Internal links in blog posts?
-
What's the best strategy for internal links in a blog post? Example, if I write a blog should I always place a link to the main site at the bottom when I place my signature and contact info? Should I just put links in the content? Or should I do both?
-
As far as SEO is concerned, the reason for linking to other pages is to help pass the "Google juice" or ranking influence of each page along to other related pages on your website. Using keyword-appropriate anchor text in those links helps the search engines understand what those other pages are valuable for. So don't repeatedly link with "click here".
But don't always link to a page with the same anchor text either. As the latest Penguin update has shown, anchor text that is always the same is unlikely to have occurred naturally and will look spammy.
The reason you don't need to link to the homepage in the body of a post is simple math - your homepage likely already has the most incoming links anyway - it's the other pages that need all the help they can get. (Plus as others have mentioned and you confirmed, you already have a link to that home page in your page's navigation.)
But here's the real kicker - the reason for putting links in the body of your posts should be to provide value to the reader, first and foremost. If you keep this in mind, you'll probably take care of the SEO needs automatically - and naturally! As theBrewRoom says, link to things that would help the reader of the current post better understand what you're talking about, and use anchor text that will let the reader know what to expect when he gets there.
Last thing to think about - ideally you want a page to have as few links as will get the job done effectively. The more links on a page, the less ranking influence each one can pass along. So don't flood your pages with links thinking that will help even more other pages rank better.
And there again - what's best for the user is also good SEO - a page jammed with links will just confuse a user and look cluttered, while not helping your SEO. Think "user first" and you'll almost never go wrong.
Good luck & have fun figuring out what good pages to link to!
Paul
-
You should embed the links within the content of your page. Do it as NATURALLY as you can. You don't want to make the blog post unreadable by adding a lot of keywords that link to the other pages on your site. Link to the relevant and natural pages that relate to your blog post. Google rewards those who try to make things as natural for the user as possible.
-
Yes, I have a navbar, so I'm guessing that I should put a link in the main content to any other page in my site that is relevent, correct? Thanks for your input.
-
Thanks for your input. I do have a navbar. So instead of adding an extra link to the main site in the address, I should probably be adding links to other pages on my site that are relevent correct?
-
I wouldn't recommend adding it in the signature section.
And, if you're referring to adding links back to the home page as hyperlinks within the content, I would not recommend that either.
I'm sorry if it sounds redundant, but you want to rank to link to sites that appear at the top of the search results for the keyword your trying to rank for or sites that link back to you.
Have you considered adding it in the navigation menu, pending your site has one or perhaps some sort of slider with a link back to the home page.
I'm not positively sure what you're asking, but tried to give you some clarification (and cover all my bases). If you can be a little more specific, I'd be more than willing to help you more.
-
If it's on your own blog then link to any content that is relevant within the body of the article but you don't always have to link back to the main site.
You're probably going to be linking to the main body of your site in the top nav anyway aren't you?
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
-
Links Not Detected by MOZ, AHREFS, GSC-ARE THESE QUALITY LINKS?
Our SEO provider has been creating content (6 blog posts per month as well as building page write ups) and has been promoting that content. Several links per month have been created as a result of this effort. Many of the links have been from commercial real estate publications. I am concerned that the quality of these links is not high enough to improve our ranking. Most links do not appear on AHREFS, Google Search Console or MOZ. Is this a red flag that these links are weak? Ranking and traffic on the site have improved considerably since this provider began the project in April of 2019. They have been writing about 30 pages about New York City. commercial buildings each month in addition to 4 short blog posts and 2 extremely well researched and authoritative blog posts. My concern is that the links are not of sufficient quality to result increased ranking. That the improvement in ranking is solely due to the addition of new content rather than the creation of these links. Basically, that I am incurring the cost on an ongoing basis of an link building campaign with little to no benefit. That being the case, I would shift resources to content creation and increase and improve content rather than develop links with little value. A sample of links are below: Would greatly appreciate some feedback as to whether these are in fact helpful to the domain authority, reputation and ranking of our website. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan https://patch.com/new-york/bayside/bayside-queens-priciest-area-retail-office-space-study https://qns.com/story/2019/12/04/these-commercial-streets-in-queens-were-among-the-most-expensive-in-2019/ https://patch.com/new-york/brooklyn/flatbush-ave-priciest-retail-spot-outside-manhattan-study http://thejewishvoice.com/2019/12/07/nycs-most-expensive-commercial-streets-neighborhoods-in-2019-would-surprise-you/ https://atalyst.com/investment-banking-interview-metro-manhattan/0 -
How Do You Do Link Building??
