How to make the correct linking of pages. Variable end-to-end linking

16.04.2019 Windows 7, XP

Correct linking on the site is one of the important points internal optimization. It is not needed to distribute weight between pages, as one might think in the old fashioned way. These are the paths through the site that the user goes through. And they should be laid in such a way that he will definitely come to the commission of the target action. We will tell you how to do this in a new post.

What is linking and why is it needed

Re-linking is the "stitching" of site pages using links.

Re-linking can be internal and external.

Internal linking- This is the placement of links within one site.

Internal linking tasks:

improving usability (the site becomes convenient and understandable);
acceleration of page indexing (search engines better understand the structure of the site - which pages lead where, which of them are more important);
increasing the relevance of pages (through the use of different key queries in link anchors, search engines better understand for which queries to rank a page in search).

Due to the correct internal linking, it is possible to:

improve behavioral indicators (increase the time spent on the site, the depth of browsing, reduce bounces) and, therefore, "pull up" positions in the search;
increase the conversion rate on the site (purchases, applications, subscriptions, etc.).

External linking- this is the placement of links from your own site to other sites (sites, social media pages, catalogs, etc.). External linking should not be confused with link building. When they talk about external linking, they mean outbound links, and by link building they mean building up the incoming link mass.

External linking tasks:

providing users with access to useful information posted on external resources;
an indication of the original source of the data (for example, when citing or translating);
redirecting traffic to partner and affiliate resources.

External links are useful for visitors because they do not need to make additional manipulations to go to third-party resources. Moreover, search engines increase the ranking of sites that link to reputable sites.

How to do internal linking correctly

You can find many on the net different schemes linking - "ring", "star", "herringbone", etc. In 2018, linking is based not on conventional figures, but on the benefits for visitors and, ultimately, the owner of the resource (after all, user actions should lead to conversion) ...

Collecting data for linking

If your site has been running for some time and has collected enough statistics, information on link clicks can be obtained using the Link Map tool in Yandex.Metrica. You will see which links are being clicked more often and you can find patterns.

Fragment "Link maps" Yandex.Metrica

But if the site is new, the "Link Map" will not provide information. In this case, use Yandex and Google search suggestions, which are generated based on user needs.

Let's look at an example. Let's say you have an online hardware store. You want to place quick links to current models from the "Smartphones" catalog page. To do this, enter the phrase in Yandex "Buy a smartphone" and get a list of tips. Users who want to buy a smartphone are highly likely to be interested in inexpensive smartphones, Samsung smartphones and Xiaomi, popular models and new items.

We write out all the "wishes" and get, in fact, a list of pages that are worth referring to and which some of the users will definitely go to. Even if they do not buy the product, you will get an improvement in behavioral indicators, which means that the site's positions will grow.

Collecting clues manually is time consuming. To simplify and speed up your work, you can use the "" tool in SeoPult. Specify a list key phrases, select search engines (Yandex and / or Google), region, rules and collection depth (maximum - up to 3 levels) and click the "Start check" button.

The finished result can be downloaded in XLSX format.

The final report looks like this:

The report contains enough information to understand user needs and make high-quality linking.

In addition to search hints you can use similar queries for linking, which are displayed under the search results.

The same requests are available in the Yandex.Wordstat service (right column):

To collect similar queries, another SeoPult tool is suitable - "Collect phrases of associations". It works in a similar way to the tool for collecting search suggestions discussed above.

Why did we stop at collecting phrases in such detail? The fact is that without understanding the needs of users, working on linking does not make sense. If you place links at random, randomly, or, conversely, "ring", there will be no target clicks on them.

Internal linking methods

You can set up linking on the site different ways- below are the typical examples of the placement of links between the pages of the site.

Main menu

These are end-to-end links that appear on all pages of the site. The horizontal menu usually refers to the page "About us", "Contacts", "Terms of payment and delivery", etc. It is not recommended to link to the main page, as it is usually linked to it from the logo and / or title of the site.

