Are You Forgetting to Deep Link Your Pages?

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Links With so much noise about backlinks, PageRank and all the other common SEO terms and strategies thrown around these days, sometimes it’s easy to forget about the basics.

I was checking my Google Analytics stats last week and viewing various traffic trends, popular pages, etc.

One thing I noticed is that a handful of my sub pages have held steady in the search engine rankings for years.

One thing most of these pages have in common is that have a lot of deep links throughout my site.

Deep linking is the process of linking to a page from several different pages of your site using the descriptive keywords you want to target (a.k.a anchor text).

Say you have an article about buying “pretty blue hats” and you want to rank higher for this keyword. Comb through your site and find other relevant places to mention this same article and use those keywords and variations of them throughout your site.

It’s an old school tactic, but I see no reason why this still wouldn’t impact SEO, especially for long tail (less competitive) keywords.

I am much better about doing this with my static website because the content is more cohesive, and I tend to cross promote a lot of the same pages.

But since my blog has posts on so many different topics, sometimes I forget to link my posts together. If you blog, you may often forget to do the same.

Just a reminder. Don’t get so caught up in external SEO factors that you forget the basic on-page strategies.

{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }

SohailApril 18, 2011 at 7:16 am
Follow on Twitter: @Pakblogger

Thats good point Lisa
One question, if we use one keyword as anchor text for linking from different posts of our blogs (lets say from 5 posts)…is that OK? or should we use variety of keywords as anchor text.
Sohail´s last blog … Remove Ads from Windows Live Messenger 2011 Conversation Window

Mark CollierApril 18, 2011 at 7:58 am
Follow on Twitter: @2buildbacklinks

The more you use the same anchor text the less Google trusts that link and the more Google believes the link may be trying to game the algorithm, especially when coming from one domain or your own domain.

While the link’s anchor text value will not be totally diminished it will be reduced and therefore you may get more link juice/value if you use a variety of anchor text with related keywords, long tail links and plurals, abbreviations, etc. while still using the main keyword the most.

A recent study by SEOMoz showed there was a larger correlation between partial matching anchor text links and rankings than there was exact match anchor text links. So it may even be that partial match is looked on more favourably by the engines although I personally believe and SEO logic would dictate that exact match links are better.

So essentially don’t get too caught up in the anchor text, use the words that are right for the situation and describe the page best to the user.
Mark Collier´s last blog … Mar 30- Become an affiliate of Link Building Mastery

lisaApril 20, 2011 at 12:40 am

Good points, Mark. I agree you should definitely mix it up and use variations of the phrase instead of repeating the same phrase on all your pages. 10 years ago that would have worked, but not in 2011.

Patricia@lavender oilApril 18, 2011 at 7:26 am
Follow on Twitter: @lavenderuses

Thanks for the reminder Lisa. So easy to get caught up in everything else that I can forget the basics. I try to target keywords each post; do better in some posts than in others.

Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia@lavender oil´s last blog … To buy or not to buy…that is the question

Paul SalmonApril 18, 2011 at 7:29 am
Follow on Twitter: @TechnicallyEasy

Deep linking my pages isn’t something that I think about on a regular basis, even though I know I should. If I write a post that is related to another, such as a series-type post, then I will link them together.

The good thing about Wordpress is that there are plugins that help you to deep link posts. I use a related posts plugin that will automatically link 4 of my posts to another post, but I also try to link to other posts in the body of my post.

Sometimes I will also revisit old posts to see if I can deep link them, when I remember to do this.
Paul Salmon´s last blog … Help! My Sidebar is Displayed Below My Content!

TrafficColemanApril 18, 2011 at 8:07 am
Follow on Twitter: @TrafficColeman

There are plugins now that make this a whole lot easier..just set it up and it do the rest..

“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
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Sally BrownApril 18, 2011 at 8:13 am
Follow on Twitter: @slbphoenix

Thanks so much. I will look into this. I have done this some, but will have to use more often.
Sally Brown´s last blog … PASSION

JordyApril 18, 2011 at 8:37 am

Great reminder of the SEO basics. I like to periodically go through my older posts and internally link them up with the newer posts.

