Boost Your SEO with Proper Internal Linking on Your Website

Internal linking is an important step in good SEO practices. Yet, it’s often overlooked. With proper internal linking, you can easily boost your SEO, without spending any money. It’s a simple practice.

What is an internal link? Any link on your website that directs users to another page on your site is an internal link. Find out how to properly use internal links to improve navigation and increase your SEO.

Use Anchor Text for Internal Links

As much as possible, you should use anchor text for your internal links. This means wrapping relevant text in a link, as opposed to using an image for your link.

You don’t need to over-think your anchor text. Simply add a link wherever relevant. Highlight the relevant text and add your link.

Use Deep Links Throughout Your Content

The majority of your links should be deep. They should link to pages that aren’t available from the home page or main menu. In fact, you should avoid linking to your home page or contact page too often.

There’s a good chance that your main menu already includes a link to your homepage. There’s no reason to keep linking to your home page or other URLs that are available from your main menu.

Your Internal Links Should Be Natural

Internal links serve two purposes. They improve SEO and they help with navigation. Your internal links should add value for your visitors. They should serve a purpose and be natural.

Instead of worrying about whether or not your anchor text includes specific keywords, keep your internal links natural. Only highlight text that is relevant to the destination URL.

Keep Track of Your Internal Links

You should also keep track of your internal links. This is important for being able to remove broken links. You can use Google Analytics, or any other analytics software, keep track of your links.

Along with keeping track of your links, you can use analytics to monitor your metrics. Find out which links receive the most clicks. Pay attention the anchor text that is used.

By evaluating the performance of your internal links, you can decide what works best. You can use this information to improve the way you add internal links.

Don’t Get Carried Away

While you should have plenty of internal links throughout your site, don’t get carried away. There isn’t a specific number of links to include. The main rule is that you want to keep your content readable.

If you add too many internal links, your content will be hard to read. Readers will get distracted by the constantly highlighted words throughout your content.

If possible, limit your internal linking to one link for every two paragraphs. This allows you to add a sufficient amount of links, without sacrificing the quality of your content.

Place Important Links Higher in Your Content

When adding internal links, keep important links towards the top of your content. The further down the page, the less value the link has for SEO purposes. Search engines, including Google, place more value on links located along the top third of your page.

Use Text Menus for Your Main Navigation

As a final tip, you should try to employ text menus whenever possible. Instead of using images or fancy JavaScript to create stunning menus, simply use text. You can still style text menus to match the overall style of your site.

Text menus are searchable by search engines. But, images and menus that require Flash or JavaScript will remain unsearched by search engine spiders.

Start improving the SEO of your site by using the tips provided. If you’d like additional online marketing tips, including a simple lead generation system, then click here to learn about my done-for-you system.

How to Choose the Right Social Media Platform

Using social media to connect with customers, increase your online exposure, and boost your SEO are all great reasons to include social media in your internet marketing strategies. But, having too many social media profiles can dilute your brand and make it difficult to keep up with your marketing efforts.

While major corporations can get away with paying a marketing team to stay up to date with every social media platform available, this may not be an option for your business. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, you should focus on two, three max, social media platforms.

So, how do you choose the platform that’s right for your business? By evaluating your target audience and the pros and cons of each major social media platform. Here are a few useful tips to help you make the right decision.

Facebook Remains at the Top

As mentioned, at most, you should have a presence on three different social media platforms. You’ll need to consider the benefits of each platform, except for one. Facebook remains the largest social media platform. Right off the bat, you should include Facebook in your social media strategy.

Facebook has over 1 billion users across the globe. That’s a figure that the other social media platforms can’t come close to beating. For this reason, you’ll need to include Facebook as one of your social media platforms.

Everyone and their grandmother has a Facebook account. Even if you don’t use your Facebook account, you probably have one. You can’t ignore a site that receives over a billion unique visits every month. Though, there are other sites to add to your marketing strategy.

The Top Social Networking Sites

In addition to Facebook, you should choose one or two other platforms to focus your social media marketing efforts on. You’ll need to look at your target audience and the demographics of each to determine which ones to choose. Here are the top social networking sites, other than Facebook:

• Twitter – 310 million visitors per month
• LinkedIn – 255 million
• Pinterest – 250 million
• Google Plus – 120 million
• Tumblr – 110 million
• Instagram – 100 million

As you can see, none of these sites come close to matching the Facebook’s traffic. But, they can still be an effective part of your social media strategy.

Consider Your Core Target Audience

Who do you want to target? What are the demographics of your core target audience? The answer is key to choosing your social media policies. Here’s some valuable insight into the demographics of the top social networking sites. Use this information to decide which platforms you want to focus on.

Pinterest is used by 44% of all female internet users. The majority of these women are between the ages of 18 and 49. Yet, only about 16% of men have a Pinterest account. If your products or services are geared towards women, Pinterest is a good choice.

If you’re targeting the younger crowd, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram are all suitable options. Roughly one-third of internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 use these sites. Twitter is more effective for regular updates and links while Tumblr and Instagram are beneficial if the majority of the content that you share is visual in nature.

For those targeting fans of technology, you should include Google Plus in your marketing strategy. It may not receive as much traffic as Twitter. But, Google Plus remains a popular source for those interested in the latest gadgets and technology.

Despite all of the talk about LinkedIn’s declining appeal, it’s still the third most visited social networking site. It remains an effective solution for those focusing on B2B lead generation and actual business networking.

Every entrepreneur and business owner should be using social media to expand their brand and reach more customers. The trick is choosing the right social networking sites for your business. Keep these tips in mind as you develop your social media strategies.

Thanks for reading—make sure that you put these tips to use. If you’d like to gain additional internet marketing tips and strategies, then click on this link to learn about my lead generation system.