "funeral plans" what percentage of the internal anchor text links should be an exact match?
Will the prominence of those links eg higher up the page have an impact on the amount of juice flowing?
And do links in buttons count in the same way as on page anchor text eg "compare funeral plans"?
Many thanks
Ash -
@AshShep1 Exact Match Anchor Text: Use different types of words for links, not just the exact product name. It's better for search engines.
Where Links Are: Links at the top of the page might get noticed more, but it's more important that they make sense with the rest of the page.
Links in Buttons: Links in buttons work like regular links, so use words that make sense for the link and the button.
-
When you write, say, a long blog post, you might mention many different products that you sell, then you might want to add an internal link to the page, that sells that product.
It helps the customer find products that they might want to buy.
so we need to add internal links to all of these pages.
-
You are welcome
-
That's really helpful
Many thanks for taking the time
Ash
-
The rel=canonical element helps us determine which version of a URL is the original when multiple version of a URL returns the same content. This can happen when, for example, you append a tracking notation to a URL. Two discrete URLs then exist, yet both have identical content. By implementing a rel=canonical, you can tell us the original one, giving us a hint as to where we should place our trust. Do not use this element in place of a proper redirect when moving content.
Take for example the following URLs
- http://over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate
- http://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate
- https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate
- https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate?ref=twitter
- https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/wills-and-probate/amp
Each URL is referring to the same page content for Legal Services, however, the URLs themselves are slightly different.
This can be an issue for search engines because the engine itself doesn’t necessarily know which page should be the source of truth, and it may just choose a canonical URL algorithmically for you.
In other words, if you have a web page accessible by multiple URLs, or different pages with similar content (ie. separate mobile and desktop versions), you should specify to a search engine which URL is authoritative (canonical) for that page.
In the Google Search Console, you can find the option to set URL parameters, once your website is verified. What this does is give you the ability to tell Google which parameters you would like to consider passive. What this means is that you can tell Google, “whenever you see this URL parameter, just treat it like it doesn’t exist”.
These are 2 good sources of what I'm talking about Google and Moz
-
Hi Roman
Thank you for your help.
Im looking at the speed issue as well.
None of our pages have the canonical tag on them - why is this so important?
Ash
-
Site: https://www.over50choices.co.uk/ “funeral plans”
Checking on Google there are 1,430 results for that keyword on your site
So that is starting point easy and fastInternal Links
- Input URL: https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/funeral-plans
- Total links: 124
- External links: 19 - (15%) of Total links
- Duplicate links: 45 - (36%) of Total links
- Empty anchor: 0
- No alt tag: 1
- Nofollow count (Line-through): 1
According to the On-Page Grader Tool
https://analytics.moz.com/pro/research/page-graderThese are some basic points to improve
- Avoid Keyword Stuffing
- Keyword Placement in Page Title
- Optimal Use of Keywords in Header Tags
- Includes a Rel Canonical Tag ----> This is very Important
-
I made a quick audit of your website and will make some assumptions
This is your flagship page
https://www.over50choices.co.uk/funeral-planning/funeral-plansAs I see you already have a good backlink profile but suddenly you have been losing ranks these are some advice to you
- check the spam score of all your backlinks (Here on Moz is called Spam Score on Semrush is Called Toxic Score)
- build internal links (I will assume that you are working on that right now)
- disavow all the useless links
- build new backlinks
Also, I notice a Drop on ranks on October (Ahref rank) keeping in mind that you are in a competitive niche all the details are important
- You need to figure out how to improve your user experience, making a quick test on PageSpeed there are several small tasks that you can perform to improve it (Enable the compression, Leverage, Browser Cache) By itself will not show a big impact but the summary of all of them can show a big impact. AMP can give you more visibility on mobile devices
-
Thank you for your detailed answer, its much appreciated.
Our site is www.over50choices.co.uk is well established with a national presence.
We have 5 or 6 "cornerstone" products and until recently have been successful with most of them through natural search, we do v little PPC.
We have seen "funeral plans" and "over 50 life insurance" rankings drop from top half of page 1 to bottom/page 2 positions which of course impacts our earnings.
Our site has always been set up in the way that you suggest, so the reason for my questions are because we have been looking at ways to squeeze every last bit of juice we can and more recently have read about the importance of internal links, so was keen to understand whether the sidebar site wide links was not the most effective way to structure the site going forwards?
