Internal keyword linking, good or bad?

[360interactive]

About 2 years ago a well respected member of these forums advised me to get some keywords linking back to my homepage from my blog posts (self hosted). Over that time whenever i've blogged, i've dropped in a keyword linked to my homepage. It's mostly 2 keywords, not lots of different ones.

Is this now frowned upon?

 

[MASSEY]

I feel as though i have been hit negatively for over internal linking on a couple of sites that used to rank well. I even varied the anchor texts so that is didn;t look too targeted. I feel as though making blog posts and dumping internal links in all of them can have some adverse affects. Everyone has differing opinions though so it may be hard to get a consensus.

 

[ZeroDouble]

About 2 years ago a well respected member of these forums advised me to get some keywords linking back to my homepage from my blog posts (self hosted). Over that time whenever i've blogged, i've dropped in a keyword linked to my homepage. It's mostly 2 keywords, not lots of different ones.

Is this now frowned upon?

The bit in bold is a bad idea - Mix it up a bit, and don't be scared to link out to niche relevant authority sites as well.

Internal linking is incredibly important, and when done properly you can absolutely kill it in the SERPs, but when done badly it can also effect your site negatively.

Hope this helps

 

[lalit_burma]

Internal linking is not at all bad idea, in fact this will be beneficial provided you done in a right manner.

• Do not go for the keyword stuffing any more.
• Right normal kind of words as anchor texts such as "to get more details please visit our earlier posts" or "more information here" or may be only link as anchor texts.
• Try to link your all pages to other relevant internal pages.

Hope this will help. Here is one video from Matt Cutts which will tell you in details (I have less 30 posts so could not add direct link, please remove space in com and open in browser) -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ybpXU0ckKQ

 

[360interactive]

Thanks all, I think it may be prudent to go through the links and mix things up a little!

 

[OldWelshGuy]

this is the problem with self SEO with no assistance to guide you. Someone has said 'build more links internally using the relevant anchor text (Which is often my advice when carrying out site reviews) as internal anchor text help Google decide which page to return for a particular phrase set. You have taken that and essentially internally spammed. by using only a tiny keywords set.

THIS is the problem with focussing too tightly on a tiny keywords set, it looks and IS false. Variation is and has been for some time, the name of the game.

 

[360interactive]

this is the problem with self SEO with no assistance to guide you. Someone has said 'build more links internally using the relevant anchor text (Which is often my advice when carrying out site reviews) as internal anchor text help Google decide which page to return for a particular phrase set. You have taken that and essentially internally spammed. by using only a tiny keywords set.

THIS is the problem with focussing too tightly on a tiny keywords set, it looks and IS false. Variation is and has been for some time, the name of the game.

Hi OWG, the advice was given by an experienced forum member. This is the problem with SEO, one person tells you one thing and another tells you something completely different!

I do see the issue of internal linking spam, so will take your advice and sort this out.

 

[susann]

Hi, Internal linking is a good idea to focus the keyword for SEO.

 

[a1exn1987]

You should definitely mix it up a bit. It's worth just focusing on one or two keywords for a period of time and then changing it up a bit. This way you spread your efforts and can improve your rankings for multiple keywords. You can always go back to the keywords you originally used for a time if you notice a drop in rankings.

If you keep focusing on 2 keywords then you may have an overoptimised site, this could lead to the site being penalised be search engines.

Also, do you just include the keyword links? It's worth including a range of other ones if they're contextual to the blog. These don't need to be keyword links necessarily, it's just a good way to enhance the user experience a bit.

 

[360interactive]

OK, so i've gone through and removed the endless links from my blog pages and i'm starting again.

Could do with an idea of where to go next though:

I have 136 blog posts from the past few years. I have 5 keywords I want to target.

How many links should i put into these posts back to my product page/home page? Is 10-15 link backs per keyword too much and considered spamming?

Thanks all.

 

[MASSEY]

You want to target more than 5 keywords specifically. You can vary internal keywords. Small loans for instance could be linked as smaller loans or tiny loans etc etc.

You're in a difficult situation here really. I would be worried about removing a whole load of links and then re-inserting links into the page with different anchors en mass. But i guess it could work.

 

[360interactive]

Thanks Massey.

Problem is I only have one service with only a few keywords to focus on! I could draw it out but others only give a very small return, but at least it's something.

I'm just not sure how many times to include a link, no one seems to have any idea on how to go forward. I've grid to research it but nothing gives indications of the amount of links, which I guess could be dependant on website size?

 

[ZeroDouble]

Thanks Massey.

Problem is I only have one service with only a few keywords to focus on! I could draw it out but others only give a very small return, but at least it's something.

Here's a quick tip to increase your keyword list;

Take one of your keywords and add it to the google search box.

Make a note of any of the suggestions that fit the bill, then click search and also make a note of any of the other keywords at the bottom of the serp in the related searches area.

These are all keywords that google considers relevant to your keyword and each other, and should all help you rank for your main keyword (the one you originally used in the search box).

You don't need to just use a small number of keywords anymore, nor is it really beneficial to do so, and provided you've got your onpage seo right, google should already know what the target page is about anyway.

It's all about providing relevance, and obviously a bit of internal link juice.

 

[kesb]

Hi guys internal linking,i think it was good, and 100% still good, stick to it...
good luck i'm working on my web, works well for me...

 

[Hautecouture]

Internal linking is good for Seo.

 

[sophiaanderson321]

With internal linking you wont be penalized

 

[InternetMarketingPlatinum]

Let's face it, it pretty unnatural to add a money keyword each time we link internally. It's also less than likely to be particularly useful or usable for our website users. Just put SEO to the back of your mind and try to consider things for your users' perspectives.

It's much more natural to hyperlink "click here" or even have the naked link as the hyperlink. Albeit a hyperlink may be more difficult to read in some respects so money keywords will be better in these instances. But, come on, the number of times I still see "We are Web Design UK and happy to design a good website for your business" type content is just embarrassing. Hopefully, those buys just haven't had the time to change their content yet.