The most significant factor behind the success of any website in the search engine ranking it achieves. It is pivotal to get yourself accustomed to the ranking norms on leading search engines. As far as Google is concerned, your webpage will be judged on the grounds of human interactions, user experience, the relevance of information, etc., before settling for a ranking. WordPress customization experts often stress a lot on the SEO part of the webpage. Ultimately, that is one of the major deciding factors in the success of your website. When you hire WordPress developers for your website, you will find them bringing up the topic of internal links again and again. Before you get caught up in the technical terms, here is all that you must know about internal links:
● What are the internal links?
When you visit a website, you may notice some hyperlinks in the articles, which lead to other webpages on the same site. These hyperlinks are called internal links. They are usually used to direct the user to other relevant webpages based on the article that is being read. It serves a lot of purposes, like enhancing user experience and ease of navigation through your website. Apart from that, it is also an easy way of promoting traffic to other pages of your website. External links may also be used to provide relevant information to your user and also to increase the ranking of your webpage, but internal links prove to be more effective in the case of the latter.
● Why are they important?
They are essential because of a myriad of reasons. The most obvious thing which makes internal links important is the role they play in enhancing your website’s ranking. Various pages on your website have different values according to the hierarchy of the page on your site. The homepage has the highest value, followed by the other pages. Internal links help you establish uniform value for most of your pages by distributing authority. This uniformity helps in accomplishing a higher ranking on search engines, ultimately leading to higher chances of success with the site.
● How do they impact the user experience?
Inner links make it easier for your user to navigate through your website. Irrespective of the genre in which your website operates, a considerable amount of articles go live in a short period, hence making it difficult for the user to find other relevant articles on the same website. When you link the topic-related articles and pages in a post, you enhance the user experience and increase the time of reader engagement with your site. Two birds with a stone!
● Do’s and don’ts when using internal links
Just like every other customization tool, overusing internal links will also impact you negatively. One of the most significant caution when using internal links is avoiding link stuffing. That will impact your search engine ranking negatively and also put a wrong impression on your reader. The latest evaluation grounds for top search engines involve assessment based on human interactions. So, if your website has any forced or irrelevant hyperlinks, it will work in the disadvantage of the page and pull it down in the ranking. The same goes for keywords too. Also, try to anchor your links behind the SEO keywords to keep your article neat and organized.
This was a breakdown of the basics regarding internal links. Of course, there is more to the story when you dive deep in. Your usage and frequency may also vary with the industry your website deals with. It is crucial to provide your user with an information enriched experience. Navigating around the relevant parts of your website must be convenient and handy. At the same time, make sure that you don’t overuse any tools to accomplish that, because that may end up projecting your site in a negative light. WordPress customization is a cakewalk when done diligently. All you need is a comprehensive research. Also, don’t forget to hire WordPress developers to keep every technical aspect in check!
Author Bio:
Brandon Graves is an expert WordPress web designer at HireWPGeeks, a well-known web development company. He specializes in convert website to wordpress theme and loves to read and write about all things related to the open-source platform. Follow him on Twitter to receive updates about all his latest posts.