I am starting to use the Moz pro tools like optimizing on page SEO for keywords and looking for opportunities. I know link building is a huge part for getting rankings on keywords in google search. Where do I start and how do I do the link building process for specific keywords I can rank for?? Thank you in advance for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wickerparadise1 -
ECommcerce internal linking structure best practice
Hi, Can anyone advise on the best internal linking practice for an eCommerce website? Should the introduction copy on each category page contain naturally placed links down to sub categories and products and should each sub category link back up to the main category page. Is there a 'best practice' method of linking categories, sub categories and products? In terms of internal linking product pages, I presume the best practice would be to link other relevant products to each each? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SmiffysUK0 -
ECommerce website with link to manufactures site for ordering - Should these links be follow or no follow?
Dear Mozzers, I have a couple of questions regarding link juice and whether I should have do follow or no follow links ? We have an affiliate eCommerce website and on our product pages we have a "Order online " button which will go our subdomain on the manufactures site in order for the user to complete the online ordering process So it's - www.ourcompany.co.uk - "Order Online Button" - www.manufactuer.ourcompany.co.uk Should this " Order online Button" be a Follow or No Follow link ? I ask this as currently from looking at Majestic seo , these "order online " buttons on my product pages seems to be Follow links so am I losing potential link juice by sending it externally ? Am I correct in assuming by changing it to be no follows, I would increase the link juice going elsewhere internally? thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Internal Links Query - What should be use as anchor text
Hello All, We are looking at our internal links and most of them say "More" or "View All" The "more" anchor Text links - are usually positioned on the Body Content as we only display a portion of the content and then the user clicks more to see all the content ? - Should we be changing the "More" Text to something more keyword /phrase friendly i.e " more information about carpet cleaning" or "more information on Tool hire" or would that be deemed as spammy ? thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Are these Bad Internal Links/Anchor Text?
Hi my site www.over50choices.co.uk is 4 months old and I wondered whether my "Quick Links" section (right hand column) on 95% of my pages with the same/similar anchor text was not best practice ie should I vary the anchor text & the target locations more? ( they tend to point to my top 6 pages) They were set up originally to make the customer experience easy to find things but from what i have read Google doesnt like too many links looking the same ! I also have 3 Graphics (cross sales messages) just above the foot of most (not the home page) pages, linking to my 3 key value pages, all with similar Alt Text tags, again should i vary the alt text or is not a good idea to have this type of link on every page? What is best practice, as i am trying to balance the visual/customer experience whilst optimising for search? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep1
Ash0 -
Counting over-optimised links - do internal links count too?
To whit: In working out whether I've too many over-optimised links pointing to my homepage, do I look at just external links -- or also the links from my internal pages to my homepage? In other words, can a natural link profile from internal pages help dilute overoptimisation from external links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jeepster0 -
Site Wide Internal Navigation links
Hello all, All our category pages www.pitchcare.com/shop are linked to from every product page via the sidebar navigation. Which results in every category page having over 1700 links with the same anchor text. I have noticed that the category pages dont appear to be ranked when they most definately should be. For example http://www.pitchcare.com/shop/moss-control/index.html is not ranked for the term "moss control" instead another of our deeper pages is ranked on page 1. Reading a previous SEO MOZ article · Excessive Internal Anchor Text Linking / Manipulation Can Trip An Automated Penalty on Google
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | toddyC
I recently had my second run-in with a penalty at Google that appears to punish sites for excessive internal linking with "optimized" (or "keyword stuffed anchor text") links. When the links were removed (in both cases, they were found in the footer of the website sitewide), the rankings were restored immediately following Google's next crawl, indicating a fully automated filter (rather than a manual penalty requiring a re-consideration request). Do you think we may have triggered a penalty? If so what would be the best way to tackle this? Could we add no follows on the product pages? Cheers Todd0