Internal Links - The Do's and Don'ts
Internal links are only a single aspect of good SEO practice but something I have been concerned with and concentrating on recently in my own developer journey. I thought I would share some of the things I have learned and some of my own best practices. You can take them with a grain of salt if you like but if your own website is struggling in the SERP's then maybe you need to do a little studying on your own? Ask yourself what it could be that other developers are doing that you are not.
A. Use original and keyword rich anchor text for all internal links. This is a big mistake many web developers make. Sometimes I get pages created by really talented writers who resort to "click here" as anchor text. Whenever this comes across my desk I either return it to the creative source and ask them to come up with better anchor text or I edit it myself. It really depends on the freedom you have with your stakeholders. 'Click here' is absolutely worthless in the search engines. Think about it; who does a search on 'click here'?!
B. Consider link quality over quantity. Internal links should always have content relevant to the original page. A couple of very relevant internal links will do much more for your SEO than a bazillion links to pages all over your site that are in no way relevant to the original page. Make sure there is a solid correlation between the topics. The same should be true of external links. Linking a website about apples to a website about automobiles could actually be counter-productive to SEO strategy.
C. Don't link to your home page. There's always already plenty of internal links to your home page. Typically every page has your company logo, for instance, that links back to your home page and then there's typically a link in the top navbar as well. Link to content that is found deeper in your site. The idea should be to promote deeper pages from your site.
D. Google wants quality content. While it is true that content is one of the major considerations in SEO strategy, it should always be quality content. Don't confuse quantity over quality. The content of your site should be relevant to the topic and keyword rich. The number of internal links should be just the right number, according to Google. But nobody has ever really defined how many that is. You might find a larger number of hyperlinks in a FAQ article for instance but in general one to two internal links per paragraph is probably sufficient. Adding many links to a single paragraph is likely detrimental rather than supportive. Make sure the content you are linking to is good quality and very relevant to the topic of the original page.
E. Don't link to your 'contact us' page. This is a common mistake. Developers will link the contact us page at the bottom of every article when it's already included in the site footer. If you already have the contact us page included in the site footer then linking it again on a page is redundant and that brings me to consideration F.
F. Avoid redundant hyperlinks. It isn't considered a positive internal link for SEO consideration if you have already linked there previously on the same page. Strive for a variety of linked content with internal link strategy. I often receive content from talented writers with redundant hyperlinks. As a web developer it's your job to recognize strategic opportunities and potential mistakes in the content you are asked to publish.
G. Make your anchor text comfortable to the reader. When browsing the Internet I often see lots of mistakes in this area where developers have adopted practices such as always using the same anchor text for links to the same content. This is awkward for readers as well. A better approach is to write quality content and selectively hyperlink the keywords to the other content. The anchor text should always clearly describe the content you are linking to but keep it unique to other internal links.
H. No-follow links are for external links. I'm talking about the attribute 'rel=nofollow'. Don't use these on your internal links. These are for external links and a broad subject I'll address in another article. Just keep this attribute out of your internal links.
There are many considerations that come into play with SEO scoring and they change minute-by-minute. It's critical for all web developers to study regularly to keep up with changing standards and best practices.
Here are some of the articles I have read recently that discuss this topic more in-depth;
https://searchengineland.com/optimizing-internal-link-structure-256709#.WQyKxQerHiQ.email
https://searchengineland.com/optimizing-internal-link-structure-256709