With all of the changes that Google’s making, it’s hard to know what to do anymore…so, it is very important to stick with the basics.
Jordy´s last blog … The Urgency Of Business Website SEO

SunilApril 18, 2011 at 10:50 am
Follow on Twitter: @extramoneyblog

Jordy,

Since you often go back to modify/edit older posts, have you experienced any impact from either WordPress or Google in terms of limitations/detrimental effects? I have heard widely that excessively modifying older blog posts is frowned upon. Interested in your experience???

Kiesha @ We Blog BetterApril 18, 2011 at 8:52 am
Follow on Twitter: @weblogbetter

Hi Lisa,
You’re right to mention this. I had been lazy when it came to doing this as well. But at the beginning of the year, I set out to increase pageviews and the average time spent on my blog. I’ve found that when you link to other relevant pages on your blog, it makes it more convenient for your readers who like to click around.
Since I’ve been doing this, both PVs and time has increase. I knew about the SEO benefit, but just didn’t know how much it actually impacted things. I’ll have to take a closer look now.
Kiesha @ We Blog Better´s last blog … 5 Reasons to Enter WBB’s Guest Posting Contest- The Prize Amounts Are In!

Ti RobertsApril 18, 2011 at 10:36 am
Follow on Twitter: @TiRoberts

Another great post Lisa,

I’ve never heard of the term “deep link” before, however I do know the strategy you’re talking about. Didn’t know there was a name for it, lol

I’m currently implementing this linking strategy on my SBI! static website. I’ve found that it is helping to increase my ranking with Google. Especially on one specific tier two page.

Along with the deep link method, I also found it useful to always add text links back to other pages on my site at the bottom of my pages. SBI! taught me this method which seems to be working great as well.

I’ve learned that this not only helps with SEO for specific keywords, it also keep visitors on my site and leads them deeper into my sites content.

Thanks again for this post.

Regards,

Ti Roberts

BrankicaApril 18, 2011 at 10:45 am
Follow on Twitter: @liveurlove

Hey Lisa, this is an interesting topic that really resonates with me because of this:

I had a SBI site that I had no time to work on. It had 7 pages and 17 incoming links. Add a few internal links and out of those 7, 6 pages were ranked from spots 11 to 27 on Google.

Considering the site way laying dormant I think that is a great result. And I know that internal linking is what helped. I do the same for my other sites and it help a lot.

So definitely don’t forget those internal deep links, peeps
Brankica´s last blog … Things every beginner blogger must do to avoid failure

Ti RobertsApril 18, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Follow on Twitter: @TiRoberts

I agree Brankica,

SBI! is really great for SEO. Although my SBI! site is only 2 months old, I’m already ranking in the top 10 on Google for many keywords. Thanks to the internal linking strategy

lisaApril 18, 2011 at 3:20 pm

That’s excellent, Ti!! Glad you’re loving SBI!.

SunilApril 18, 2011 at 10:48 am
Follow on Twitter: @extramoneyblog

Good points – old but gold strategy. Still works wonders for me to date with all my niche sites. I would add that in addition to interlinking from within your website, it is important to deep link into the individual webpages of your website from outside links (back link building efforts). This not only instantly indexes my pages on search engines, but helps the stability of my website’s in search engine search results. PR boost is a collateral benefit as well.

As for your blog Lisa, have you considered the SEO inter link type plugins which automatically turn relevant content into links to relevant pages? I have tried it but find it challenging to limit the links on a post. I don’t want 50 links on a 300 word blog post. Just looks like a spammer’s jungle!

NiponApril 18, 2011 at 11:06 am
Follow on Twitter: @tospider

wordpress insight is a good plugin to interlinking webpages.Lisa give this plugin a try.
Nipon´s last blog … How To Make Money With Affiliate Marketing

TarrumApril 18, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Follow on Twitter: @thewebsiteguide

Excellent point! Not only is this helpful when it comes to SEO, but your readers have more stuff to read and you look more professional! Everyone is seriously only into this “backlink here, backlink there”.
Tarrum´s last blog … Why Amazon Associate Program Rocks

South Africa TourApril 18, 2011 at 12:39 pm

Always remember to deep link. If you want to strengthen your inner pages of your website its always good to deep link.

