The internal links on your website, and more important, the words used in the internal links are a very important part of your organic search engine optimization efforts and can make a big difference!

Here is a quick guide to maximizing the click-throughs and effectiveness of your internal website links:

1. Do not ever use the words “more info” or “read more” or “click here” as the text for a link. That information is pretty much useless! Make sure your link text uses keywords or longtail key phrases that tell the visitor more about where the link will take them and what they will find when they get there.
2. Include more than one link to each page on your website. Do not rely on ONLY the link in the navigation to direct users to the pages in your site. Include links throughout the content of each page where appropriate to interlink the pages and make it more intuitive for the visitor to move through your site.
3. Make sure your links are appropriate and relevant. If the web page is about “tips for knitting scarves” a link for “best yarn for knitting scarves” or “learn to knit a scarf” would be great link choices. A link to “Crocheting a Baby Blanket” wouldn’t be very relevant.
4. Include a title for your links in the HTML code to give the search robots more relevant keyword rich text to search.

The HTML of a typical link looks like this:

The HTML of an optimized link looks like this:

Don’t over do it! Too many links on your page can affect your ranking as well. Make sure all of your links are purposeful and add to the ease of the users experience.

But while they talk a lot, and blog a lot, and write a lot, they use a lot of jargon and technical speak that can be really hard to understand if you’re new to link building and link optimization.

Today, I’m sharing with you the real story about inbound links, outbound links, and internal links, why you need them, what they do for you, and how they are different.

Inbound Links

Inbound links are links pointing to your website from other places on the internet. In other words, inbound links are links that send people into or to your website from other websites.

Inbound links are important to the success of your website or blog because they hold great value with the search engines.

Think of it this way: All of the websites in your niche are competing for the first page search engine listings for your main keyword or key phrase. Each time another website links to your website it is as if they voted for your site to be listed in the search results. With each vote, you slowly move up in the search engine rankings.

Websites that are considered to be authority sites by the search engines are viewed as more important than average websites, so links to your website from authority sites hold more weight and can have a bigger impact on your website success.

While inbound links are always good. There is something even better. That is inbound links that use keyword-rich, anchor text instead of your URL.

For example: the link www.bourncreative.com is a good link to our site, but if you really want my love, a keyword-rich, anchor-text link like Sacramento Web Design is even better! The second link is not only an inbound link, but it is also a link that reinforces for the search engines what keywords my website should be ranked for.

Outbound Links

Outbound links are links on your website or blog that point to another place on the internet. Outbound links are links that send your website visitors out of or off your website to another destination.

Outbound links are important to the success of your website, but it comes down to exactly how you use the outbound links.

Because Google and other search engines have a goal to provide internet users with the most relevant information possible, you need to make sure that all outbound links on your website send your visitors to destinations relevant to your content.

For example: Let’s say you’re a professional organizer and your website is about organizing. The search engines will assume your visitors are there for information on professional organizing and they will expect to find content, images, and links on this topic. Outbound links to relevant, on-topic content make the search engines happy.

But let’s say you joined a link exchange group with ten friends and you all agreed to link to each others’ websites. (yes people do this) Included in the group is a Dog Groomer, a Massage Therapist, and a Divorce Attorney. These links will confuse the search robots because you are sending your visitors to other websites that have nothing to do with the focus of your website and that goes against their goal of providing relevant content.

Three quick tips on using outbound links:

• Set your outbound links to open in a new window so your website stays open for them.
• Set all outbound links on your home page to “nofollow” to ensure the search robots search and index more of your site.
• Set all outbound links that have no relevance to your websites focus to “nofollow” to avoid confusing the search robots.

Internal Links

Internal links are links from one page on your website to another. Internal links are links from posts to pages, pages to posts, new posts to old posts, etc. and they all point to locations on your own website.

Internal links are important to the success of your website or blog because they give your visitors and the search engines more ways to click through your website and access the content they are looking for.

But internal links have much more value than simply making it easy to access content. Internal links are the “secret” to achieving additional “indented” links in the search engine listings. Check out my example in this screen shot:

A while back, we didn’t have any indented listings (very sad). Then, simply by adding strategic internal links to specific pages, we began to gain the coveted indented links we desired to beef up our search engine results page listing.

For example: Whenever we mention our services or our design work, we include the same link to our design portfolio. Or whenever we’re taking about how people can work with us, we include a call to action to contact us.

Something to think about: At first, when new prospects would call us, tell us they found us in a Google search, and then confess they have never actually looked at our website, we were perplexed.

