How much do internal links help?
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So I noticed in Site Explorer that my competitors mostly have internal links all over point to a page with the term I want to rank for, while very little external links.
How much do internal links help? Should I have a link somewhere on every page pointing to my target page with the keyword, and then grab some external links?
I link internally only when I see relevant, but maybe I'm not doing it enough.
Looking forward to replies!
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Internal linking is so much more important now especially in a post Panda and Penguin world. Do it wrong and you could seem spammy to Google.
Here is a great video that will help give you a better idea
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/smarter-internal-linking-whiteboard-friday
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Hey Hilary
Internal links are important primarily in that they help to indicate the standing of a page within your site.
So, a page that has only one link pointing to it, is fairly unimportant. A page that has has a link from every page is pretty important.
Beyond that, we have the internal anchor text to consider but you are really not going to move the dial a great degree with internal anchors so don't do something that ruins the chances of someone clicking the link for some perceived SEO benefit.
As with everything SEO there are a lot of moving parts and there is no one size fits all answer to this kind of question. If the site is an authority, then you may be able to really move the dial with internal links but if it is a new site then they are probably going to do very little.
If these pages are your main service pages then get them in the navigation so you can illustrate just how important they are in the context of all the other pages and then, to really give them a boost, you need some externals.
Again, a link from a really popular or well linked blog piece could add more value (from clicks as well as the SEO angle).
This is a great and relevant read:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whats-better-on-page-seo-or-link-building
Hope that helps!
Marcus
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