Gary Alan Davis

SEO - Internal Link Optimization

All search engine optimizers know the importance of optimizing the anchor text of external links pointing to your Web pages. It makes for good SEO off page optimization. But it is also very important that as an SEO, that you optimize the internal link structure of your Web site pages.

All search engine optimizers know the importance of optimizing the anchor text of external links pointing to your Web pages. It makes for good SEO off page optimization. But it is also very important that as an SEO, that you optimize the internal link structure of your Web site pages. The home/index page of your Web site is the most important page of your site. And so it is very important that *all* of your internal pages have a link pointing back to your Web site's home page. Another very important SEO internal link optimization tip is to have your main keywords and keyword phrases in the url's of your site's internal pages.

The anchor text of a link, according to Wikipedia, is "The anchor text or link label is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink." Search engines use the anchor text to help determine what a given Web page is about. It's very important to note here that if you link to a Web page calling it "Red Widgets", then that page had better be all about "Red Widgets." There is no way to know how much weight or importance is placed on internal links by the major search engines. But it is obviously important.

Since it is important to use keyword rich anchor text in the internal link structure of your Web site, you need to make sure that all of your sidebar links, menus and also links within the main body content of your Web pages contain keywords in the anchor text of your internal links. Always make sure that the actual content of any given Web page matches what the anchor text is calling that page. Using our "Red Widgets" example from above, if you link to a page on your site using "Red Widgets" as the anchor text, then the keyword phrase "Red Widgets" should be in the Title of that page, in the Meta keywords and Meta description tags, in header tags, in your image alt tags, in the main body text area and so on.

It is also important that you include a Site Map page with your Web site. And of course you will want to include *all* of the pages to your Web site on this page. It is very important that you don't have any orphan pages, that is pages to your site; but that are not linked to from any other site page. Use descriptive keywords to describe your pages. Instead of linking back to "Home", instead use something like "Widgets Home." Also, everytime that you come to a keyword or key phrase in your pages, turn those keywords into clickable anchor text that link to the relevant pages in question.

To have good internal link optimization for your Web site, you should:

• Link all site pages back to your home page.
• When you have keywords in your text that pertain to another page on your Web site, then make that be a link to the other relevant page.
• Use your main keywords in the anchor text of your internal links.
• Make sure that the pages you link to are 100% about that topic.
• Include a Site Map page to your site and use keyword descriptive anchor text.
• Don't have any orphan pages to your site.
• Use your *main* keyword to link to your home/index page, such as "Main Keyword Home."

Remember that the links within your Website count just as much as external links to your pages do.

Article Tags: Internal Link Optimization, Internal Link, Link Optimization, Anchor Text, Very Important, "red Widgets"

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