Website Design Alabama – Internal Linking Strategy for Website Design

Nov 30, 2022 | Business Tips, Marketing Articles

It’s crucial for SEO to evaluate and improve your internal linking strategy on a regular basis. By adding the right internal links you make sure Google understands the relevance of pages, the relationship between pages and the value of pages.

 

The ideal structure

We always advise website owners to imagine their website to be a pyramid with the most important content on top. We call those articles cornerstone content. There should be lots of links from topically related pages in the pyramid to that most essential content. By doing that, most link value is passed to those pages. On the other hand, you should also link from those top pages to subpages about related topics. Linking internally to related content shows Google what pages hold information about similar topics.

 

Linking your cornerstone content: an example

We’ve written a cornerstone content article, called ‘The ultimate guide to keyword research’. We want this post to rank for all related search queries about [keyword research] in Google search results. By adding internal links from other relevant articles, like ‘How to start with keyword research’ and ‘7 keyword research mistakes to avoid‘ to the main article, Google will start to understand that the cornerstone content article holds most information about this keyword. So after a while, Google will rank the cornerstone content above the other, smaller posts about keyword research.

 

Don’t forget to link from the top too

Besides linking from topically related posts and pages, it’s possible to make your cornerstone content more authoritative by adding links to it from the homepage or the top navigation. If you do this, the most important posts or pages will get a lot of link value and will become stronger in the eyes of Google.

 

Linking to taxonomies

If you run a blog it could be beneficial to add internal links to the taxonomies the post belongs to. Adding links to the category and tags, helps Google to understand the structure of your blog and helps visitors to easily navigate to related posts.

 

Linking to related posts

Linking to related posts helps Google to understand your site structure, as mentioned before. To read more about a certain subject you can link to one or more related posts at the end of your article. There are plugins and modules that add complete related posts sections to your posts. If you use such a tool, we do recommend testing whether the related posts are actually the best related posts. When you’re not sure, linking to posts manually (or using our internal linking tool – more on that later) would probably be a better solution.

 

Linking to popular or recent posts

The last option we want to mention is linking internally to the most popular or to the newest posts on your website. This section could be added to the sidebar of your blog or the footer of your website to show it on all pages and posts.

The benefit of creating such a popular or recent posts section, is that link value passes to the linked posts from lots of pages and posts. Moreover, visitors will easier visit the posts and getting more traffic is a positive sign to Google as well.

 

More on internal links…

No-follow links

Probably you’re also showing links on a page that aren’t important for SEO. If you have a login link for your clients on the homepage, for example, you don’t want that link to leak link value to your login page: that page doesn’t need to rank high in the search results.

In the past, you could prevent losing link value to such links by giving them a ‘no-follow’ tag. A ‘no-follow’ tag means that Google shouldn’t follow the link to the target page: so no link value would pass through this link. Now you might think: “I’m going to ‘no-follow’ less important links to give the most important links more link value.” This used worked in the past indeed, but Google has become smarter. It seems that the link value now just completely disappears when you add a ‘no-follow’ tag to a certain link. Therefore it makes more sense to have fewer links on a page instead of ‘no-following’ some of the links.

Please not that adding a ‘no-follow’ tag doesn’t mean that people can’t find those target pages in Google’s search results. If you don’t want pages or posts to show up in the search results you should give them a ‘no-index’ tag as well. The ‘no-index’ tag means that Google shouldn’t render the page and shouldn’t give the content a place in the Google index to show up in the search results.

 

Anchor texts

If you have decided which links should be on a page and which pages should get link value, it’s important to use the right anchor text. The anchor text is the text that visitors see and where they can click on, so the link is added to this part of the text.

It might hurt your website if you over-optimize anchor text. With over-optimizing we mean keyword stuffing. In the past, you could give all anchor texts the same keyword and Google made your website rank higher for that specific keyword. Nowadays, Google is smart enough to understand that the content around the anchor text is telling more about the relevancy of a keyword than the anchor text itself. So make sure the anchor text looks natural in your copy: you can definitely use keywords but don’t add the exact same keywords to each and every one of your anchor texts.

