Having plenty of high quality backlinks to your site can do wonders for your search performance.
However if you fail to get your internal linking strategy right then all that authority can go to waste.
Avoiding common internal linking faux pas is an easy way to ensure that you don’t hamper your SEO efforts.
A well executed internal linking strategy will help get key pages indexed and improve their ranking position.
Conversely a poorly executed internal linking strategy can seriously harm your website’s rankings.
Common Problems With Internal Links & How To Avoid Them
Below are some all too common problems that I’ve seen with internal link implementation and a few tips on how to avoid making these mistakes.
Problem 1: Using The Same Anchor Text To Link To Different Pages
Using the same anchor text to link to two different pages can seriously hurt your rankings.
For example if you use the anchor ‘round table’ to link to this page /round-tables/ and then elsewhere on your site you use the same anchor text to also link to a product page e.g /round-tables/medium-sized-wooden-table/.
This creates a problem, which page should search engines prioritise for the search term ‘round table’. You’ve given them mixed instructions.
While the /round-tables/ page may be the obvious choice, when this issue is repeated at scale and suddenly the product page has 10+ links to it all with the same ‘round table’ anchor then it becomes difficult for search engines to decide.
Often they will rank both for the same term…however with a far poorer average ranking position than you would have if just one page was linked to.
How To Fix:
To fix this issue follow these steps:
- Identify pages where duplicated anchor text is an issue – you can do this using Screaming Frog > Bulk export > links > all anchor text > remove all columns except the source/destination and anchor text columns > sort by anchor text > check for any instances where the same anchor text is used for different destination URLs.
Alternatively you can use tools such as SEObility which has a built in feature to find all instances of duplicate anchor text. - Choose which variant is your primary focus – in most cases this should be easy. E.g /round-tables/ would be the preferred focus page over a product page. However in cases where there are similar pages being linked to do a google search for the anchor text used…whichever page variant ranks highest is likely to be the best choice.
- Change those links – all links that point to the unfavoured URL should be amended. The anchor text should be changed to reflect the difference in the page, ensuring that the anchor is no longer duplicated.
Problem 2: Using Generic Anchor Text
Generic anchor text such as ‘click here’, ‘find out more’, ‘here’ and similar are problematic for SEO also.
While it’s unlikely that they directly harm search performance they certainly don’t help.
Generic anchor text is a missed opportunity to add context to a link.
While Google does take the text around a link into account this doesn’t mean that you don’t need to think about the text you use in your internal links.
Generic anchor text makes your site far harder to navigate for people who use screen readers.
Screen readers have functions that allow users to browse links separately from the rest of the content enabling them to quickly navigate through a page to find what they’re looking for.
If all the links are generic this will make the process of navigating your website incredibly frustrating, so the user is unlikely to return.
How To Fix:
Ideally any internal link used should be able to stand alone, i.e if that was the only text someone could see they would have a good idea what kind of page they would end up on if they clicked it.
For example:
- Instead of ‘click here’ use ‘contact us’.
- Instead of ‘see more’ use ‘view our selection of round tables’
- Instead of ‘here’ use ‘web design service’
Problem 3: Using Image Links
Image links can also be problematic for SEO, particularly if they are used in isolation without any hyperlinked caption.
How To Fix:
Without a caption they are very similar to a generic anchor in that they provide no context.
As a general rule text links are always preferable to image links, however if you are going to use image links then make sure to follow these rules to get the most out of them:
- Include an image caption in the link that uses relevant anchor text which makes it clear where the user will end up if they click the link, for example oif the image was a picture of a round table then the caption could say something like ‘Our hardwood Serpzilla branded table’. The caption should also be included in the link, this will effectively function as your anchor text.
- Make sure to use alt text, alt text adds additional context to the image and also ensures that people using screen readers will understand what the image is of – do not use keyword rich language in your alt text, alt text should be used to clearly describe the actual contents of an image.
Conclusion
Doing internal links properly is a simple yet highly effective way of improving search performance.
By avoiding common issues such as duplicate or generic anchor text, or poorly formatted image links that can severely dampen the impact of your internal links, you can ensure that your internal linking strategy doesn’t fall flat.
Instead users and search engines will be able to better understand and navigate through your site, while also ensuring that authority and topical relevance is flowing to key pages, helping them to rank better.
