Rules for linking pages. Basic linking schemes

Internal linking is the placement of links within the site that will redirect visitors from one page to another. The use of the correct linking schemes allows the site to get to the top for a specific key query, and the user gets access to exactly the page that he needs, and not the one that the search engine chooses. Internal links allow you to evenly distribute the link weight within the project. Each page of the resource has its own level of authority in the eyes of search engines. Under the link weight, it is customary to understand the same level of authority of the page, which can be transferred to another acceptor page from the donor page by placing a link to the latter on it. The link weight is called Pagerank.

Number of links per page

As a result of prolonged testing by site optimizers by placing internal links on them, the internal linking of pages has acquired a large number of formats. Regardless of the user redirection scheme, there should not be more than 50 links on one page. The weight is distributed evenly across links, both external and internal. As their number increases, the Pagerank of each of them decreases. By limiting the number of redirects, the optimizer redistributes the transferred weight, directing it to the necessary pages. It is recommended to close unnecessary links using the tag or the "nofollow" attribute. Tags and attributes do not transfer link weight to the acceptor, but neither do they take it away from the donor.

Appearance and redirection

Internal site linking will be more effective if you try to avoid links with pictures or animation. Text redirects, unlike the latter, are easily recognized by search engines with the determination of the redirection ownership. The link ranks correctly, which is not the case for pictures and animations. Only one redirect to another page is allowed on one page. If we take a catalog with goods as an example, then you only need to leave the redirect with a keyword. If the picture with the product is also supplemented with a link, it is recommended to close it with the rel = "nofollow" attribute. The "More details" tag at the end of almost every text, or any other similar text, should be closed with a tag, which will preserve the link weight of the redirect. The URL of the pages is necessarily supplemented with keywords on the basis of which key queries are formed. This is required by effective and competent internal linking of the site.

Main menu design

Re-linking of pages can be carried out not only through placing the redirection in the text content of the project, but also at the expense of the main menu and in the submenu of the site. For internal linking to have a positive effect on the promotion of the resource, links in the menu should be formatted with keywords or promoted queries. It is not worth making a lot of effort to ensure that the project menu redirects to all available pages. The texts of the menu links for the internal linking of the site should be drawn up using a key request or a key request with a near-link text. These can be formative words. It is allowed to use forming words with a part of the key request.

Submenu decoration

The design of the submenu is limited to working with the following structural components of the project:

• Navigation line. It should contain a redirect to the main page, mainly with a competitive keyword. The current page in the line should not contain links.
• HTML map. It should contain links only to the main sections of the project and to the most important pages. Search engines benefit from a single-level map with no more than 30 links.
• Hints that direct project visitors to the right pages. This internal linking of pages is effective for promoting a project for low-frequency queries. The following text redirects are used: "Related Products", "Related Materials", "Promotions" and other attention-grabbing labels.
• Anchors. These are text links located on pages with a large amount of text material. Navigation will be more convenient if you use several anchors like "<а name=...».

Universal linking scheme

The simplest and most accessible internal linking of pages is carried out according to a universal scheme. Its effectiveness determines the frequency of its application. The essence of the scheme is to concentrate the main link weight on the main page of the project with a parallel reduction in weight as the level of nesting. Internal linking of this type is suitable for promoting a project for high, medium and low frequency requests. The principle of constructing a circuit is reduced to the implementation of the basic rules:

• Each page of the project redirects to the main or to one of the main sections.
• The main page contains links leading only to the main sections of the project.
• Pages can only link to each other within a section.

How to make internal linking for low-frequency queries?

The linking scheme provides for the elimination of bilateral ties. The nav bar and nav menu are closed with a tag. To build a diagram, all links that do not lead to the main sections of the project are closed on the main page. On the section pages, only those redirects that lead to the content tabs are left indexed. Within each section, all links to subpages are closed in a ring. Only those links that lead to other pages in the section remain indexed.

Re-linking to promote the project for high-frequency requests

Correct internal linking of software begins with the formation of a two-way link between the main page and the section pages. Links from the section page redirect to nested content pages. Pages with content are redirected to the main page. The maximum weight in accordance with the keyword can be obtained when links are placed from the pages corresponding to this request. The optimizer must select 8 input pages, which are divided into two categories, 4 pages each. Fours are closed in a ring and are connected according to the scheme: 1 page - 6 pages - 3 pages - 8 pages - 1 page and, accordingly, 5 pages - 2 pages - 7 pages - 4 pages - 5 pages. Regardless of what scheme will be used to promote the project, it should be adapted not only for search engines, it should simplify the movement of the project visitor around the site.

Scheme "Star" and scheme "Ring"

The scheme is based on total and mutual linking of internal pages. The principle of building the latter is the presence of links on pages to other pages. The scheme is effective for small resources and for business card projects, as it allows you to evenly distribute the weight between all pages. The “circular” redirection can also be referred to the category of classic linking. The essence of the technique is that all pages redirect to each other in a circle, in parallel referring to the main page, in particular to the main page of the project, which are promoted by the dominant request. The "ring" scheme can be easily upgraded to redirect the main link mass to a specific page. The overall average weight is retained for each of the project pages, even if some of them simply fall out of the structure.