The link to the current page should not be active (for example, if you went to the "Contacts" page, then when you click on the "Contacts" menu item, the page should not reload). Also, do not use more than 7 links in the menu, otherwise the perception of information may deteriorate.

Product menu (catalog menu, categories)

Two kinds of menu

When placing links in the product menu, pay attention to the following points:

consider only the most popular search terms (for example, hallways can be brown, light, orange, or whatever, but you have determined that users are most interested in white, black and black and white - these are the colors you should specify in the menu. If you specify too much there are many links, the site will be inconvenient to use, which will lead to a deterioration in behavioral factors);
avoid overspam in the names of the sub-items (for example, in the item "Hallways" you do not need to name the sub-items "Modular hallways", "Small hallways", etc. To understand the essence, it is enough to indicate only the descriptive characteristic - "Modular", "Small" so understand that it comes about hallways);
add pictures to the section titles (this move will help improve the visual perception of the site. In no case replace the text with pictures - the names of paragraphs and subparagraphs should be in the form of text that is understandable for search engines).

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As a rule, recommendation blocks are used in product cards. Here you can display similar products (smartphone 1, smartphone 2, ...), related products (headphones, Charger, ...) or popular products from different categories... Do not make the conclusion of complementary positions randomly without any logic - this will not give the desired result.

Products can also be offered based on the browsing history - in this case, the likelihood of clicks on the links increases.

Reference links can also be placed on the page of the catalog section to clarify the user's request. For example, those who are in the "Tables" category can be prompted to go to the subcategories "Dining Tables", "Computer Tables", "Chairs". Again, this technique will unload the complex and voluminous catalog menu in the left sidebar.

For informational sites, recommendation blocks look different: here it is important to involve users in views of new content pages. Therefore, blocks with interesting entries, the latest news, the most popular pages, the most commented articles, etc.

Tagging

Each item can be described different parameters that cannot be accommodated in the menu. For example, a wardrobe can be brown, made of chipboard, 100 cm wide, 50 cm deep. In order to simplify the search for goods and navigation on the site, tags are used - links to specially created pages on which goods of a given category are grouped.

You might argue that all of this can be taken into account in filters. Yes, it can and should be done - put all possible search characteristics into filters. However, the filtering results are not indexed by the search robot, so the most popular queries should be placed on separate landing pages and referenced using tags.

Example of tags on a category page

Tags are also suitable for informational sites - with their help, similar articles are linked. Place in tags only those queries that are most popular (see above for how to determine demand). Otherwise, you run the risk of visually making the page heavier. Strike a balance.

Contextual linking

These links are placed in the descriptive part of the page (for example, in the article) and lead to other pages of the site. Links like these are rarely used in product cards, as they lead users away from them. But on the main page and in the categories, they are quite appropriate. For example, in the category "Laptops" you can send users to an article with useful information on how to choose a laptop.

Re-linking the catalog section with info pages

If your store site has an information section, contextual links inscribed in the text help redirect traffic to commercial pages, for example, in product cards, and increase conversion.

Contextual linking of an article with catalog sections and product cards

You can also link different articles to each other (we use this technique in the posts of this blog), but it is important that they are related thematically and complement each other.

Navigation chains ("bread crumbs")

Be sure to use this linking method on all pages so that the visitor understands where he is and can return to the previous stage at any time.

It is better to use verbose chains that show the entire path to the current page, rather than shorthand (when only the first page and the "Back" link are specified). Read more about making breadcrumbs in our newsletter.

HTML sitemap

This is a separate page that contains links to all pages of the site. It helps to understand its structure. This is useful both for users and for improving the indexing of pages by search engines. Check out the instructions for creating a sitemap.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when linking:

use only dofollow links;
do not adjust the linking to any rules - use the principle of common sense and benefit for visitors;
it is not recommended to make redundant linking from product cards (for example, to pages about delivery and payment), this can lead the user away from the goal; place all the necessary service information immediately on the card in a short form;
avoid circular links (when the page links to itself);
do not put too many links from one page (only the most relevant);
do not link often from internal pages to the main page;
pages that are linked from the main page are indexed faster;
regularly check the site for "broken" links (which lead to pages with a code other than 200) and remove them.