They have always been there but if google has changed the rules recently i was wondering whether this is what could be hurting us.
We have started a review of internal links for these products as we have so many and the early findings are that we could do with some tidying up but nothing major.
All of our other long tail keywords are still performing well, so its just the big keywords that generate a lot of our income that have dropped.
Does this info help shed any more light on why they may have dropped?
Thanks
Ash
-
Just to clarify then, having to say 300 links all with the same anchor text and most with an exact match to the main keyword/product is ok?
I will assume that you want to rank your site for the keyword funeral plans
I'll explain exactly what I would doBut first, you need to be clear in some basic concepts
The structure of a website and your internal link is of great importance for its
chances to rank in search engines. For two main reasons:1 A decent structure and internal linking make sure Google ‘understands’ your site.
2 A decent structure makes sure you do not compete with your own content.Important terms and definitions that you have to keep in mind to understand what I'm doing
Keyword research (I will assume that you already did it and you know what is)
Long tail keywords in your case these are some examplesprepaid funeral plans - Volume 100 - Keyword Difficulty: 08
cost of prepaid funeral plans - Volume 50 - Keyword Difficulty: 07
low-cost funeral plans - Volume 40 - Keyword Difficulty: 04Landing pages are the main pages through which visitors enter your
website.In this case, I will assume you are a local business
so one of your landing pages will look like thisAll depends on your site structure and your content
Cornerstone contents are the most important articles or pages on your website.
This is the content that exactly reflects your business. These articles
should be relatively high in your site structure. In most cases, the
homepage directly links to these pages or articlesIn affiliate marketing, this content is called Money Pages
Definition: A piece of content that is monetized in some fashion, such as
promoting products as an affiliate, capturing leads to sell them to a
3rd party or heavy advertisement.Here on Moz is called 10X content
https://moz.com/blog/how-to-create-10x-content-whiteboard-fridayWhat is cornerstone content?
https://yoast.com/what-is-cornerstone-content/So instead on focus on anchor text or internal links or link counts
the first question and the most important that you need to answer is- What is your main content?
- What is your business about?
So if you provide funeral plans on a specific location
all your business needs to be focused on that ( SEO, PPC, Social Media) all your internal links will be focused on those pages. You don't just start to build internal link just because you read an article about it. **I need to have a goal in mind **Example
Title: Affordable Funeral Plans Miami - Title
URL: wwww.yourwebsite.com/funeral-plans/So this what I would do on your case
- **Define your cornerstone content (Your internal links will point to these) **
- **Make a keyword research looking for all closed related term of your main keyword **
- Building internal links to those pages using the keywords above (main+secondary)
- Make almost perfect On-page optimization
- Add Schemas to that page to add even more visibility
- **Add Amp version of that page **
- **Finally, build some back-links to those pages **
Hope this info helps you to answer your question
-
Yes its in the sidebar.
Just to clarify then, having say 300 links all with the same anchor text and most with an exact match to the main keyword/product is ok ?
Also if say i have an internal link in the main body of content for one of the pages linked that is also in the sidebar which will google take as the primary link eg sidebar link is "over 50 life insurance" and link in page content is "compare life insurance" both going to the same page?
Ash
-
I'm assuming that you are talking about a widget when you say "Quick Links Boxes" in the sidebar or in the footer or any other specific area. There's no need to remove them but you need to keep in mind that all those links will make those pages outstand over other pages.
So your main question is this. Do you want to make those pages your **10X content (Most relevant pages) **If the answer is positive keep the Link Box if not just remove it.
-
HI Roman
Thank you for your answer.
We also have site wide "Quick Links" boxes on most pages where we have a list of anchor text with links eg
- Equity Release Calculator
- Compare funeral plans
- Affordable Health Insurance
- Over 50 Life Insurance
These are in addition to on page text links.
So google will see hundreds of links coming in to these key pages all with the same anchor text - should we continue with this or remove them?
Regards
Ash
-
If for example, the key product was "funeral plans" what percentage of the internal anchor text links should be an exact match? there is no static rule about it, so your starting point will be your own Search Console Account and your GA Account
Unlike external links, where over-optimization of anchor text is manipulative and can lead to penalties, internal links should have optimized anchor text. Using keyword-rich anchor text is helpful to both search crawlers and users clicking the link.