"Hierarchical" model and not only

The idea of ​​the scheme is based on the formation of a linking structure, which, in terms of external factors, has a certain similarity to the progression. The branch has been repeatedly tested and showed good results, however, it is not without its drawbacks. If even one of the pages falls out of the search engine, the entire project sags significantly in the eyes of search engines. The structure of redirects in the inner part of the resource involves the distribution of the main link weight of the site simultaneously among several pages. In addition to the three most common project linking structures described above, there are specialized types of schemes adapted for large-scale services, such as video hosting or news resources with a large number of pages. Internal linking of wordpress sites, in fact, as well as projects working on other engines, which have no more than 50 pages, can be carried out manually. Automatic linking programs and special scripts are used for linking for low-frequency requests in large-scale projects.

Specialized programs to help the optimizer

Internal linking schemes can be built both manually and automatically. There are programs that are able to analyze the resource and point out the necessary directions for improving indexing. Let's pay attention to the following software:

• Linkoscop. The program has basic linking functions. This includes checking the quality of both incoming and outgoing links, setting in the aspect of weight distribution, checking against the main search engines, forming and linking the project map. The program is effective for the analysis of competing resources.
• Pageweight. This is a program for internal linking, showing the main parameters of weight distribution within the resource, both for the whole project and for its individual pages. Compared to the previous program, the software is aimed at slowly collecting initial information, which results in both external pages and broken links.

Two programs are able to fully satisfy the needs of the optimizer in promoting the project in the domestic virtual market, although the menu for internal linking will have to be formed independently. The automated type of linking is used mainly by professionals who understand the essence of the procedure.

Scripts

Many SEOs consider HTracer to be the most effective script. Not only is it completely free, but it also works great on the most popular site management systems, in particular Joomla, Drupal and WordPress. Its advantage over its counterparts is its wide range of functions. At the moment, there is no worthy analogue of the script in the CIS. The main drawback is the heavy load on the server of the project itself. To maintain the optimal response speed when using the script, it is worth buying a hosting plan or a dedicated VPS, which will have a performance headroom. Optimization of the source code of the pages is mandatory.

Internal linking is a subject of constant controversy. Some experts argue that building the correct site structure and distributing the weight of internal links is an extremely important mission, while others believe that this is a waste of time. I am an adherent of the first option, and you will understand why after reading this article.

So, internal linking is the process of redistributing static link weight with the formation of the necessary concentration on landing pages. Link weight consists of two parts: anchor (semantic, semantic) and static (trust) weight.

If you have taken care of filling the pages with relevant content, purchased high-quality links, and the site's positions do not grow as you would like, you should pay attention to the correctness of the internal linking. The first thing to do is to find a suitable scheme for requests of all types of frequency. There are an incredible number of such schemes, but we will consider the most common and available ones.

Faster site indexing by search robots.

Free movement of visitors through relevant pages (a little, but it helps to improve the PF).

Correct redistribution of the static weight of the resource and the ability to point to more relevant pages.

Simple site navigation, saving time, quickly finding the information you need are important factors for a modern user. Otherwise, it will simply go to another site.

It is important for the robot to obtain information about the structure of the resource. Competent correct interlinking of site pages is compliance with several requirements:

convenient navigation with a minimum level of page nesting;

static weight distribution - the most important pages should have more weight;

distribution of link weight - the anchor should correspond to the topic of the page to which it links.

Navigational- links to make it easier to read large text. Relevant for long pages with a large amount of content. An example of such a linking can be seen in any Wikipedia article - the menu at the beginning of the article allows you to quickly go to any section, and not search for information on your own throughout the "sheet".

End-to-end- repeated reference blocks. For example, this is a site menu that is present on all pages of a resource. These internal links are the most important for a search engine crawler - and their weight is higher.

Auxiliary or helpful- links that are placed at the bottom of the page. For a blog, these can be links to articles that are relevant to the topic, for an online store - to related products, etc. The purpose of these links is to improve user factors.

Basic steps when doing internal linking

On a site with a history, you need to study the linking system in detail and destroy all inappropriate links.

Identify the pages that need to be increased in weight and create a keyword list for them.

Optimize site pages (text, photos, meta tags) by keywords.

Proceed to linking.

different anchors should be used;

you need to use all of the listed types of linking for the naturalness of the pages;

link anchors should be short and natural, inserted in place and mentioned only once;

be sure to use "bread crumbs" - convenient navigation chains, so that the user understands where he is and what chain he came in;

when placing contextual links, the best solution would be to search for the most relevant pieces of text for the target query - they are contained by snippets that are displayed in the search results for pages when searching the site;

it takes 1-2 months to distribute the link weight within the site.

Before starting, you need to distribute all the pages of the resource into thematic groups: product categories, news, reviews, etc. After that, you need to choose a suitable linking scheme between pages in each group.

Dignity: fast and even distribution of static weight between pages belonging to the same thematic group.

Flaws: the ring will break (in the picture on the right) if at least one of the pages fails indexing. If this happens, the weight distribution will be incorrect. The weight of pages left without inbound links will be reduced.

What to do? The only way out is to create several rings of different sizes for different groups of pages using several linking methods.

In this diagram, all pages within a group refer to each other. The number of outgoing links is equal to the number of incoming links.

Advantages: a large number of incoming links on each page, there is less risk of weight loss when a page falls out of the index: more precisely, the weight will decrease, but not significantly.

Flaws: difficult to organize a layout for a large group of pages.