DaveApril 18, 2011 at 12:57 pm

Thanks for explaining what “deep linking” is. I thought it meant something completely different. I’ll make sure to do this when I create new content.
Dave´s last blog … Track Race Warmups

MikkoApril 18, 2011 at 2:46 pm

Thanks for this brief but great post about deep linking. Actually I have no deep links in my blog. Until now!
Mikko from Helsinki
Mikko´s last blog … Presidentti Mauno Koiviston munaus- Viro ei tule itsenäistymään

David MainaApril 18, 2011 at 4:23 pm
Follow on Twitter: @mdauti

Nice reminder Lisa. To others its an eye opener
Been trying to do that on my new personal blog. So far it has been giving me good Google indexing ranks.

Dave LucasApril 18, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Follow on Twitter: @davelucas

Lisa, some of those “old school” tactics are best – many are forgotten – thanks for reminding us of this one!

StephenApril 19, 2011 at 3:49 am
Follow on Twitter: @sherbetpenny

I am actually in the process of going through all my sites using this method, so it is funny that out of the blue you do this post which is a great push for me to really concentrate on doing this right.

Thanks Lisa.
Stephen´s last blog … Learn To Play Ukulele Chords With Music Software

Stacey HerbertApril 19, 2011 at 4:23 am
Follow on Twitter: @mylifestylemax

Hi Lisa, I’ve only recently started to backlink to other posts I’ve written when relevant, but never targeting keywords or phrases. Why-because I don’t target any to begin with, at least not for my blog..SBI..well that’s whole different story. I have a question that is not entirely related, but your advice would help. ” How you do go about doing keyword research for say personal development” when each post you produce changes quite dramatically, and your theme is so broad” I have really become stuck with this, and have just be writing, but I don’t want to do this long term. I’ll be going back over my posts this week, to see where else I can implement this advice. Thanks for the goodies : )
Stacey Herbert´s last blog … Q Can You Plant Apple Seeds And Grow Blog Comments

Andy@StorehouseBuilder.comApril 19, 2011 at 9:27 pm

Wonderful post!

I decided to link to a few core posts from many of my posts on one of my blogs a few years back. It made all the difference in the world.

RoppetsApril 20, 2011 at 7:25 am

We’ve never done this but we’re planning to do it in the future. Our blog doesn’t have much content yet. Do you guys think doing it earlier would produce better results?
Roppets´s last blog … History of Puppetry in the Philippines

TonyApril 20, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Follow on Twitter: @techdaring

With wordpress, using some software to automatic insert internal link such as SEO Smart Links, it’s good way.
Tony´s last blog … Samsung Galaxy S II Gets First Commercial Video

JerrickApril 20, 2011 at 10:21 pm
Follow on Twitter: @Exabytes_SG

that true, i used to forget as well.
Put a rules to yourself which your blog must have atleast 3 hyperlink all the time then you will be unable to forget it .
Or you specific yourself that everytime you use the keyword you need to put a hyperlink there. So you able to keep in mind when you post your blog.

Gareth MailerApril 21, 2011 at 2:07 am

To kind of go off what Mark has said above, I took in another Whiteboard Friday on SEOmoz (I think it was actually posted a year or so ago) lately, and one of the best reminders I took from it was the power of acquiring links from a diverse range of root domains.

This kind of feeds in with what I’ve experienced. Rather than acquiring hundreds of links from any one given website, it’s always a far better option to diversify your link profile as much as possible and acquire fewer (quality and authoritative) links from different domains.

This said, another good tip, which again I’ve seen work if you’ve got a good sitewide backlink partnership with another webmaster, is instead of sending all of those site wide links to just one page, spread them out and send them to deeper pages on your site.

This will have the desired effect of bolstering your deeper pages and making them more relevant for a wider range of relevant terms.

Also to feed off what was said about anchor text diversification, I find this also helps with ranking for long-tail queries. I very rarely use less than 3 terms in my anchor text when internal linking. I generally find that including supplementary keywords in there will help with bolstering the relevance of your page(s) to a wider range of long-tail queries.

Anyway, thanks again for the article, Lisa.

SamuelApril 21, 2011 at 4:47 am
Follow on Twitter: @samuelawosolu

Although it is good for SEO, I actually do deep linking to keep people on my site longer and convert them on something. I’m not too worried about using exact keyword phrases on my blog posts but making sure I link phrases that will make my visitors click and stay longer. If visitors hang around longer I can convert them or get them to share my content which will bring in more visitors.