My advice is to select all your target keyword and all the close variation and start to create internal links on this way
**Check your most relevant pages **
1. Pages that had high traffic and PA. You can find these in Google Analytics, Search Console and Ahrefs
2. Pages where the keyword already existed unlinked. You can use this query to find such pages: Site:[yoursite.com] “funeral plans”In your case, searching for “funeral plans” will show you a number of mentions
After making a list of these pages add internal links by hand. (This is my personal option other people use tools, plugins or whatever) These new links from established posts showed Google that you thought of this page as “important.”Will the prominence of those links eg higher up the page has an impact on the amount of juice flowing?
First and foremost, internal links are important because they help search engines better understand your site.
A large number of internal links pointing to a specific page signal that page is important and helps search engines determine which pages to return in their search results.
Sometimes a broader category page will rank above a specific product page for a query about that specific product — this is less than ideal.
For example, a company that sells different types of bats could see their general “Bats” category page ranking above their “Softball bats” page for the query [cheap softball bats]. Internally linking to the “Softball bats” page could help Google recognize it should be returning that page for the given query.
And do links in buttons count in the same way as on page anchor text eg "compare funeral plans"? It will help you to pass link juice to your page but it will not help Google to understand the content of that page (It will not help you to rank for your target keyword)
** I hope this info helps you to answer your question**
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Whats the best practice for acquisition?
Hi, My company have just bought out a competitor. We wan't to dissolve their website and if possible steal some of their link juice. The site hasn't got any spammy links or 404's so i'm not worried in that department. What I am not sure about is which of the following is best practice? a. Redirect every single page (even pages like /?checkout) to a relevant page on our website. b. Only redirect important pages, category pages, contact pages etc and leave the other pages to 404? c. Redirect the important pages to a relevant URL and redirect the less important pages to our homepage. d. Redirect the entire domain to our home page (i assume this isn't a good idea) e. Don't redirect any of the pages just delete the site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DannyHoodless0 -
SEO Best eCommerce Practice - Same Product Different Keywords
I want to target different keywords for the same e-commerce product. What's the best SEO practice? I'm aware of the pitfalls to keyword stuffing. The product example is the GoPro Hero 5 Action Camera. The same action camera can be used in many different activities, e.g. surfing, auto racing, mountain biking, sky diving, search & rescue, law enforcement etc. These activities target completely different markets, so naturally the keywords are different. I have three strategies to tackle the issue. Please let me know which one you think is best. 1) Create different keyword landing pages with a call-to-action to the same conversion page Each landing page will be optimized for the targeted keywords e.g. surfing, auto racing, mountain biking, sky diving, search & rescue etc. Obviously this will be a big task because there will be numerous landing pages. Each page will show how the product can be used in these activities. For Surfing, the content would include surfing images with the GoPro Hero 5, instructions on how to mount the camera to a surfboard, waterproof tests, surfing testimonials and surfing owner reviews, etc. The call-to-action leads to a generic product conversion page displaying product information such as specs, weight, video formats, price, shipping, warranty etc. The same product page will be the call-to-action for all keyword landing pages. Positives Vast number of targeting long-tail keywords, numerous landing pages Good specific user experience who may be looking for "underwater action camera" (specific mounting instructions related to surfboards etc.) Less duplicate content as there is only one product page showing the same information Negatives Challenging to come up with each page for the vast amount of activities. Inbound Link Considerations
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ChrisCK
Inbound links from publications can link directly to the product page or the keyword landing page Surf Magazine may link to:
"Surfing Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/underwater-surf-camera
"GoPro Hero 5 Action Camera | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5 2) Create different keyword landing pages with call-to-action to directly add product to cart Similar to the first option, but the call-to-action on the landing page is to Add Hero 5 to Cart. The user experience will be similar, the content creation challenges will be similar, but the techy product info e.g. specs, price, video format, etc. will be displayed on the same landing page. Positives Same benefit to long-tail keywords targeting Same benefit to a good, specific user experience Negatives Same challenges to create each long-tail keyword landing page Since there is no aggregate "product page", inbound links will be split between the landing pages Splitting of Page Authority to each landing conversion page Surf Magazine will link to:
"Surfing Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/underwater-surf-camera
Cycling Magazine will link to:
"Cycling Action Camera | GoPro Hero 5 | GoPro.com" - gopro.com/hero5/cycling-camera 3) Create conversion-focused product page with casual blog about keywords This is currently what GoPro has chosen - GoPro Hero 5. The product page displays the many different types of activities on the same page. The page is focused on the user experience with images of the action camera being used in different cool activities, showing its versatility. Note, very little long-tail keyword targeting on this page, instead they could use a broad keyword "action camera". To target long-tails, maybe a blog can be used brand ambassadors displaying the product being used in the various activities. Positives User experience focused Higher conversion rate Less content creation work Inbound links go to the same product page, building Page Authority Negatives Poor ranking with short-tail keyword (GoPro is not even in Top 10 SERP for "action camera") Poor ranking with long-tail keywords, (GoPro doesn't rank for "diving camera, cycling camera, surf camera") For blogging the long-tail keywords, who really converts from landing on a blog of the actual seller?! I hope those three strategies were explained clear enough and have enough of a differentiator. Please let me know what you think!0 -
Five best practice for SEO
Hello Everyone, I am new to SEO and need some help. I have 6 sites and I need to know what are the top 5 strategies for Off page seo. I mean the most important ones. Thanks Abie
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | signsny0 -
Best format for E-Commerce Pages in Title Text / Link Text & Markup
Hello Please comment on which you think is best SEO practice for each & any comments on link juice following through. Title text ( on Product Page ) <title>Brandname ProductName</title>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear
OR
<title>ProductName by Brandname</title> on category page <a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">itemprop="name" href="[producturl]">ProductName</a>
<a <span="" class="html-attribute-name">itemprop="brand" href="[brandurl]>BrandName</a> OR <a <span class="html-attribute-name">itemprop="name" href="[producturl]">BrandName ProductName
( Leave Brand Link Out)</a <span> Product Page <a itemprop="name" href="[producturl]">ProductName
<a itemprop="brand" href="[brandurl]>BrandName</a itemprop="brand" href="[brandurl]></a itemprop="name" href="[producturl]"> OR <a itemprop="name" href="[producturl]">BrandName ProductName
( Leave Brand Link Out)</a itemprop="name" href="[producturl]"> Thoughts?0 -
Best to Spend Marketing Budget on High Quality Articles OR Link Building Services?
Greeting MOZ Community: My site has 400 domains linking to it of which about 180 are toxic and 180 are suspicious according to a site audit from a reputable SEO firm. The SEO firm is offering link removal and link building services to remedy the situation. My question is this: if I can create and post high quality blog articles on a very regular basis, will this in and of itself create high quality links to my site? If the articles are of exceptional quality can I post them elsewhere to earn quality links? Does it make more sense to use my budget on paying a PR agency to create high quality articles and posting them on my blog or elsewhere rather than spending on an SEO link building campaign? Should I do both? I plan on having the SEO firm remove toxic links and optimize content using Yoast. But I want to be careful about not wasting my budget if the links will develop naturally if I post the content online myself. I am more inclined to have an SEO pro work on creating links but why pay if I can do it myself. Any thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
Internal Javascript Links
Hi, We have a client who has internal links pointing to some relatively new pages that we asked them to implement. The problem is that instead of using standard HTML links, their developers have used javascript - e.g. javascript:GoTo... The new pages have links from the homepage (among others) and have been live for about 3-4 weeks now - yet are still to be indexed by Google, Bing & Yahoo. Is it possibe that Javascript links are making them difficult to be found? Thanks in advance for any tips.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasarrow0 -
Best practices for handling https content?
Hi Mozzers - I'm having an issue with https content on my site that I need help with. Basically we have some pages that are meant to be secured, cart pages, auth pages, etc, and then we have the rest of the site that isn't secured. I need those pages to load correctly and independently of one another so that we are using both protocols correctly. Problem is - when a secure page is rendered the resources behind it (scripts, etc) won't load with the unsecured paths that are in our master page files currently. One solution would be to render the entire site in https only, however this really scares me from an SEO standpoint. I don't know if I want to put my eggs in that basket. Another solution is to structure the site so that secure pages are built differently from unsecured pages, but that requires a bit of re-structuring and new SOPs to be put in place. I guess my question is really about best practices when using https. How can I avoid duplication issues? When do I need to use rel=canonical? What is the best way to do things here to avoid heavy maintenance moving forward?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CodyWheeler0 -
Competitors and Directory Links
Hi guys, wanted to get some input and thoughts here. I'm analyzing many competitor links for a specific client (even other clients actually as well) and come across a pretty heavy directory backlink profiles. has anyone here had success with directory listings? Seem many of the competitors backlinks are coming from directories. What say you?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PaulDylan1