What to do? When organizing the linking of an online store, a good solution is to make the most popular product recommended on the page with another product. This type of linking will not always correspond to the "Star" scheme, but it allows working with large groups.

The scheme is represented by rings that intersect in a cross.

Advantages: organization of stable links - dropping out of the index even 3 pages will not affect the weight of other pages.

Flaws: manually organizing linking is almost impossible - you need to use automatic plugins and internal linking services.

What to do? For such a linking, it is better to draw up a preliminary diagram so as not to get confused.

To make the linking optimal, you need to use more complex schemes.

The linking scheme in the figure shows a high-frequency request (topmost) on the main page. From it, links go to 2 sections (as many as possible). Sections have subsections that are referenced by both the home page and the sections. Backlinks from both sections and subsections go to the home page. What does it do? Links from subsections return the weight to the main page, increasing it several times.

On the right is a diagram similar to the previous one. In this case, the subsections in this case are additionally "looped". This has reduced almost 2 times the weight on the home page, but this weight loss is offset by the emphasis on subsections.

General advice. The correct organization of internal linking is possible if you clearly understand which queries you are promoting: high-frequency, medium- or low-frequency.

After clustering queries, many are wondering how to build a site structure. One of the most important factors when working on the structure of a resource is the correct level of page nesting. Ideal - if even the most "distant" pages are available in 3 clicks. Here's a diagram for an example:

1 click - the first nesting level - the main page;

2 click - second level - heading / section;

3 click - third level - section materials (articles, products, etc.).

For small sites with 100 or more pages, these requirements are easy to follow. Difficulties can arise with a large portal - a media outlet or an online store. The rule will not work here, but the intuitive structure, the presence of a sitemap, setting up "bread crumbs" and, of course, competent internal linking will save the situation.

CNC: what is it and why?

After distributing the pages by nesting level, you need to work on human-readable URLs. In a nutshell, these are links that allow the user to understand where he is on the site. That is, instead of the standard set of meaningless characters, the user, when looking at the link, will see the same breadcrumbs - the path that he made to the page, written in Latin or Russian letters. On popular cms, the creation of cnc URLs is already provided for by the functionality. But on some, you need to install the appropriate plugin for this.

You need to get rid of duplicate content or identical pages without wasting time. Without this, there will be a great risk of being sanctioned. Duplicates are a characteristic element of large sites at the stage of a change of ownership or a certain neglected period in development. If there are duplicates, you must first close them from indexing in Robots.txt, and then get rid of the generation of unnecessary pages.

This is the name given to the breadcrumbs needed for sites with a large number of pages and a nesting level of more than three. In most cases, a chain is a path to a specific page, starting from the main one. All the constituent elements of the chain are usually separated by hashtags or spaces. Ideally, they should be clickable - so that you can go to any stage of the path in one click. To install breadcrumbs, they usually write a unique code or use ready-made solutions (plugins).

We touched upon the basic elements of organizing the correct structure of the site and the correct internal linking. It will be difficult to achieve the perfect result on your own - therefore it is better to entrust this mission to a specialist.

Today I propose to talk about such an important process as internal linking of site pages, what it is and why it is so important.To begin with, it involves placing links on pages within the site, which users will follow from one page to another. Correctly thought out and implemented linking of pages will allow you to evenly distribute the link mass within the site.All this will make the site more authoritative in the eyes of search robots. Thanks to this, the resource will take place in the first positions of the search results. Note! The link weight of a page or Pagerank depends on how many links to a particular page are placed on other pages of the site.It is relatively easy to achieve a good result in website promotion due to the correct placement of internal links. The main thing is to know the basic principles of linking, which I will discuss below.

Re-linking site pages what it is - I have already briefly told above. But let's take a closer look at what it is for and what results it will achieve.

• Improving the usability of the site - that is, usability. The presence of internal links allows the user to better navigate the resource, see articles and materials that are similar in subject matter.

Note! The presence of links motivates the user to click on them. He embarks on a kind of journey around the site. As a result, the visitor "hangs" on it and spends a lot of time. Which is positively evaluated by the search engines.

• Re-linking of pages can significantly improve the structure of the site, which will be positively appreciated by search robots. Note that when evaluating a resource, search robots necessarily evaluate the Nesting Level (HC). That is, how many clicks you need to make to get to a specific page. For the main page, this indicator is 1. If you need to make one click to go to a specific page, the HC equals 2. The higher the HC, the longer the page will be indexed by the robots. Competent linking will allow you to lower the HC.

• Rational distribution of dynamic and static page weight. I think you understand that each page of the site has its own static weight. If there is a link to another page, it transfers part of its static weight. It also allows some of the dynamic weight to be transferred. All this has a direct impact on the final position of the page in the search engines.

Note! Thus, you will be able to bring the specific page that is most important to you to the TOP of the search.

• Fast indexing. Internal linking of site pages speeds up the work of search robots. That has a positive effect on the speed of getting your resource pages into the index of search engines.
• Reduced promotion costs. Placing links is a free and quite effective way to significantly increase the position of a site in search engines. That will make it possible to significantly reduce the cost of promotion.

Correct and Incorrect Linking: Examples

When creating an internal linking, the main thing is to do everything right. Especially in terms of site navigation. In particular, the home page must contain links to all available sections of the second and third level. But don't link to regular pages.

An example of competent placement of links

1. Links to all sections of the site are available on the home page.
2. Each individual section has links to other sections.
3. Each page within a section is linked to other pages in the same section.

