Internal links are a ranking factor, a signal to Google which pages are most important. Also for navigation and to indicate structure

1. Internal Linking Strategy
By Peter Mead
@petermeadit

2. “The Internal Links are strong with this one…”

3. Getting Google to care about your page
Estimated ⅔ of the web is copies or near copies of the other ⅓
https://www.quora.com/How-many-pages-are-in-Googles-web-index-in-2017

4. Internal links are a ranking factor
● Signal to Google which pages are most important
● Also for navigation and to indicate structure
https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/10/25/guide-to-google-ranking-factors-part-8-
internal-links/

5. Hubspot introduced Topic clusters
https://research.hubspot.com/topic-clusters-seo

6. Practical Internal Linking Ideas
Andy Drinkwater is known for his practical internal linking approach
https://www.iqseo.org/building-internal-links-for-seo-wins/

7. Elements of internal linking, your Multi Pass
1. PageRank, 2. Good Backlink, 3. Power Page, 4. Keywords, 5. Structure

8. Understanding PageRank
more links = more PageRank?
Quality is a factor
Named after Larry Page
Toolbar PageRank was removed
PageRank publically available
Think: “Link Juice”
https://www.bruceclay.com/blog/what-is-pagerank/

9. Start with ONE good backlink
Got a quality backlink?
Now start internal link building

10. Inbound links vs Internal links
Small amount
Link Juice lost
How much?
Methods to Calculate
Internal PageRank
https://searchengineland.com/improve-internal-linking-calculate-internal-pagerank-r-246883
The Juice…!!

11. The website structure
Categorized into
topics.
Top down.
Bottom up.
Silos of related
content.

12. It’s all pointing to the Hub pages
Concentration of
of related content
via keyword links
to the Hub page.
Flow of PageRank
to Hub page.

13. Analyzing your internal linking
Discover your existing hub pages, if any.
Eg. site:finder.com.au "insurance"
Result is:

14. GSC Internal Links Report
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/138752?hl=en

15. SEMrush Internal linking Report

16. Visualizing with force directed diagrams
Ian Lurie created force directed diagrams

17. Sitebulb crawl maps
Diagram is based on
1st contextual link
within the page.

18. Identifying power pages to feed you Hub pages

19. Identify existing deep links power pages
Power your Hub pages with these:
Looking for a hero article,
well written useful article,
naturally shared and linked to.
Ask do links to this URL make sense?
Link building to an obscure blog post?
Hero content...

20. Your most linked to power pages
Search Console Links report.
Use Google Analytics to see
which pages have high traffic.
Page with lower bounce rate
can indicate good power pages.

21. Placing the Internal Link
a contextual link
good surrounding text
Page content should be
relevant to the
hub page topic

22. Don’t over optimize
How many links?
Google gives weight to 1 or 2 anchor text links
What Anchor text to use?
Naturally vary keywords in the in anchor text

23. Monitor your internal linking results

24. Eg. Complete website rebuild & structure over time

25. Eg 2. Uplift by addressing structure and internal links

26. Eg 3. 1st and 2nd revisions, previously penalized

27. Internal Linking in a nutshell
1. Identify your primary Keywords
2. Create Hub pages for them
3. Link contextually to Hub pages from power pages
4. Use natural anchor text variations
5. Monitor results and improve
Sci fi Nut… um, shell

28. Questions?
Peter Mead
@petermeadit