To Link or Not To Link — That’s the Question

Understanding the nuances of different link types, strategic placements, and anchor text relevance can significantly impact your website’s performance. Let’s dive into the details and unlock the more potential of internal links together!

Repeat after Me — Mastering the Internal Linking Basics

Before we jump into the advanced internal linking tips, let's take a moment to solidify the fundamentals. Here's a quick refresher:

Internal Linking Basics (TL;DR)

• Use proper tags and descriptive anchor text to inlinks.
• Ensure each page is reachable by another
• Avoid non-standard linking methods.
• Don't close internal links from indexation

For Those Who Have Time — What Google recommends

From SEO Guide for Web Developers

• Use elements that Google can crawl. Ensure that all pages on the site can be reached by a link from another findable page. Make sure the referring link includes either text or, for images, an alt attribute, that is relevant to the target page.

From Link best practices for Google

• Generally, Google can only crawl your link if it's an HTML element (also known as anchor element) with an href attribute.

Recommended (Google can scan):

<a href="https://www.yourlink.com/stuff"> 

<a href="/item"> 

<a href="/item.php?id=012"> (Links to a specific product page using a dynamic URL with an ID parameter)

Not recommended:

<a routerLink="item/category">

<span href="https://www.yourlink.com"> 

<a onclick="goto('https://www.yourlink.com')">

<a href="javascript:goTo('products')">

<a href="javascript:window.location.href='/item'">

• Remember to give context to your links: the words before and after links matter, so pay attention to the sentence as a whole. Don't chain up links next to each other.

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Okay, with these basics in hand, let’s dive into the more intricate aspects of internal linking that not everyone may be familiar with.

Can too many internal links hurt SEO?

Short answer: yes, they could. Just having a lot of internal links isn't a solution. The best internal links are well-chosen and relevant to the content they're in.

The optimal number of internal links should align with the content length and complexity, generally not exceeding 100 for longer texts, with a focus on diversity in anchor text and relevance to content. Balancing these factors will enhance both user experience and SEO performance.
From Cyrus Shepard's "23 Million Internal Links – SEO Case Study":

• Pages with more internal links generally see more Google search traffic, up to a point. URLs with 0-4 internal links only saw two clicks on average from Google Search, while URLs with 40-44 internal links saw four times that many.
• After approximately 45-50 internal links, the positive effect on traffic begins to diminish, possibly due to the prevalence of navigational/sitewide links that do not provide unique contextual value.

No Magic Number — Google states that there is no magical ideal number of links a page should contain.

So, in simple words: the absence of internal links — no site structure. And If there are too many internal links — no site structure. If you think there are too many links on a page, then there probably are!

How to choose anchor text for internal links?

Short answer: choose anchor text that accurately reflects the linked page's content. Avoid generic terms and focus on what users will find on the linked page.

Use clear and concise anchor text that naturally incorporates relevant keywords, as recommended by Google's Search Central guide

Here is more: anchor text variety matters. According to Michal Ugor's case study, anchor text variety is important for external and internal links both. So, using diverse anchor texts, instead of repetitive ones, might benefit SEO.

Also, you should know that naked URLs (links with anchors in form of URL - e.g., "https://annaseo.site/") don't hurt SEO. According to internal links zyppy.com case study using URLs as anchor text (e.g., "https://annaseo.site/") doesn't seem to negatively impact traffic. While uncommon, it can even might contribute to anchor text variety.

Also, at least some exact match anchors are associated with significantly higher traffic. Pages with at least one exact-match anchor text (e.g., "tech SEO consultant") pointing to them have a higher correlation with search traffic. In other words, strategically using exact-match anchors in internal linking could be beneficial.

Should I Care About Jump Links/Fragmented Links?

Yes, you should. Jump links or so called Fragmented Links/Bookmarks/#links are special URLs that allow users to skip directly to a specific part of a webpage. Example in my website:

Fragmented links prominently appear in SERPs similar to featured snippets, providing direct access to relevant sections within a page. Like here:

For a deeper understanding of why it's crucial to maintain the functionality of these links, consider reading my article on Why Broken Jump Links Could Harm SEO and How To Find and Fix Them.

Do image links help SEO?

Short answer: yes, image links can help SEO as part of an internal linking strategy. 

While text links remain the backbone of internal linking, incorporating well-placed images as hyperlinks can enhance your innerlinking strategy. When you use an image as a link, the alt text can also function as anchor text, guiding users and search bots to the linked content. For instance, I used image as a link above with alt text (which now plays a role of link anchor alt="Technical SEO Audit Services").

From Google image SEO best practices

• ....alt text in images is useful as anchor text if you decide to use an image as a link.

Buttons vs. Button-Styled Links —  Do You Know the Difference?

While they may look similar, these elements serve different purposes and should be used strategically

Understanding the Difference — Code Examples

• Button-Styled Link Example

<a class="template-button m-3" href="/parts">Shop Parts</a>

This code creates a button-styled link with the anchor  text "Shop Parts." Clicking it will take the user to a new webpage likely located at /parts within the same website. This is a great example of using a button link for internal linking purposes

• Button Example 

<button name="button" type="submit" class="item-purchase-button p-2">

This code creates a standard button without any linked webpage. Google doesn't "click" buttons, so buttons are not part of the internal linking game. 

Internal Linking Optimization Plan

1. Use crawlers to analyze your site's current internal linking structure. Identify and fix broken links, orphaned pages, redirected chains, non-indexable internal links.
2. Ensure to check:
   button and button-styled links — confirm that all important internal linking elements are implemented with crawlable <a href=" tags rather than <button> tags;
   jump links — verify that there are no broken fragmented/jump links and assess whether these jump links appear in SERPs;
   image links — inspect image links to ensure they have properly defined alt attributes that effectively function as anchor text.
3. Check the distribution of links throughout your site. To gain a fresh perspective on your site's internal linking, conduct analysis using Screaming Frog (SF) combined with Chat GPT-4. - https://annaseo.site/sf-chatgpt-for-analyzing-internal-linking-structure/. Ensure that high-priority pages receive more internal links. Avoid clustering too many links on less significant pages.
4. Diversify anchor/alt texts. Encourage variety — use not only contextual links, but a mix of image links, navigational, fragmented, naked links to enhance the link profile.

Are you still there? Thank you, SEO nerd :)

So, from understanding the basics of using proper <a href= tags and ensuring accessibility across your site to optimizing anchor texts and strategically placing image links, each aspect plays a role. By carefully considering the number and place of internal links, you can create a robust site structure that supports both navigation efficiency and search engine visibility. Ready to refine your website's internal linking strategy? Let me know in comments!