Examples of illiterate linking

1. There are no links to all created sections on the main page.
2. The correct structure is not provided.
3. No section cohesion.
4. In a separate section, there are links to pages that are not related to it.
5. There is no connection between the materials within the section.
6. Some pages have no links at all.

Some points to mention: unique linking features

1. Directly from the main page, you can put links to regular pages with articles, materials.
2. Inside the section, it is allowed to put links to those materials that are not included in this section. For example, in one section you have recipes for cooking food, but you want to put a link in the article to a specific dish that is used in cooking and which is written about in the thematic section.
3. From the second point it follows - it is allowed to link articles from different sections.

Note! It should be understood that these nuances are relevant only for certain cases.

Re-linking of pages and its types

There are several types of linking. I will describe each type in more detail below - they all have their own characteristics and certain advantages.

However, for successful website promotion, I recommend using not any specific variety, but all of the methods described.

1) Through view

We are talking about a specific block with links installed on all pages of the site. The most striking example is the menu - it may contain the following sections:

• The main;
• Articles;
• About Us;
• Contacts, etc.

Also, as an example, you can cite blocks in which:

• related materials;
• most read articles;
• the most commented articles.

It's pretty easy to make this look. You need to install a special extension that will generate blocks.

In addition, the weight transferred to other pages will be quite noticeable. However, if you need to achieve a more tangible weight for a specific page in order to bring it to the TOP, you should use the type of linking presented in the next section.

2) Contextual view

It is about placing links within an article. They should go well and directly into the text so as not to spoil it with incorrect declensions.

Note! Links should be evenly distributed throughout the text of the article, and not collected in one part of the material. This will significantly increase the transmitted weight. In addition, it will have a positive effect on the behavioral factor.

Naturally, it is not possible to automate this process. All links need to be added only manually, which takes a relatively long time.

Of course, there are special plugins that can do this for you, but their link quality is poor. You will immediately see the incorrect entry of links into the text of the article.

3) Variable end-to-end view

This method is similar in principle to the first described. The point is about using a special block, but unique links are used on each page. That is, the links on the pages are not repeated.

4) "Bread crumbs"

This view can be used as additional navigation. Links are placed:

• above the title of the article;
• above the page title;
• etc.

In fact, moving along such "crumbs", the user can go from the main page of the site to the one on which he ended up.

It is interesting! The method got its name by analogy with the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm. Remember how Hansel and Gretel walked out of the woods, looking for their way through the scattered crumbs?

This method allows you to increase the level of usability and make it easier for users to target your resource.

How page linking helps promote specific search queries

Properly using the principles of internal linking, you can ensure effective promotion of search queries, regardless of the level of their frequency.

Low frequency queries

Pages with the third level of nesting are ideal for them. The features of internal linking in this case will be as follows:

• the home page of the site will contain links to some of the others;

• there is necessarily a link between internal pages;
• the main focus of linking is on internal pages.

Mid-frequency queries

• headings;
• categories.

Naturally, the emphasis is on them - links from ordinary pages will lead to these pages, and you can also put external links there when posting materials on third-party resources.

Note! There is no need to put links on the main page, which will lead to regular ones. As this will result in spraying. Better to use the weight of the home page to promote more meaningful ones.

High-frequency queries

To promote highly competitive queries, it is recommended that you use the pages with the highest CV. The home page of the site is best suited for this.

Effective page linking schemes

Using linking schemes will allow you to get unique links. And link all pages with links.

The work is painstaking, but it's worth it - the usability of your site will increase significantly. That will be appreciated not only by the user, but also by the search robots.

Star

It can be called the main method among all existing ones. Using it will allow you to ensure that all pages will link to each other.

This method will be appreciated by those who do not promote any specific page of their resource or promote all pages at once (the latter option is relevant for online stores), and therefore there is no need to transfer the weight to one specific page.

In addition, the Asterisk will allow you to achieve page independence, which will greatly simplify the overall indexing of your resource. Of course, if only high-quality and unique content is posted on it.

Ring

The main distinguishing feature of this scheme is that it allows you to direct the weight to a specific page.

It turns out that all pages are linking to each other, which increases the overall weight. In addition, all pages link to the selected one for promotion, which allows it to receive the maximum possible weight. After all, she gets a lot of links with the keywords necessary for promotion.

This scheme also has certain disadvantages:

• when one of the pages falls out of the search engine index (or even the banal inaccessibility of the page for any reason), the whole scheme is immediately broken and it stops working;
• the scheme increases the HC too much, which will negatively affect the weight of pages that are at a low level.

Hierarchy

This scheme is used by the vast majority of sites. Its popularity is well founded.

The essence of the diagram is that one page links to two, each of those pages links to two more, and the last four to the one that is used at the beginning of the diagram. Thus, you can achieve the highest possible weight for the page that you are going to promote.

The Hierarchy scheme has shown itself to be excellent and works with the maximum possible effect. But, of course, it is also not ideal. Since one of the pages dropped from the index will entail a noticeable decrease in overall efficiency.

Re-linking pages in WordPress using plugins

Above I wrote that the use of special plugins will automate the creation of links. In particular, such extensions and add-ons generate blocks at the bottom or side of the page, depending on where you place them in the settings.

Smart Linker

One of the best extensions of this type. The plugin works on the principle of the end-to-end linking variable described above. But it is an optimized version.

