3 Internal Linking Tactics to Increase Conversions for Blog Articles
Internal linking is a powerful SEO technique that improves user experience and increases the probability of conversions. Try the three tactics below to maximize the benefits of internal linking for conversions.
Having hundreds or thousands of readers on your blog is a good start. It does tell you that your writing skills are fire. (If you are still struggling with getting your audience’s attention read our blog Important Blog Metrics and How to Use Them to Increase Traffic.) But what’s better than having blog traffic to your site? Turning these blog visitors to leads and paying customers.
The right blogging strategy can earn you up to three times more leads than paid ads. The crucial metric to track and improve here is conversion rate – when your blog reader takes action, whether it’s signing up for your newsletter, subscribing for blog updates, downloading your lead magnet, or something else.
While many blog writers and SEO enthusiasts turn their attention to external links and see them as the rewarding source of better rankings, internal links remain the undervalued powerhouse of SEO. Unlike external links you earn from other websites, internal links are easy to create and manage, and, unfortunately, they are easy to forget in your SEO strategy.
Have you not yet experienced the power of internal linking for conversions? Try out three internal tactics below and see the results, but before we dive deeper into these methods, let’s see why internal links are of such great importance, and you should never underestimate them.
External Links vs. Internal Links
Earning external links is like getting special mentions from the online jury of a non-existent everlasting blog festival. Every time you acquire an external link, it feels like your hard work paid off, and someone has appreciated your writing. External links are crucial for SEO, and link-building – acquiring links from other websites is usually part of any SEO strategy. While many online articles emphasize the importance of external links, are we missing out on the power internal link-building offers?
An internal link is one page of your website pointing to another using text hyperlinks, an image, or any HTML element. One of the simplest examples of internal linking is your website navigation. First, someone lands on your homepage; then they go to the about us page and, from there, to your online store – a simple navigational journey using the power of internal linking. But here, we will discuss other, more sophisticated methods of internal linking you can use on your blog to increase conversions. Where should your blog visitors go after reading your article, and how to direct them to other website pages?
Advantages of Internal Linking
Internal linking has many benefits, but most importantly:
- They allow visitors to navigate your website better, therefore, improving user experience (UX).
- They increase the dwell time on the website and might reduce the bounce rate.
- They help Google better understand the hierarchy of your site and improve SEO.
- Internal links help spread ranking power and credibility (also called link juice) from one page on your site to another. If you
- link low-ranking pages to high-ranking ones, pages with better rankings can pass link authority to low-ranking pages.
- They increase conversions by prompting users to act.
Types of Internal Links
There are two primary types of internal links you can use on your website: navigational and contextual links.
Navigational links are in your header, footer, and navigation bars to allow visitors to navigate pages and search engines to crawl your website and better understand its structure. Contextual links are the links pointing to relevant content on your website. For example, you can use contextual links to boost conversions and SEO by including them in your blog articles and pages’ content.
How to Use Internal Links to Increase Conversions
Tactic #1 Improve SEO Using Internal Linking
SEO and conversions go hand in hand. Boosting SEO means increasing website traffic, and more website visitors increases the likelihood of conversions – a no-brainer. Therefore, the first tactic we use to increase conversions using internal linking is to use them for better rankings.
One of the most significant advantages of internal linking is passing page authority from one page to another. Some of your pages might already have more authority and rank better than others. They probably already earned backlinks from other websites and look credible in Google’s eyes.
What to do:
- Use SEO tools like SEMrush or Google console to see which pages on your site have the most authority and can pass the ranking potential to others.
- Now determine which pages are almost ranking high – higher than 10 for specific keywords (at the top of page 2) — link from high-authority pages to your almost high-ranking page.
- Use the keyword your potentially high-ranking page is almost ranking for in the link’s anchor text. For example, we might later link to this article from a high-authority age by using an anchor text “internal linking tactics.” It’s much better than “click here,” “read more,” “find out,” etc. (Google does care about anchor text, and it might affect rankings)
Tactic #2. Link to Pages with High Conversion Rates
While some of your pages attract a lot of backlinks, attention, and traffic, others are better at converting website visitors to your subscribers. Linking high-ranking pages to high-converting pages can have a tremendous outcome.
What to do:
- Firstly, you’ll need to find a site page that attracts the most traffic. You can do this by using SEO tools like SEMrush or signing into Google Analytics and looking and landing pages report for at least three months.
- Secondly, you’ll need to find pages with the highest conversion rates. If you’ve set up goals in Google Analytics, the Landing Pages report will also include the conversion rate on the right. Here you can see which pages drive the most action towards your goal.
- Finally, it’s time to connect these web pages in a league of their own using an internal link. Insert a link in the content of a high-traffic page to direct users to a high-converting page. The more users click the link, the more probability of conversions.
Tactic #3: Use Call-to-Action Internal Links
When your goal is to prompt users to act, there is no better way than using call-to-action internal links. They gently guide your website visitors to take action, whether it’s downloading an e-book, watching a video, making a purchase, etc.
Conversions are actions your website visitors take, and unsurprisingly, guiding users to these actions is of utmost importance. If our goal is to start conversations with our prospective clients, then at the end of the article, we can say:
“Do you need professional help to increase conversions? Contact us today, and we will be happy to help your business reach its desired goals.” Now you can reach us by simply clicking the link above in anchor text – contact us. Without a call-to-action internal link, the probability of conversions would be much lower.
Remember, internal links are in your own hands, and it’s up to you to maximize their power. But, unquestionably, they can significantly increase conversions and work wonders for your SEO. We hope the tactics above will help, but you already know where to go if you need professional help.
