Why are Internal Links Important?

Previously we’ve discussed link building and how Google’s algorithm rewards or penalizes different types. To review, Google wants to create an internet full of interesting and original content accessed organically. Essentially, it wants to mimic the way people socialize in real life – which means directing traffic to items of general interest and not to advertising or marketing (which most people recognize and either click out of or delete).

We’ve focused on external links before. External links are links from sites other than your own. These would include reviews, mentions, news articles to your company’s website, and anything else coming from another source. What about internal links, though? Is it worthwhile to link to your own content? Yes, it is.

First of all, if you are generating interesting and original content, the kind of content that Google rewards, chances are your readers will be interested in reading more of it. Therefore, organizing and promoting that content within the context of your website will get your more clicks and greater site engagement. This, hopefully, will convert into actual inquiries and sales of your products or services. Some blogs will lend themselves more easily to this kind of inter-linking. A coin collecting blogger will bring up the basics of coin valuation in any number of articles about specific coins. This may be of real interest to the reader. Essentially, with the right kind of internal link use, you will be encouraging your readers and customers to stay longer on your site, and you will be subtly guiding their internet surfing in a way that benefits them and you.

Secondly, a comprehensive internal link structure is also useful to any search engine. In order for a search engine to thoroughly crawl your site, it needs to know where to go. Good site organization is crucial for this as well, but adding internal links within your articles will also direct the spiders to the pathways between content. If you’re spending resources creating good content, you want to make sure it’s accessible and that search engines know about it so they will index it and bring it up in response to searches. Otherwise, it will only be read when it’s new. You can put time and effort into your content, marketing, and keyword targeting, but if those pages are never indexed by search engines, they are essentially invisible to the world.

Taking the time to add internal links to your pages and blog entries extends the expiration date of all your content, and it shows your reader and search engines that your website is organized. If you aren’t adding internal links to any new pages you create, you’re missing an opportunity to engage with your customers. Don’t make that mistake.