If most extensions use the name of the material as the anchor of the link, then in this plugin the user can set the name of the link he needs. This allows you to significantly increase the effect and achieve a better result when promoting your site.

WordPress Related Posts

The extension creates end-to-end linking within the site. The plugin automatically analyzes the material on the page, taking into account such factors as:

• topic of the article;
• the category in which the article is located;
• tags.

As a result of the received data, the plugin selects articles similar in topic and displays them in a block at the bottom of the page.

The site visitor will see articles that correspond to the topics of interest to him, which significantly optimizes the behavioral factors - the user spends more time on the site, and the total number of refusals decreases.

Cross-Linker

This plugin is designed to create contextual linking - it conducts it automatically. If you remember, it is contextual linking that takes a lot of time and effort - the extension can reduce your labor costs.

In the plugin settings, you need to register certain keywords, and the extension, when viewing pages, will analyze the text of the article. If the specified keywords are found in it, the plugin will link to them.

Breadcrumb Navigation XT

Hello, friends!

Re-linking the pages of a site is one of the many internal factors that can really help a site to move forward by linking pages together.

Therefore, I decided to write a very detailed guide on this topic and analyze most of the most common questions. It will not do without very cool information that will help you understand the deeper meaning of linking.

Tasks and where effective

Re-linking site pages is one of the strongest factors involved in the ranking of search results. It is the linking (linking) of the internal pages of the site with each other in order to distribute the static weight between the documents and push the visitor to proceed to study other materials through internal links.

Internal linking can play into the hands and towards the pessimization of the site (decrease in positions). Therefore, it must be approached carefully and wisely. In no case should you be afraid, since everyone will have to work with it. Another thing is "how to work?", By hand or in automatic mode? I will consider all these points further.

Effective in the following cases:

• Finishing requests in the TOP - when there are already pages in the TOP 10-20, you can push them to higher positions by placing links on them from other documents in order to add static weight to them;
• Comprehensive promotion for a large number of requests - having made a competent connection of the site pages with each other according to the necessary anchors, after the resource is reindexed, they will begin to rise to higher positions. In the case of low-frequency queries, it is more than realistic to get into the TOP without buying external links;
• Drive traffic to profitable pages - Each site has priority landing pages that are profitable to direct visitors to. These could be pages with affiliate links to sell someone else's products. It is logical from pages with a large number of visitors to put a link to such a page so that more visitors can see your offer.

The basics

The basics include 3 rules that you must learn before starting to practice.

1. Internal linking is most effective when it is clickable. That is, the link provided in the document should not be for a tick in order to add static weight to the document. If it is put down only for this, then over time the effect of such a link will diminish. If the link is clickable, then search engines understand its importance and usefulness. This link has a tremendous effect;
2. The best anchor for linking is the keyword anchor of the page you are linking to. This will allow you to add weight for the right keyword and the page should go up in positions exactly for the required key. But it is very important that the anchor in the text is not at the expense of the readability of the text;
3. Incorrect linking often leads to pessimization of the site - as I said above, instead of pluses, you can also get minuses in the form of lower positions. Therefore, it is worth adhering to some important rules.

Ways to build linking

Now it would be possible to delve deeper into the schemes, but they are not so important, since they are rather difficult to implement and in most cases you will not succeed. The most competent option is the circular option, in which all pages are linked in a ring and form one chain.

From the picture above, you can see that each previous page links to the next, and the last one links to the first.

The great advantage of such a scheme is the even distribution of static weight between all documents, which will allow uniform promotion in the PS. It will not happen that some pages have a lot of weight, while others exist just for the sake of appearance.

The disadvantage is that when at least one page falls out, the entire circuit breaks and the static weight is lost. Therefore, a purely circular linking cannot be achieved. We will also have to make other connections that will link documents with other schemes, so that when a page falls out, the weight is preserved and the page is "in action."

Well, now to the methods that you need to use to link pages to each other with links. First of all, it is worth understanding that there is manual linking and automatic.

The manual method is implemented by putting links on each page either with html tags or by means of the engine (for example, WordPress) using the functions on the formatting panel in the page editor.

Both manual and automatic internal linking should be on the site and need to work together. But what goals do we pursue for each type? We begin below in more detail about each method of construction.

• The manual way of tying by the meaning. Implies linking when it is really necessary and has logic;
• Automatic method using linking plugins. They link pages by relevance, that is, by similarity. In my opinion, here are the 2 most successful solutions:
  1. Plugin
  2. Plugin

  For both, I wrote detailed instructions with video tutorials. Both options have the ability to select styles for the similar post block at the end of each post. At the end of the article, you can see how this block looks for me with the Yet another related posts plugin.

  
  

  Such automatic linking is the most effective, since it has the highest click-through rate and the pages are linked not just anyhow, but by the highest percentage of similarity.

  By the way, the Related posts plugin has a very cool functionality that allows you to change links in a given bokeh of similar posts. Thus, you can experiment and make those links on each page of the site that will be most clickable. It is very important.

• The next option is manual linking by relevance based on search engine suggestions. This method is the most correct and most time consuming. It means searching for the most relevant pages of the site for a specific keyword and putting a link on it to the required document. In practice, it looks like this. You go to the desired search engine (under which you link the pages) and enter the address of your site with the desired key phrase, for which it is worth finding the most target (relevant) pages for further linking.

