In the latest edition of their “SEO Made Easy” video series, Google offers three simple guidelines for leveraging internal links to improve your SEO.
This video from Google's Martin Splitt offers valuable insights into improving your site structure and user experience.
Strategic internal linking highlights your most valuable content and helps users and search engines identify it quickly.
Additionally, internal links help search engines understand the relationships between your pages, which can lead to improved rankings.
3 Tips for Internal Linking
Splitt highlighted three main points regarding the effective use of internal links:
- User NavigationInternal links guide users around your website, helping them find related content and understand your site's structure.
- Search engine crawlingGoogle's web crawler, Googlebot, uses internal links to discover new pages and understand the relationships between different pages on your site.
- HTML best practicesTo create effective links, use HTML elements, especially those with href attributes. It is important to use tags appropriately.
The Importance of Meaningful Anchor Text
One of Google’s key recommendations is to use descriptive and meaningful anchor text for your links.
Splitt demonstrated that clear anchor text improves user experience by allowing visitors to quickly scan a page and understand where each link leads.
He said:
“Both users and bots love meaningful anchor text. On the left, you can see how the anchor text for each link contains meaningful words, making it easy to tell which page the link is leading to.”
See the example he is referring to in the image below.
Screenshot source: YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, July 2024.Split continues.
“The pages on the right don't use meaningful anchor text, which is a poor user experience, especially when trying to quickly scan a page to find the right link.”
Balance link amount
While internal linking is important, Splitt warns against overdoing it.
He advises applying critical judgment when adding links, creating logical connections between related content without overwhelming the user or diluting the focus of the page.
Technical Considerations for Links
The video also touched on the technical aspects of link implementation.
Splitt discourages the use of non-standard elements such as spans, divs, or buttons to create links, saying that if an element behaves like a link, it should be coded as a link using the proper HTML structure.
Screenshot source: YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, July 2024.In summary
Here are some key takeaways from Google's video on internal linking:
- Internal linking is a fundamental aspect of SEO and user experience.
- Focus on creating meaningful and descriptive anchor text for your links.
- Use internal links strategically to guide users and search engines around your site.
- Keep the number of links to a minimum so that you don't overwhelm your users or dilute the focus of your page.
- When implementing links, be sure to follow proper HTML structure.
Check out the full video below:
Featured image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, July 2024.
