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Inner linking is a very powerful SEO technique, the benefits are as follows:
- You can increase page views
- Increase your returning visitors.
- Engage visitors
- Build links
One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive from clients and prospective client alike is “Ok I have a blog…now what on Earth should I write about”. The second most frequently asked question is “What are the actual benefits of blogging again? If I’m going to spend all this effort researching and writing blog posts I want to see a return on investment!”
Both of these questions crop up time and time again in conversations so I decided to write a blog post to address both of these interlinked topics (no pun intended).
So here goes – the first rule of blog writing is that you must produce content that is both relevant to your business or niche and it must be well-researched and well-written. So if you are weak on these skills then either skill up or hire a professional to help you. The chances are that a professional blog researcher and writer will be able to write content for your website in less time than you can, to a higher quality because they do it day in day out. It’s a full-time job to them. A good blog writer will know how to interview you to learn about your business and you will be able to feed them with fresh new ideas for new topics whilst you do what you do best and run your business – making more per hour than you are payin them and, therefore making a profit.
Now since the latest Panda update from Google, fresh new content is still and even more so a key priority and concern for everyone with websites. I encourage anyone with a website to have a WordPress blog installed onto their website at domain.com/blog and begin to add fresh new content to it. If you would like to have your new WordPress blog themed to look like your main website then we provide this service here. Do you see how I used inner linking there? By doing so I have enchanced your experience of reading this blog post because you don’t need to go back to Google to search for related content. Everyone you need is in one place, right here on this website because I’ve planned this blog post out properly. So that’s what you need to do with your blog posts. Research, plan, write and publish. A four step process that will:
- Increase your page views by helping your visitors find related content which compliments your original blog post.
- Increase your returning visitors by providing them with the content they need all in one place.
- Engage visitors by wetting their appetite for more content – visitors tend to bookmark or RSS blogs they like so that they don’t miss fresh new content as and when it is published.
- Build links – links are built from certain words and phrases within your blog post which lead to either blog posts that you’ve already published, your home page or squeeze (sales) pages within your actual website.
So why would you want to link to your website. Well, think about what types of content are on your homepage…an overview of what you do, your main services, most of the popular services/products that your business provides. So if you would like to provide your visitor with the option to quickly appraise your main products/services then provide a link to your homepage. Why not just tell them what you offer there and then within the actual blog post? Well, if you have a well thought out homepage then a) You’ll have both images as well as text to describe your main offerings (there won’t be enough room on the blog post in question to add this images without risking dilluting the main theme and possibly digressing – in other words you might “lose the reader” or confuse them with information overload, and b) If your homepage is well tested you should have a sales funnel including calls to action which should help your visitors to actually find the services/products that they need.
So when internet marketers talk about link building they don’t just mean building links to a given website from external sources, they also refer to building links from within the website to help Google’s spiders index the pages more quickly and more accurately as well as helping web pages to rank better.
Now this is quite a new website at this stage so there are very few other pages or blog posts to send you off to but I can return to this blog post once I’ve created more and add new links here. Editing existing pages and blog posts in pretty much a standard procedure in terms of testing and tweaking website navigation so remember the work on your website is never done and it is constantly evolving to make you more and more money.
It is worth noting that you should not be afraid to link to other websites too as long as they are authoritative and the information that they hold is credible. This shows Google that you don’t mind losing a little traffic to enhance the user’s experience. Most website visitors can use the back button (so don’t open the link in a new browser window because this can actually confuse novice web users especially elderly people) – usability studies including those by Jacob Nielsen show that (see point 9 Opening New Browser Windows).