  
  

  The first link will always be the article itself, to which we want to link. We look at the following pages. They will be sorted by relevance in descending order. The snippet will highlight those phrases and words that can participate as an anchor when we add links. But we need the exact occurrence of the keyword, that is, in the form as it is, without changing the endings and diluting in other words.

  In the image you can see that I am highlighting individual words that are included in my key phrase. In this case, I need to go to this page, from which we will link, and slightly change its content so that the key is in a direct entry. This can be achieved by adding or changing existing proposals, or at the end of the article add a line with the recommendation of an article.

  
  

  This option is very good, since such a link is present at the end of the material at the border of the visitor making a decision about further actions on the site. After reading the material, he decides whether to leave the site or stay. We are pushing him for one more material on the topic. If it is possible to put a link inside an existing text, then do it without question, but then make sure that the key phrase was inside the text without compromising readability.

• The next construction method is random (random) internal linking. It is implemented, as a rule, with the same plugins. I once had a vivid example of such an implementation and I described it in an article about. There is a variant of implementation, when the links are put in a random way and each time the page is accessed, the block of similar records changes. This variant is suitable for.

• First, install one of the plugins for automatic linking. I gave examples above with links to detailed instructions on how to configure them;
• Secondly, when you publish at least 100 texts, start looking for the most relevant 3 documents for each page in order to leave a link from them in the form of an anchor with a keyword in the direct entry. To find relevant pages, use the output of the required search engine (site: site.ru keyword).

Common mistakes

• Link from the keyword of the page. Quite a difficult point. You write each article under the keywords and use them a certain number of times on the page, making an analysis of competitors. If the average number of keys is 3 after analyzing competitors, then the text does not need to include a link from one of these used keys, since after that it will not participate in determining the relevance of the page. If you need a link from such a keyword, then add a part of the text with the same key and make it a link;
• More than one link from a page to the same document - you shouldn't put several links to the same page. A damping effect will occur and less weight will be transferred. Only one link per page;
• Overloaded pages - there are too many links to one document within the site. Such a page will have too much static weight, which could be distributed more evenly and give a more powerful leap in search results to more pages;
• We forget to pump fresh documents - the site should never stand still and as the articles grow, the linking should be refined. New articles should also participate in it. This is the most time-consuming process, since when new materials appear, you have to turn to old ones.

Scheme for linking to other pages

Here I will give a few tips that should be used together to make the linking work.

• 3 links at the end of each post by the automatic linking plugin;
• Manual placement based on relevance from search results. Try to use no more than 10 links from the document, as a large number of them interfere with readability;
• We refer to one document by 3 links. This is ideally so as not to pump too much;
• After the pages reach the TOP 10-20, we add 1 more link to them to add weight. After re-indexing the site, we check the positions. Was there an effect?
• Check the click-through rate of your links whenever possible, as click-through = efficiency. If the links are inoperable, replace them and again track the statistics of clicks;
• As you accumulate texts, update the linking.

At the end of this material, I would like to give a couple more tips that will certainly come in handy.

1. First, try to set up tracking of statistics on clicks on the provided links. Links should be present for a reason, but have an effect;
2. Secondly, track the statistics of the traffic counter for search phrases. There are many transitions from the search not for the main keywords, but for additional (diluted, modified). If there are such bold queries, then also upload them with internal links with the appropriate anchors;
3. Third, try to make the click-through at all costs. If these are manual links, then links in the first paragraph work well, as well as at the very end of the text. If it is a block of automatic links (similar posts), then make them attractive. Don't make a simple list of links. Make miniatures as it grabs attention. It is also logical to place links next to images, which also throws itself into a manhole.

For now, friends! This is the material that came out. I hope that you will use all the information in the article when you link your materials on the site. I hope that I laid down a deeper meaning for you and now linking for you is something more than the simple linking that we see on most resources. At the end of the article, a video on the topic from specialists.

All friends! If you have any questions or edits, then write them in the comments. Until next time!

Best regards, Konstantin Khmelev!

Warm greetings to everyone! Today's post is dedicated to a very important matter in optimizing web resources for any blogger or SEO. Correct internal linking of site pages - the topic of my detailed guide on what it is, what it is for, and how to do it correctly on your site. Earlier, I wrote a number of articles on this topic, where I described basic concepts, a universal pattern, basic schemes and my little experiment. More than 4 months have passed since then and I decided to return to this important topic. This time you will find some useful and useful theory and a practical manual on how to do everything in the best way.

Internal site linking - tasks

Using the competent linking of your web resource, each blogger or site owner solves a number of important tasks to influence internal and behavioral factors. Every such moment is important for successful search engine promotion. I will list the most basic issues that can be solved with the help of the correct internal linking of the site:

1. Full indexing of your site or blog. Everything is simple here - the search robot crawls through more pages when indexing than without them. Because the task of the robot is to scan one document - it will certainly capture, in addition to the given one, others (posts, records, etc.), which are visible using internal links to the original.
2. Improving the usability of the web resource. The more we influence behavioral factors, using extensive internal linking of pages, the better is the impact on behavioral factors when ranking the site. A visitor, following internal links, lingers more on his pages. And much less often comes back to the search.
3. Increasing the page weight of the site. The more various internal links on a web resource, the more weight each page can end up with. When generating the results of issuance, the weight of the document is small, but still important. And with the same other parameters, the higher will be a site with a higher weight. With the help of schemes of competent linking, you can strengthen the target documents, transferring them more weight than others (not so important).
4. Successful website promotion in a low-competitive niche. With the help of proper internal linking, you can easily promote landing pages in search engines for low-competitive MF and LF queries. This is especially true for young blogs and web resources that, due to their young age, cannot use promotion methods by purchasing external links. It is enough to correctly make a competent linking by key queries, using all the wisdom of text optimization, and with a high probability, in a month after indexing, promoted documents will be in the top 10.

