Internal linking for SEO and better content discovery
If you ask me what is the Search Engine Optimization (=SEO) best practice that you can follow without much effort and with great impact, I will say, on your new posts, give links to top posts from the past. This is called internal linking.
It is a good practice to do internal linking for SEO, but it is also good for content discovery on the website/ blog. Linking to other posts leads to deeper visitor engagement on your blog/ website, especially when visitors find high-quality content on other webpages. This results in higher positioning of your website on search engines, higher traffic, higher visitor satisfaction, chance of making money and so on.
Internal linking looks routine SEO and is often ignored. But it is one of the easiest ways to offer more content to visitors without your having to create it again.
You can give links to other posts in many ways such as -
Consider taking the link to a new window instead of letting it open on top of the current post. This gives the reader the freedom to keep browsing the present post and looking at the link later, or going to the link and coming back to the present post, without a need for pressing 'back' button on the browser.
To open the link in a new window, you need to add target="_blank" within the link tag as given below:
If you are on Blogger platform, the post editor gives you the option to open the link on top of the current window or in a new window, as shown below. Similarly, on Wordpress post editor, when you click on a link, it gives option to open the linked webpage in a separate window.
It is a good practice to do internal linking for SEO, but it is also good for content discovery on the website/ blog. Linking to other posts leads to deeper visitor engagement on your blog/ website, especially when visitors find high-quality content on other webpages. This results in higher positioning of your website on search engines, higher traffic, higher visitor satisfaction, chance of making money and so on.
Internal linking looks routine SEO and is often ignored. But it is one of the easiest ways to offer more content to visitors without your having to create it again.
You can give links to other posts in many ways such as -
- Links within the body of the blog/ website, referring to specific resources
- Links given in widgets such as related posts, popular posts, etc. and in a menu bar.
- List of related posts at the end of a post.
Consider taking the link to a new window instead of letting it open on top of the current post. This gives the reader the freedom to keep browsing the present post and looking at the link later, or going to the link and coming back to the present post, without a need for pressing 'back' button on the browser.
To open the link in a new window, you need to add target="_blank" within the link tag as given below:
- Best Indian Blogs Directory: This link will open the ITB directory on top of the current post. Its HTML is: <a href="http://www.indiantopblogs.com/p/the-directory-of-best-indian-blogs.html">Best Indian Blogs Directory</a>
- Best Indian Blogs Directory: This link will open the ITB directory in a new window. Its HTML is: <a href="http://www.indiantopblogs.com/p/the-directory-of-best-indian-blogs.html" target="_blank">Best Indian Blogs Directory</a>
If you are on Blogger platform, the post editor gives you the option to open the link on top of the current window or in a new window, as shown below. Similarly, on Wordpress post editor, when you click on a link, it gives option to open the linked webpage in a separate window.
Internal linking is great SEO when done wisely
You should not overdo internal linking.
Putting convoluted keywords with the sole purpose of giving a link is a bad way of internal linking as it often irritates the reader and is also not supposed to be good SEO.
Before linking to a previous post, take care to see that the old post is relevant to the present discussion and has valuable, not routine, stuff.
