Spreading link love, internally
Most sites suffer from slow load times.
Slow is, of course, somewhat, subjective.
But no site is perfect and there's always going to be reasons for this.
So it's no surprise that improving site speed is usually the first recommendation I make to people.
But usually my next most important tip is to fix internal links.
Sometimes meta data comes before it (if it's trash) but for the most part, internal links is something that so few do so well.
I know I've talked about internal links before and I am definitely preaching the to choir.
And I wish I had more quantitative data to back this up... BUT
Just by adding more internal links and optimising existing ones (making them more keyword rich, fixing broken ones), I've managed to improve link flow between pages...and subsequently, relevancy for queries which in turn brings in more traffic.
It makes so much sense when you think about it - and the longer you think about it, the more you wonder why it gets left by the way side.
Classic examples are for service based businesses - they almost always have a services page which typically lists all their services.
But more often than not, they fail to create individual service pages (and as a result, fail to link to them). Or if they do have those pages, they link to them with generic words like 'read more' or 'click here'. Or sometimes they just have an image and use that as the link to the page - AND TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY, that image doesn't even have alt text.
FOR SHAME.
I remember at Property Finder, one of my biggest wins was improving overall link flow by simply adding a bunch of links to the homepage (on top of other internal link fixes).
Prior to this, they simply had 10 links in a drop down with neighbourhood names and that was it.
All that link equity just trapped on the homepage.
Adding internal links helps search engines and humans discover content more easily and helps improve relevancy overall.
And besides, it helps spread the love.
So go check out your own site today and see where you can add more internal links.
You may just be surprised at the impact it will have.
It's definitely not the worst thing you can do in SEO!
Peace,
Jaaved
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