Internal Linking SMX East 2008 Adam Audette AudetteMedia.com

SMX East 2008

Text Links are Good watch those image links have text link options image replacement can be an alternative

watch those image links

have text link options

image replacement can be an alternative

Contextual Links Rule images ≠ semantic meaning images = emotion and context text = semantic meaning

images ≠ semantic meaning

images = emotion and context

text = semantic meaning

Anchor Text? isn’t a golden key be aware of the context of pages relevance, credibility, semantic meaning

isn’t a golden key

be aware of the context of pages

relevance, credibility, semantic meaning

Anchor Text con’t influence increases with scale on large sites anchor text can be strongly influential relevant surrounding text

influence increases with scale

on large sites anchor text can be strongly influential

relevant surrounding text

Speak to your Users use anchor text to build in calls to action ‘click here’ still surprisingly actionable! think about your site’s visitors

use anchor text to build in calls to action

‘click here’ still surprisingly actionable!

think about your site’s visitors

Mix It Up! anchor text should vary Over-SEO’d sites = the new penalty (newish at least) keep it natural and balance SEO needs with human needs

anchor text should vary

Over-SEO’d sites = the new penalty (newish at least)

keep it natural and balance SEO needs with human needs

Link Consistently standardize internal links http://mydomain.com/index.html http://www.mydomain.com/ http://www.mydomain.com/index.html

standardize internal links

http://mydomain.com/index.html

http://www.mydomain.com/

http://www.mydomain.com/index.html

Link / Page Relations link text should match the page it targets keywords should surround the link and be in link text

link text should match the page it targets

keywords should surround the link and be in link text

Are Your Pages Important? check internal link counts pages without many internal links = not important to your users (and spiders) important pages should be within 2-3 clicks of root

check internal link counts

pages without many internal links = not important to your users (and spiders)

important pages should be within 2-3 clicks of root

Link Thresholds general advice is 100-150 links per page max it’s actually case by case more links usually = less usability (but not always!)

general advice is 100-150 links per page max

it’s actually case by case

more links usually = less usability (but not always!)

More on Link Thresholds typical Amazon.com product page has nearly 250 links Amazon.com home page has over 200 links

typical Amazon.com product page has nearly 250 links

Amazon.com home page has over 200 links

Link Thresholds & Nofollow the Brands page on Zappos.com has over 1,500 links removing nofollows on the Brands page helped some brands rank higher

the Brands page on Zappos.com has over 1,500 links

removing nofollows on the Brands page helped some brands rank higher

Related Link Structures use ‘related’ linking to flatten a site eases crawling connects many pages together

use ‘related’ linking to flatten a site

eases crawling

connects many pages together

Tag Pages have users tag pages or manually build create tag categories add RSS feeds

have users tag pages or manually build

create tag categories

add RSS feeds

Cool Stuff with Twitter check out twitter.zappos.com

check out twitter.zappos.com

Thank you! follow me on twitter : http://twitter.com/audette contact me: [email_address] www. audettemedia.com More cool stuff: www.audettemedia.com/internal-linking