Internal linking is crucial in WordPress for several reasons. In a study by ninjaOutreach case -in English- it has been found that internal links can help increase traffic by 40%.
Other than that, internal links in WordPress help:
- Your visitors can easily navigate your website
- It establishes and improves the structure of your website
- Keeps visitors on your website
- Help Google analyze your website
- Build your SEO
- And more
This article covers some of the simpler, if not the best practices for internal linking in WordPress.
But first, if you've never installed WordPress, find out How to Install a WordPress Blog in 7 Steps et How to search, install and activate a WordPress theme on your blog
Then let's go to why we are here.
1. Have a content marketing strategy
Unless you have a lot of high quality content on your WordPress website, you won't be able to build internal links.
This is why it is essential to have a large content marketing strategy. However, writing bits and pieces of content is not enough. You have to actually write something valuable to solve your audience's problems.
Lire aussi Content is king, but is it the only one in marketing?
Although you are capable of creating high-value content, it will be useless unless it answers the questions your audience is looking for. So, before creating a strategy Content marketing, make sure you get to know your target audience.
Also focus on creating keyword rich content. It's also important to present the right keywords in the right places. You can either hire an expert in Content marketing for this task or use keyword research tools to increase your traffic.
Once you have enough content, you can build a lot of internal linking to improve your internal linking strategy.
2. Avoid overuse of anchor text
It's definitely a great idea to use anchor text for your internal linking strategy. That said, overusing this strategy could backfire. In fact, MicrositeMasters.com found websites that over-used anchor text, all of which were penalized in significant numbers by Google Penguin:
So make sure you use anchor text wisely instead of using the same anchor text every time you create an internal link.
Also read our guide on How to protect your blog from content scrapers
Also, using anchor text is better than using linked images. Unless image links are not the primary source of links, and images contain appropriate alt-texts.
Avoid optimizing anchor text. Instead, use natural sentence fragments, highlight it and link it together. Other than that, it's also not a good idea to fill your blog posts with keywords unnecessarily.
And not just for the interconnection strategy, these tips will come in handy when you start a blog and also during writing a blog post.
Read also: How to Add Drip Content to a WordPress Website
3. Make sure the image links have Alt attributes
Image links marked with the attribute or serve as anchor text for text links and will send a ranking signal to search engines. So, be sure to add relevant alt-text to all of your images.
If you have a lot of images on your website, a tool like Image SEO Optimizer can help you. This plugin automatically creates relevant image names and alt text.
You can also use it to find out which image links don't have alt texts. Once you log into their API, you'll be able to see at a glance how many images in your media library don't have alt text.
4. Avoid linking to top level pages
The top level pages of your website like the Home page and Contact Us page are usually linked to the main navigation menu. So, avoid redirecting more links to these pages.
Instead, it's a better idea to link them to your blog posts. This will help you strengthen your internal links and pages, increase your website's analytical capacity, and boost your website's SEO.
5. Manual internal link
Although it will take a long time, this method is very effective compared to other methods. To help link different posts in the main post content manually, WordPress has a number of linking tools. You can use the option advanced search links to perform to do so without leaving your article
Whether you use the classic editor or Gutenberg, to add links to your post or page. Select the phrase you want to use as anchor text and click the Link icon (in the classic editor it is at the top of your editor, in Gutenberg a popup will appear just above your text when you stop type). You can paste your link here or start typing to search for pages or articles published on your website.
Discover more How to add link preview on WordPress
As mentioned, only link related content with anchor texts and leave out the homepages and contact us.
6. Use WordPress plugins for automatic internal linking
While manual linking to your blog posts is likely to be more effective, it becomes difficult if you have hundreds of blog posts on your website.
In this case, you have to organize countless web pages and then decide which pages to link.
And that's where plugins come in!
Unlike the manual method of internal linking, using plugins for automatic linking will save you a lot of time. It is also easy to edit old content for internal links when using such plugins.
here are some WordPress plugins which you can use to create internal and automatic bindings:
They will help you automatically link the keywords in all the article to specific links.
Take Link Whisper, for example:
Link Whisper will provide you with relevant internal links from your content. Using AI, the plugin finds keywords and phrases in your posts and comments with corresponding pages, posts, categories and tags on your website.
Read also : How to Track Outbound Links on WordPress
However, it's usually a better idea to use the premium version of one of the plugins, especially if you have tons of webpages to link to. For example, Link Whisper Free provide basic suggestions and reports. But advanced features like quick edit, auto-link, bulk link change, and more are limited to the premium option.
7. Use DoFollow links
One of the main reasons that website owners link internally is to optimize the SEO other pages. Don't ruin it by making internal nofollow links.
Read also: How to view popular articles and generate traffic
A DoFollow link uses an HTML attribute that tells search engine bots to follow a link to its destination. With WordPress, this is easy, because the links you add are already do-follow by default. Although it is acceptable to use nofollow for some pages like la politique de confidentialité, as well as always on affiliate links, as they don't matter much for SEO.
8. Don't insert too many links per page
The more links you put on a page, the less link juice they will send " link juice On the page it indicates. And if the content isn't well structured, your visitors won't want to scroll through the endless list of resources.
Also, too many links can send a spam signal to search engines and negatively affect the authority of your page.