 

Go link your content

Without links your content can’t rank! With a solid internal linking strategy you can show which content is related and which of your articles are most informative and valuable. If you follow the guidelines in this post both Google and users will understand your site better, which will increase your chance of ranking.

 

if you are looking for SEO IMPROVEMENTS, contact us and we can move forward on site your company with excellent SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT!

How A Graphic Designer Can Help Your Social Media Grow

Nov 19, 2018 | Business Tips, Marketing Articles

There are plenty of reasons why people choose to spend a vast majority of their time on social media. It is proven that even though we might not scroll down through our social media feeds all day, it is likely that we are constantly connected to the platforms we use and are easily engaged once we receive a notification or message. Social media sites are a unique marketing tool as they please your audience’s visual senses and allow them to put together a list of people and brands they want to stay connected to. They are useful in helping users stay in touch with their friends and family and remain on top of current events of any field they are interested in. If you are a brand looking to grow your visibility, a basic understanding of social media is an absolute must. The world is seeming smaller and smaller each day, thanks to the invention of Internet and globalization. We’ve come to the point in history where you can sell your product or service to a consumer thousands of miles away with ease. The only trick of the game is how to get your product or service enough visibility.

Let’s be clear here on what a ‘brand’ stands for. A brand, or branding, is the process of creating emotional assets linked to an idea – be it a business, product, a service or even a person. It is no secret that you can create a brand out of an otherwise anonymous human being – this is how it came to be that influencers today play such an important role in the world of social media.

Once you are set on what your brand is, you should think of the best way to showcase its attributes. Here is where graphic design plays an important role. People tend to stay away from hiring someone to help them in formulating their business branding due to high costs or the belief that they can do all the work themselves. Nowadays, with high competition across social media, a pretty picture is a good place to start, however, not knowing how to work with technology to take your content to the next level will leave your brand seeming uninteresting, instead of the leader in your niche. Hiring help such as a social media marketing expert and a graphic designer will get your social media on the right track to being your best marketing asset, while saving you time. For now, here are a few reasons to think about consulting a graphic designer during the creation of your brand.

 

Graphic design helps create a firm visual identity.

When introducing your brand to your chosen graphic designer, you will need to help him or her create a firm plan for your brand’s perfect visual identity. Tell them any ideas you have or ways that you visualize your brand and a quality graphic designer will know exactly what type of photographs, colors, shapes, artwork, fonts and typography to use to make your brand visible to your target audience. For example, selling children’s clothes versus advertising a yoga studio would require two completely different types of aesthetics. Plus, your graphic designer will advise you on the type of content to use depending on the needs of your brand. All of this will come in handy when differentiating yourself from other brands, which is a must in the world of marketing. Creating a firm visual identity will help both your potential and return customers by giving them a recognizable brand to remember.

 

Professional graphic design helps you stay on top of the trends.

Just as every year brings with it a new variety of trends, so do the different styles of graphic design. Flat-lay pictures were a popular photographic style of the past few years and every brand experimented with it, as well as gifs or visually appealing animations, however trends have changed. Platforms like Instagram come up with new updates faster and faster and sometimes it might feel overwhelming to stay on top of them all. With a graphic designer by your side, you won’t have to worry about researching and inventing new ways to entice your audience, as he or she will most likely have a few new, out-of-the box ideas up their sleeves.

 

A good graphic designer will make sure all your content is consistent.

When developing your branding strategy, you should have decided on the right social media platforms to help promote your brand in the best possible light. Your graphic designer will help you stay consistent across all those platforms, without appearing repetitive. This is why you need the first step to be done accurately (creating a firm visual identity), as it will help you stay recognizable, and then show you exactly where you have the freedom to start playing with your brand. Let’s say you’re selling active-wear and there is a marathon coming up in your city. Advertising your brand as the perfect choice for runners of the event would have to be done differently on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or any other channels your brand uses. Keeping your graphic design in line with your brand yet changing the keywords in the content to focus on the particular running event would resonate with your target audience who are involved.

All in all, an experienced graphic designer will give you the confidence to make the right choices when it comes to the content you use to promote your brand on social media.