Then it dawned on us… They were simply clicking on the indented “Contact” link in our listing and contacting us.

If you want to gain some indented listings of your own, create a plan and add relevant, internal links (that make sense) to your website. Also, think about including a link in your website footer to the page you want to be listed. Remember it shows up on every page. So, if your website has 50 pages and 100 blog posts, you just added 150 internal links to that page.

To Wrap It Up

All three types of links are important in the overall success of your website or blog. But don’t get too carried away! You can have too many links – and then it starts to affect the readability of your content. As always, think about what you add to your website and ask yourself, “How does this add value to my website visitors?”

• Inbound links: Links to your website from external sources.
• Outbound links: Links to other sites from your website.
• Internal links: Links between individual pages on your website.

Search engines also look at the quality of this links. Check out the blog post I wrote on link quality titled: Don’t Let Your Site Hang Out On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks.

Your overall goal is to build a good mix of inbound links, outbound links, and internal links that are relevant to your content, business, industry, and audience. Inbound links from in-industry authority websites, especially those that use anchor text, are the most valuable links you can get – but they are very hard to get.

Here are some tips you can use to start building quality links to your website:

1. Grab a Profile on every social network available and complete the full profile. Take advantage of all of the automation features offered, such as linking your blog. This not only increases your visibility and builds links back to your site, but it also prevents others from using your name or business name on those networks.
2. Review books related to your industry on book sites like Amazon and include a link back to your site in the signature.
3. Update membership profiles for any networking organizations, trade organizations, and business associations you belong to online and make sure your profile is complete.
4. Publish articles online on sites like www.ezinearticles.com, www.articlesbase.com, and www.self-growth.com and include a link back to your website in your author resource box.
5. Comment on other blogs and participate in public forums.
6. Ask to link trade with colleagues that serve the same target market you do, but offer a different and complimentary service.

Do you have more ideas for simple link building? Or did you try one of these an experienced good/bad results? Let me know – I’d love to hear what you think!

Inbound, outbound, and internal links are important factors in the calculation of your website page rankings with the search engines.

Unfortunately what most small business owners and entrepreneurs don’t understand is that not all links are created equal. In fact, some links can help your website and some links can hurt your website.

Think of it like this: Associating your website with links to low quality websites like link farms, links that are misleading, links that are irrelevant, or links that are broken is like hanging out in the bad neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks.

No one wants to go there and calls to action are more likely met with skepticism and distrust. Also, the search engines don’t want to send people there because they’ll be unhappy and mad.

Associating your website with links to high quality websites, industry related sites, authority sites, and good links, is like hanging out in the glamorous country club gated neighborhood.

Everyone wants to go there and the calls to action are met with excitement. Also, the search engines love sending people there because they’ll appreciate it and be happy.

Here are some tips to consider when building links for your website:

• Internal links make it easier for users to get more information on what they are reading and to access the information they need faster.
• Outbound links need to go to websites that are relevant to the content you have on your page that the user is reading. The anchor text for the links also must match the content.
• Inbound links are very difficult to get and are hard to control. Monitor your inbound links and if someone unrelated to your business or industry links to you with no good reason, ask them to remove the link. Do not submit your website to random directories and do not agree to link trade with people you do not know and who are not relevant to your business.

What do you think about link building?

Well, believe it or not, there actually is a huge difference between the type of links that can help your website with your search engine ranking and the type of links that can hurt your search engine ranking.

Links that help your website:

Good links are links to or from other high quality websites that have been deemed as valuable by the search engines. Links from authority websites help increase your search engine results, and help you get found more often. The same is true for industry-related websites that are updated frequently with fresh content.

For example, if you are a dog groomer, links from a pet store or veterinarian would been seen as more valuable than a link from a CPA’s website.

Examples of good links:

• Links to/from resources that relate to the content
• Links to/from more information on the topic
• Links to/from other valuable businesses in the industry
• Links to/from trade association
• Links to/from other points of view on the topic

Links that hurt your website:

Bad links are links to or from other websites that search engines have deemed as low quality, been associated with spam, operate as link farms, or practice unethical search engine optimization practices. The same is true for websites that have zero relevancy to your business or your target market. These links actually hurt your search engine results.

Examples of bad links:

• Links to/from a link farm website
• Links to/from spam websites / emails
• Links to/from a website with no relevance to the content
• Links to/from an explicit website
• Deceptive links that lead the user somewhere unexpected

Do you know of other good or bad link information? If so, please share it with me!