Also consult our 3 Practices SEO that you can put together easily
Thus, limit the number of outgoing links to increase the SEO of the pages to which you connect them. It is best to keep the number of links on any page below 100.
9. Insert links with the value
The internal link demands a user-centric tactic so that you can provide them with value and information. Providing value to the reader is more important here than the value of the link that is propagated through the website.
A significant advantage of internal linking is that it stimulates user engagement. Users typically click on the link when they see that it is informative and matches the context of the content.
It doesn't matter, even if it's an external link. Readers will click on it if they find it interesting.
In the case of internal links, the visitor will stay longer and become engrossed in the experience of your website.
The links send a powerful signal to the search engine as well as to the user that the content that is linked is valuable. Your readers want it and therefore the internal link helps the reader. At the same time, you stimulate have your SEO.
So, internal linking will only work if your links are valuable to the reader.
10. Insert relevant links
The internal link is less technical than you might think. But that doesn't mean you'll have to link just for the sake of linking. Make sure you link to content that is relevant to the context of the source.
Lire aussi How to Put Your WordPress Blog to Traffic Testing
For example, if you have a page on your website about photography, linking it to a fitness page won't make sense because there is no connection between the two.
The main thing is - linking to relevant content.
11. Do not fill in optimized internal links in the footer
This tactic was popularly practiced a few years ago. Having said that, if your website has thousands of web pages, it will multiply into tens of thousands of spam links. What's more, the search engines could even penalize your website.
Instead, put the thought in your footer just like you would your header. Include useful links, such as your contact page or social media profiles.
12. Use the Breadcrumbs -Chapelure-
The Breadcrumb is a navigation hierarchy that will help you track your current location on the website, helping you maintain a neat hierarchy.
Google also recommends them to boost SEO. The good news is that most good WordPress themes offer this. You just need to activate it in their settings.
But in case your WordPress theme doesn't offer this, you can implement it using the WordPress Yoast SEO plugin. Just install the plugin, go to the dashboard, then go to the SEO option. Find internal links and activate the Breadcrumb option.
Here are some additional tips in brief for internal linking in WordPress:
- If there's no way to use keywords in the content, consider adding them as "related links" at the end of the page or post.
- While SEO is crucial, building all internal links with visitors and the click in mind.
- Be descriptive and let the visitor know the benefit of clicking on the link.
- Use strong and compelling action words.
- If you have a new post that relates to an older post with a high value, add a link and vice versa.
- Use tools like the Google search operator to find pages associated with your own website.
Internal linking doesn't have to be an overwhelming task if you know the strategy and apply it correctly.
Always keep your users and the click in mind when creating an internal link. Users should be able to click on the link naturally to find the information they are looking for. Overall, avoid linking internally just for the sake of it.
Also, since WordPress offers a lot of plugins to help you with internal linking - why not just take advantage?
And whenever possible, avoid linking your top-level pages and keep the total number of links on a page or post below 100.
Following these tips will help you build your internal bond with little to no difficulty.
Discover also some premium WordPress plugins
You can use other WordPress plugins to give a modern appearance and to optimize the handling of your blog or website.
We offer you here some premium WordPress plugins that will help you do that.
1. Ninja Forms
When many people think of lead generation, they automatically think of lavish and exciting popups that can grab visitors' attention at the right time. But lead generation is more than that.
Sometimes the simplest of contact forms - like a subscription field to the newsletter on the footer of your website - is what will get more subscriptions than others.
So before you do anything else, make sure you have a plugin of Contact form trustworthy as Ninja Forms to add lead generation features to your website content.
2. Gravity Forms Rating FieldStar Rating Field
Easily add a rating form by stars (or thumbs up, hearts, smiling faces, etc.) with the WordPress Gravity Forms plugin.
Choose from 14 different rating styles and set configuration options for your rating field. So if you are already using Gravity Forms then you should consider using Gravity Forms Star Rating FieldStar Rating Field.
See also our 6 WordPress plugins to add auto-completion to your forms
Its features are among others: the pcustomization and display of the current note on mouseover, the ppersonalization and display of help on tooltip, andt more
Download | Demo | Web hosting
3. Gravity Forms Auto Complete (+address field)
It is an extension of Gravity Forms which activates an autocomplete feature on your form fields. Thus, it suggests possible completions for the domain that the user has started entering.
Auto-completion simplifies and speeds up the process of filling out the form and saves your users time by finding the data they need through suggestions.
Also take the time to read our article on 10 WordPress plugins to interact with your users
Please note that you will be able to choose a source for the suggestions. And currently, it supports multiple types of sources: 'WordPress', 'URL', and 'Address'.
Download | Demo | Web hosting
Recommended Resources
Find out about other recommended resources to help you build and manage your website.
- 10 WordPress plugins to improve the visual of your website
- How to improve your WordPress blog this weekend
- 10 WordPress WooCommerce plugins to use on your blog
- 7 WordPress plugins for call-to-action buttons on WordPress
Conclusion
Here ! That's it for this tutorial. We hope that this one made you discover thebest practices for internal links in WordPress. Do not hesitate to share with your friends on your favorite social networks.
However, you can also consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on WordPress blog creation.
If you have suggestions or remarks, leave them in our section Comments.
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