Other than the homepage, what other pages need linkbuilding TLC?
-
With my linkbuilding efforts, I know what keywords I want to target but my homepage ranks for most of my keywords. The other pages were written and built for specific keywords, but do they need linkbuilding TLC? They don't rank in the SERPs much anyway (if not at all) and the homepage is by-far the strongest in the SERPs.
-
No problem, Jessica! Glad you found the information helpful.
One last point. Depending on your site design, you may have an opportunity to pass some of your home page's ranking power to your most important landing pages by linking to them from the home page. For example, we have persistent links on our home page to our top 10 games, games that convert new visitors very well, and game genres. While part of this is user experience oriented, a lot of it is also to pass on the home page's ranking power to those pages we want to rank well on the SERPs.
The links on your home page shouldn't be random. Think strategically about what you link to from your home page.
-
Why can't I double thumb-up this?! haha - thanks, Ryan. I appreciate the step-by-step advice.
-
Good point with the percentages! Thanks, Mike.
-
The pages that need links are the pages that drive (or should drive) value for your business.
Take a look at the keywords your are building content for. Hopefully you can rank those keywords based on the revenue potential. Next, look at where the best pages for each keyword are currently ranking. Finally, ascertain the overall competitive landscape for those keywords.
What you are looking for is high revenue potential + low rankings + reasonable competitive landscape. Build links into those pages.
Furthermore, is it possible your other pages aren't ranking well because they are not properly optimized for the keywords you want them to rank for? Have you surveyed the content on the page, the URL structure, the title tag, etc.?
-
If you want the other pages to rank for the keywords they were optimized (on-page) for then you will need to do some external link building to each of the other pages (with appropriate anchor text for each).
When I've looked at the link profile of other sites and compared the number of external links that point to the home page vs internal pages, it looks like about 40-70% of external links point to the home page. Meaning, 30-60% of a site's links point to its sub-pages. Sometimes this is because the sub-pages have awesome content that people have chosen to link to, and other times it's because the webmaster has done standard link building exercises for the important sub-pages (guest blogging, article marketing, etc) that she/he wants to rank in the SERPs.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Second anchor text on page. Does it count?
Back in 2008 there was "proof" that the anchor text of a second link on a page would not be counted for the anchor text.
Link Building | | Stramark
In the MOZ starter guide it is still advocated: https://moz.com/learn/seo/anchor-text BUT in 2014 it was reported on searchengine land:
http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-one-page-two-links-page-counted-first-link-192718
That the second link might be counted. Direct link to the matt cuts video from 28 may 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AsLWIuNNMU (Even in 2010 there where already some different opinions and work arounds.
https://moz.com/blog/the-first-link-counts-rule-and-the-hash-sign
https://moz.com/ugc/3-ways-to-avoid-the-first-link-counts-rule (2011) Question: did anyone recently test this recently? The deeper questions are:
1:is the LINK value counted if you have more that one link on a page to another page?
2: is the Anchor text counted if you have more than one anchortext to another page? The most interresting i have is that i have a menu from which i link to my important pages. Does it help to put extra links in the content to specific pages?1 -
Can a page be penalised by Google but not the entire site?
I have recently given some content to another site for a link. When I originally checked the site, it was indexed by Google and seemed ok. However, when I tried to check that the catergory page that my content was posted on was indexed, I received and error message from Google, however the homepage is still being indexed by Google. Is that the sign of a penalty or not?
Link Building | | AAttias0 -
Does this count as a backlink to my category page?
I am ranking high with a certain category page and I am reading that I need backlinks to that page. It is going to be a challenge to get a backlink to that specific category page but how about this? Category page URL: www.mysite.com/category/name Backlink to this URL: www.mysite.com/category/name/specific-blog-post (EDIT: Apparently these types of links don't exist! I went into the category page and clicked on a blog post and it just gave me the www.mysite.com/blah-blah-blah) Will that count as a backlink to the category page? Right now I am only getting backlinks to these blog posts: www.mysite.com/this-is-a-blog-post Any help appreciated! EDIT: Well I guess now my question is worthless. But if you have any input, it would be appreciated.
Link Building | | dealblogger0 -
Posts and Page linking
Can I link from the post to page? I read on semoz that in order to avoid crazy linking I should not link from a post everywhere. Is it ok to link from some post which is in a category to a page?
Link Building | | VillasDiani0 -
Internal Links and Page Authority - Best Practices
Hello, Is it bad (in terms of ranking in the SERPS) if i have a link from a page with PA of 18 going to a page with PA of 21? In other words, does it matter if the page containing the link has a lower page authority than the page receiving the link? Page A links to Page B Page A page authority is 18 Page B page authority 21 could this negatively affect my rankings? Thanks
Link Building | | Prime850 -
Page links vs. domain links
Hello all, I am trying to find out how Google weighs page inbound links vs. domain inbound links. I have a domain with about 100,000 inbound links and am adding a new page to my domain which at this time has 0 links. I will be trying to outrank a competitors page that has 6,000 inbound links to the competitors page, but only has 26,000 inbound links to my competitors domain . Is there a formula or a way to know how Google values a page link vs. a domain link?
Link Building | | digitalops0 -
Value of Inbound Links to Pages With a lot of Outbound Links
Suppose you have a resource page of the Top 50 Awesome Sites in your niche. Since there are about 50 outbound links, then I would think there will be less Page Rank being passed to internal pages from internal links on the resource page. Since you are getting less PR passed to internal pages, are there other ways the inbound links can be beneficial, such as increasing the diversity of links of your domain? Sites like SEO Optimise seem to create a lot of Top 30 Resources lists and I have read that they think it is a strong tactic.
Link Building | | SparkplugDigital0 -
Average time to see results after linkbuilding?
Hello everyone, I did some linkbuilding in the last few weeks, most of these links are already indexed by Google when i check their Google-cache. But i don't see any improvements in my own positions, despite my backlinks are really good. I'm now wondering, how long does it normally take to see position improvements after your linkbuilding? (Further the on page SEO is good and i'm regulary updating my website) Regards, Yannick
Link Building | | iwebdevnl0