Link building can be broken down into two separate projects; off-site link building, which focuses on developing a variety of quality links from numerous sources, and on-site link building, which helps develop a flatter site structure and more user-friendly experience. Both are equally important in terms of SEO. Off-site link building will help drive more targeted traffic to your site, while on-site link building will help convert more visitors.
Here a 4 ways you can develop a better internal link structure.
Flatten your site structure
A good rule of thumb: it should take no more than 3 clicks for a user to get from your homepage to any internal page on your site. Any more than that and you risk losing your visitor along the way.
Link related pages
This is especially important for B2C e-commerce sites. In order to keep you visitors moving through your site, link from one page to another via anchor text. For instance, a clothing site could link from their jeans page to their blouses page with a “Finish Your Outfit” section. The longer you can keep your visitors on your e-commerce site, the more likely they are to fill up their shopping cart with a few extra items. Amazon does a great job with internal linking if you’re looking for a reference.
This is also a useful tip for bloggers. If you can relate one post to another, you can better demonstrate your expertise on the post’s subject matter. Offering related content helps keep your visitor engaged. You can also create a “Most Popular Posts” or “Newest Posts” section to encourage your readers further into your site.
Linking pages is also a good way to share link juice. Some pages are going to have more inbound links than others. By linking from page to page, you can add more value to those pages with fewer links.
Include footers
A footer is a great way to keep from losing your visitor’s attention. It lends to the overall user-friendly experience of your site. If you can make it easier for your traffic to click through your site (so they don’t have to scroll back to the top or back to the homepage), the longer they may stay. A footer is also a good place to include links to pages that you need to have on your site (like a privacy policy), but don’t want to waste top level navigation space with.
No more than 100 links per page
Having an over-abundance of links is a common problem with many landing pages. The landing page is the gateway to the rest of the site, so site owners and developers often try to cram as many links to internal pages as they can. Try to keep those links to a minimum (100 at most). This includes the links in top and side navigation bars, the footer, anchor text and so forth. Too many options can detract from the user-experience and could drive visitors away.