I have listed the main tasks that can be solved with the help of competent site linking. There are a number of other questions, but they already follow from the ones listed above. Now let's consider the very scheme of interaction of documents of a web resource.

Page linking scheme

When a visitor clicks on any link, he goes to another section of the site - a completely different page opens. An internal link serves as a bridge between the first page and the second. Its text (anchor) pushes the reader to receive other information. It can complement the text or differ in meaning, but it is by reading the anchor that the visitor makes his own conclusion - to click on the link or not. To promote a web resource or blog in search engines, it is extremely important to correctly create both the transition from one document to another, and to compose an anchor. In the following image, you will see a typical link from one page to another, taking into account all the ranking factors.

According to the picture from page A, which is promoted by its key query "promotion methods", the visitor goes to document B. The transition bridge is a link with the anchor word "search promotion", which is the keyword for page B. As you can see, each document has its own title , which contains the passphrase in the exact occurrence. It is this scheme that is used for internal linking of the site (without taking into account the dilution of the anchor). On page B there is another link with the anchor "blog promotion in Yandex", which already leads further to the third document of the web resource.

The links themselves can be opened in the same browser window, or in a separate one (using the target = "_blank" attribute of the a tag). On my blog, almost all internal links open a separate window so that the visitor does not get confused with the information, does not forget it, etc.

Linking options

There are various ways to internally link a site. Each of them has its pros and cons. Let's take a closer look at them.

Automatic internal linking

This is an option for creating transitions, in which links are placed to various sections of the site, using its structure. For example, many bloggers use breadcrumbs by using a plugin or adding their own code. Here is an example of such a variant of page interaction on my blog (in the previous version of the old template):

Anchor text is taken from various tags, and the links themselves are at the beginning of the page. Let's see the pros and cons of this option for internal linking:

• installation is not difficult for any blogger or webmaster;
• the time of the process itself is very short (installed the plugin and everything worked);
• excellent navigation on the site (the visitor can always go back, to the heading or to the main page);
• with such linking, behavioral factors improve;
• the anchor text is duplicated with the text of the donor tag;
• does not promote landing pages as much as manual linking.

There is also a semi-automatic linking option, when the webmaster needs to write the anchor text himself. This greatly improves the promotion task. Of the latest innovations that help to link the site, I would note the WP Smart Linker plugin by Sergey Pervushin. I used to have a block with internal links created by this plugin on many documents. I wrote their anchors myself. Only pages of certain headings were linked. (Now I don't use this plugin because I do everything manually).

Manual internal linking

Well, everything is clear here - no automatic plugins for you, we do everything ourselves, with our own hands. Therefore, let's go straight to the positive and negative:

• the best way to promote low-frequency and mid-range queries on low-competitive topics;
• each link has a unique anchor (of course, if the webmaster is not too lazy);
• the only way you can control the weight of documents;
• all internal links are in the text of a post or article, which improves their click-through rate by visitors (behavioral factors improve);
  
• long and tedious process.

On my own behalf, I can add one more plus - during the internal manual linking of the site, all sorts of creative thoughts often come up. 🙂 In general, I recommend!

Competent linking of the site - manual way

It's time to consider all the stages of manual competent site linking. Each stage is important in itself, so the exclusion of a point from the whole process is highly undesirable. Any correct linking requires a webmaster or blogger to strictly follow the rules, take into account every little detail and the skills of meticulously filling in statistics. Now everything is in order.

New site... Everything is very simple here. For correct internal linking, you need to put a link to other previous pages with an anchor on a new post or article, in the text of which the key request must be found. Accordingly, links to a new document are placed from the previous documents of the web resource. The main thing is not to make mistakes when compiling the text of the anchor. With the gradual addition of new pages, the webmaster must link the new text with the old ones. All links should come from the text of the article in paragraphs, and not as separate chunks in the document. Thus, on the one hand, the visitor is given to understand the importance of the transition as a source of additional information, and on the other hand, it shows its naturalness (that is, it is not an ad unit).

The most important thing when compiling anchors in a competent site linking is not repeating them. Each link text must be unique, including the main query or an additional keyword in a diluted form. Once I use the anchor text as the exact match of the keyword. All other link texts are completely different sentences with keywords. They can include a different number of words - from two to seven (did not do it anymore).

Old site. For each of my new posts, I put links in the text to the old pages. But I do not always look at previous posts or articles in order to add internal transitions to strengthen the new article. It takes a lot of time - every time you have to look at all previously written posts and select texts for them for anchor text. Therefore, I do a competent manual linking once a month when new posts are indexed. If a page is not promoted in search engines, then it does not receive internal links from other documents. If I need to link to a non-target page in the text, I close the link from indexing.

So, manual correct site linking is a detailed plan (I use it from the beginning of 2013 to the present day).

