Backlinks, backlinks, backlinks! I figured today I would give you a break from the normal song and dance to talk about something which is less work but can still be very effective at increasing rank and thanks internal linking.
So anytime we talk about internal linking we have to talk about Wikipedia.org because in the search engine world its a veritable monster. If you would have asked me 5 years ago why Wikipedia ranked as well as it does I probably would have scratched my head. Today I can say with confidence its because of 2 things:
1. They have TONS of pages out there targeting long tail terms and those pages are SEO’ed for those terms
2. They have a very good navigational structure and TOP NOTCH internal linking
You don’t think there are hundreds of people on the Wiki staff working on getting backlinks do you…my guess is no. They build authority across the site by ranking lots of pages for non-competitive terms and push that authority through the site with internal linking. The catch of course is that they are very smart with their internal linking and do it in such a way which IMPROVES RANK!
FYI this is also why you can easily outrank Wiki for most listings as the backlink profile is generally very weak on a page level.
Checkout this tip I gave a while back on a quick tip to boost rank via internal linking:
1. Search for your keyword site:sitename.com
2. Make sure your page you want to rank for “keyword” is #1
3. If it is, look at the next two pages ranking from your site for that keyword and cross link them
Google understands keyword association so if it thinks they are related they are. Linking related content boosts topical authority which boosts rank.
According to Google there are 1.25 billion sites which appear for the search allinanchor:click here which is A-FREAKING-MAZING to me. You did see I wrote BILLION right? Have you ever seen a search result in the billions? So relatively speaking there are over a billion sites competing to rank for the “best” anchor text usage for “click here” which is depressing. In fact the number 1 listing there Adobe Acrobat is the gold standard for describing the use of anchor text and why it works in most circles as that page ranks #1 for the organic listing “click here”.
CLICK HERE! Allow me to list the reasons this sucks.
1. What will I see when I “click here”…who knows. This makes this a usability nightmare
2. What will Google think that page is about? Apparently “click here” which is an SEO no-no
3. In the context of this screenshot that link means nothing and is a very poor call to action
If I was that guy maybe I would be using “Read excerpts from todays Featured News” because as an end user I know if I click on “featured news” I know what I am getting.
So in short know what you want your pages to rank for at a keyword level, a keyword or 2 per page. Make sure this is right before anything else and be sure your calls to action on those pages are very clear. Next see which terms are related and be sure they are cross linked on the site with the proper anchor text.
It’s quick, easy and necessary for you to improve your sites usability but has the bonus of better rank!