Among webmasters who take an interest in Google Local Optimization, (google places optimization) it’s common knowledge that internal links pointing from one page of a site to another help to increase page rank. Not so many webmasters really understand the details of properly optimized interlinking, though. If you’re ready to overhaul your site’s internal link structure and enjoy better optimization results, check out the tips below.
How to Increase Your Page Rank
You can start with the most obvious interlinking habit to cultivate: keyword use. Make sure that the anchor text of each of your internal links includes a keyword that you want to improve your page rank for. Remember that the usual Google Local Optimization caveats apply here: Don’t stuff links with multiple keywords, and always use relevant keywords that fit rationally into the link text.
Next, start using your latest content to help the optimization impact of your older pages. Don’t be too quick to delete pages that get little traffic and don’t contribute to your Google Local Optimization performance. Instead, revitalize them with links from newer articles. This may well increase click-through and contribute more traffic to your neglected pages, and it will improve your page rank on both the old target page and the new linking page.
Resist the temptation to bomb old pages with links from all over your site, though. For maximum impact, a page only needs one inbound link. When a page has many incoming links, it’s treated as a navigation hub (like a homepage) rather than a piece of unique content. In order to get the search engine ranking results you want, you need to ensure that as many of your pages as possible are considered in the latter way, not the former.
Content rich web sites which keep you in control
From common experience, you may be tempted to dump your inter-site links at the bottom of your pages. This is a mistake! The further up the page you can push your links, the better. Remember that links need not necessarily be divorced from the body text of a page. If you can work a link into your content directly, do so, especially if you can do it within the first few paragraphs on the page.
You need to exercise restraint with the links pointing off of a page, too. The same “navigation hub” risk exists with outbound links, although there is a little more leeway in this case. As a rule of thumb, restrict yourself to making three links from any new page to other content-rich pages on your site. Besides keeping your Google Local Optimization performance high, this also forces you to choose your links with care.
Picking links carefully is important because you want to choose the most relevant possible links. Search engine algorithms are already terribly smart about judging a page’s relevance, and their discrimination will only improve in the future. Rather than trying to game the system, play it safe by only using links that make sense and contribute in a meaningful way to informing your site’s visitors.
Hopefully, you’ve found this article a bit eye-opening. While general Google Local Optimization advice can be helpful at the start of your optimizing efforts, as time goes on you need to cultivate more advanced skills. Learning how to forge effective internal links is one of them, and you should have a good head start on the process if you make use of this advice.