Scanning the current site linking

First, you need to view the indexed pages and write out the following data (see figure):

It is necessary to write the keyword of each document on which it is promoted (the main query), the text of the anchors of internal links and the keywords of the pages to which these links go. When all indexed documents have been viewed, it is necessary to calculate the number of internal links going to each and write down. A record with all the data can be made in such cells as in the figure, or it can be done in the form of a regular Excel table.

When all the pages of a web resource have been viewed, it is necessary to put aside all the data on non-promoted documents for now. They are our resource for transferring weight to landing pages. In theory, there should be few of them, because every SEO or advanced blogger wants to promote their sites in search engines and therefore try not to write non-thematic posts or articles.

Checking the relevance of landing pages

Now that the base for all target documents has been collected, it is necessary to check their relevance. New posts after indexing are ranked in search engines and get their places in the SERP. It happens that due to some webmaster errors or incorrect previous internal linking, new site documents are irrelevant to the key request. It seems that all the tags are spelled out, the headers are filled in correctly, and a completely different page of the site hangs by the keyword in the search. Therefore, before competent linking, you need to check the relevance of the pages and correct all the shortcomings.

To achieve this goal, we will use the service (http://www.seogadget.ru/serppos) and check the positions of target indexed documents by their key queries. The beauty of the service is that working very quickly (usually 10-15 seconds for 30 keywords at once), it shows the url of each relevant page. Our task is to compare them with the promoted ones. If not, then optimization errors need to be corrected. For example, I checked a number of positions on my blog:

Selection of site pages for competent linking

Now that we have checked all the landing pages, we need to add weight to them for promotion. I usually try to make sure that at least 7 other documents are linked to every promoted post and article on my blog. Let's say, after our checking and collecting all the data, several pages have very little weight - they are referenced by 2-3 other documents. Therefore, we must also find on the site a couple of pages for each and write an internal link with an anchor on them, the text of which will also include the keyword in a diluted form. The only question is how to find these additional documents quickly and efficiently.

but) manual way ... To do this, you need to go to the Yandex search engine and set a request to determine the relevant pages for this key request. Select the best documents from the entire list of received links, and the anchor text will be contained in the selected words in the snippet. For example, in the following picture, you will see the most relevant posts on my blog for the query "competitor analysis":

In the first place is the link to the most relevant page (underlined with a red line). Usually, with proper internal optimization, it matches the one that is promoted by the key query. Next are the transitions of those documents that are less relevant for the keyword. From these documents, we select those who will become donors for our promoted page. It can be seen from the figure that all five additional posts have my key query (competitor analysis) in their text and each can be a donor. Let's say I only need two and I take the next pair of documents after the most relevant one on request. In snippets, the search engine already shows the places where you can make an internal transition (underlined with a blue line). It is enough to take these selected areas into the body of the anchors, add the adjacent words and the links are ready.

In this way, all possible donors for landing pages with a small number of external links from their site are checked. The disadvantage of this method is that if there are many such documents, then this process will take a lot of time.

b) automatic way ... For users of the unique program for collecting the semantic core Key Collector, the donor selection process will take very little time. First, you need to add to the program all the keywords of the pages being promoted, with which we will look for other donors for links. Next, you need to start the process of collecting recommendations from the Yandex search engine for internal linking based on the issue. Enter the address of your site or blog, select the region of promotion and press the button (see figure):

After 5-10 minutes, we get a list of the same posts that are relevant to all the requests we set (the picture is clickable):

As you can see from the figure, the web resources selected by the program are exactly the same with the same snippets as in the manual method (I would be surprised if it were different 🙂).

Creating an internal linking site

The last point remains - the process of internal linking of the site itself. Having all the data on the target documents (key request, donor pages), you need to add links with key requests on the selected posts. It is important that the anchor text contains a search query, and the internal linking itself is done according to the above-written scheme. You can add a number of internal transitions from non-promoted pages to strengthen targeted ones.

When the work is completed, it is advisable to enter all the data in one table, so that in the future it will be easier to track various parameters of keywords and it is easier to check the relevance of the target documents. For example, I use this table to check the positions of promoted posts for key queries of the semantic core of my blog.

The table contains the following points: keywords of my core, their basic and exact frequency, quality of words, the number of internal links to the promoted page, its address, title of the page, its position in Yandex and Google, KEI of the request. Having such data in front of my eyes, I always see for which key query my blog is sagging, whether the document is currently in the search results, whether the quality of the search query has improved, etc.

So, for the manual correct internal linking of the site, you need to do the following activities:

1. Scan the current linking of a web resource.
2. Check relevance of landing pages.
3. Select donor pages.
4. Create new internal links based on Yandex recommendations.

As you can see, the process of creating a website link is an important stage for a successful SEO-website promotion. And besides, it is quite laborious - you have to do many repetitive actions, take into account various points.

Bonus - my scheme for using internal links

As an auxiliary material, to make it easier for you, dear readers, to do internal linking for your projects, I offer one practical seo cheat sheet. In it, I reveal my practices of working with internal links in the process of creating a link. Namely:

• what rules do I take into account when creating internal transitions;
• how do I relink new and old pages;
• how I check the clickability of the created internal links.

This completes my guide and a small educational program on the internal competent linking of the site. I would be glad to receive your comments or additions to the text of this post. I am sure that many readers of my blog are familiar with this important method of internal optimization.Can you share your secret?