Aloys JacobsApril 21, 2011 at 2:59 pm

This is a very timely post for me. I started bemusing a few days ago whether it helped deep linking the pages of my site. Now I see it may be imperative to give an overhaul to the linking structure of the site.

I will actually do a little experiment – I will stop backlinking and instead do the deep links as well as I can and then see if there are any results in ranking. After all, why would on-site anchors matter less than off-site ones?
Aloys Jacobs´s last blog … Symptoms of Yeast Infection In Men

AnonymousApril 22, 2011 at 2:56 am
Follow on Twitter: @rickhart1

This is a great insight you have here on linkbuilding. Deep linking really play an important role in SEO. All methods just have to work hand in hand.

Watch Breaking In EpisodesApril 23, 2011 at 4:20 am
Follow on Twitter: @ngecity

I forgot how to make a deep link lolz
Watch Breaking In Episodes´s last blog … America’s Best Dance Crew Season 6 Episode 3

StephenApril 23, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Follow on Twitter: @FinestinFantasy

That’s very interesting. I didn’t even know that was considered an SEO strategy because I figured a page already listed on your site has already been counted (if that makes sense). Obviously, I’m mistaken.

Thanks for the heads up and excellent explanation!
Stephen´s last blog … Far-Reaching Effects of a Lingering NFL Lockout

IleaneApril 24, 2011 at 4:12 am
Follow on Twitter: @Ileane

Hi Lisa!
When I first starting hearing about “deep linking” the term itself was somewhat frightening. Basically it’s the word “deep” that makes it seem like it might be complicated or extremely technical.
Imagine how silly I felt when I eventually found out there’s really nothing “deep” about it at all.
Thanks.
(btw, what’s the name of your hair channel on YouTube?)
Ileane´s last blog … 10 Most Popular Online Office Tools

lisaApril 24, 2011 at 1:45 pm

LOL Ileane! I know, it sounds a bit complex on the surface doesn’t it? It’s napturallycurly on YT.

IleaneApril 27, 2011 at 4:01 am
Follow on Twitter: @Ileane

Ok, I subscribed and sent you a friend request over there. Keep rocking that music. btw – everyone loves Destrom’s YT channel, thanks for introducing me to him
Ileane´s last blog … How to update WordPress manually via FTP

meyshaApril 24, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Follow on Twitter: @meyshalestari

I m new with my website.. using wordpress self hosting
I’ ll deinitly using your advice aabove to start ‘flaying’. But I m a bit confuse here.. about backlink. Ppl said backlink will increase page rank, but some person said backlink will decrease your page rank too.

Which one correct, lisa??
meysha´s last blog … Cheap Disney World tour extravaganza

vighnesh nairApril 24, 2011 at 10:43 pm

awesome SEO tip ! i think it is more effective than backlinks (?)

vighnesh nair´s last blog … GOOGLES VERSION OF CHARLIE CHAPLIN ! -

Car NewsMay 2, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Follow on Twitter: @playauto_net

Thank you for sharing this. Indeed, deep-linking is still useful. Unfortunately, I’ve been ignoring this thing for a long period, and now I’m a little sorry.
Car News´s last blog … Report- Bryan “Birdman” Williams buys Maybach Exelero for 8 million

Nick@ Cool gifts for menMay 3, 2011 at 11:44 pm

hey lisa,
i thought that deep linking just meant linking from other sites to multiple pages of your site and not just your home page? but i will look more into what you said:)
Nick@ Cool gifts for men´s last blog … Inside the Ferrari 458 Italia

Shubham AryaMay 8, 2011 at 12:49 am
Follow on Twitter: @boxofficial

Hi Lisa,

This particular blog is really amazing as well as i definitely love it. Good job!!

Thanks
Shubham Arya´s last blog … Beastly – 2011

MichaelMay 11, 2011 at 11:01 am
Follow on Twitter: @michaelpowers

Great tip Lisa.

This is something I just started doing recently. I think it is helping but I just need to keep at it every day!
Michael´s last blog … The Best WordPress Plugin I Installed This Year To Generate More Comments