How to make external linking correctly

Many webmasters are afraid to refer to external resources, citing the fact that the "weight" of the pages is leaking through external links and this negatively affects the ranking. Indeed, it used to be so. But it's 2018 - search engines work on the basis of artificial intelligence, and for them, user satisfaction comes first.

For example, in the current article, when Yandex.Wordstat was mentioned, we put an outbound external link. As a result, you do not need to go to a search engine, enter "Yandex.Wordstat" and click on a link in the search - you go to this service directly from the article. It's comfortable? Yes. If you are interested in an article, you open Wordstat, navigate between pages, test the technique described in the article, and read it further. And nothing on this link "leaks", but behavioral factors on the contrary, they are improving.

Despite the obvious benefits of outgoing external links, they need to be set correctly. Here are the basic rules:

each external link must be relevant, organically fit into the context (otherwise, search engines may consider that the link is placed on a paid basis and apply sanctions);
if you are not sure about the reliability of the site you are linking to, add the nofollow attribute to the link - in this case, search engines will not index it, but users will be able to follow it;
do not mask links using scripts;
make links well distinguishable from the main text;
use natural anchors (brand names, site URLs, index anchors - "by link", "here", "instructions", "site", "useful resource");
avoid anchors with a clear commercial coloring (with the words "buy", "order", "price");
let users know by using the surrounding text that after clicking on the link, they will be taken to an external resource;
be sure to configure the opening of external links in a new window - otherwise, behavioral indicators will suffer.

If you stick to these tips, outbound links from yours will only work a plus.

Re-linking on the site is not an easy task

To solve this problem, you will need to analyze requests, study the behavior of site visitors, determine which pages and how they will be linked. If you find it difficult to do it yourself, you can enlist support

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Relinking is ...

... linking pages by means of links. Links can be placed both from one site to another, and within the site.

Distinguish between external and internal.

External is the linking of pages of several sites, when a link from one leads to another.
Internal linking is the linking of pages within one site. It is one of the most important factors in internal optimization. This is due to the fact that through the links is transmitted static weight pages, respectively, with the help of a well-tuned interlinking, you can improve the ranking for HF, MF and especially LF queries.

Let's talk about the inside.

How to relink a website correctly: the basics

When distributing requests, it is necessary to adhere to the rule: all high-frequency requests go to the main page, sub-pages go to the second-plan pages (sections), and low-frequency requests go to the third-level pages (product cards, articles, etc.).

There are three basic linking schemes:

"Ring" - all weight is transferred to LF requests, and they, in turn, are interconnected.

"Star" - even distribution of weight over the site. When the main page is on promotion, sections (categories) and products.

"Ladder" (Hierarchical) - the weight is transferred to medium-frequency requests. Promotion of sections and categories.

Through links. Links from the site-bar, horizontal menu and footer should lead to all the most basic sections and subsections. Moreover, it is desirable that they be available not only from the main page, but also from other pages.
Bread crumbs. Not only helps the user not to get lost on your site, but also transfers the weight from the child pages to the parent. And if you use in them keywords, then you can also increase the relevance.
Link from the logo. Hang a link from your website logo to the home page in the format: site.ru (or www.site.ru, depending on the settings of the main mirror). Write keywords in alt and title.

Add a sitemap (not to be confused with sitemap.xml). Having a sitemap significantly speeds up the indexing process. In addition, you can refer to it from the 404 page. If there are too many links, then you can clean the map from pages like "cart" and " personal account»And leave only landing pages.
Link promoted pages to each other. Thus, you can extend the effect of external links (which are often difficult to find, due to the fact that high-quality external links are not cheap) to other pages of the resource.
Correctly add links in the text:

There should not be too many anchor links in the text.
There are exceptions when the link is very "in the subject", or the text is too large and a little more links will not be very noticeable. But in most cases, you should not overdo it with links, because this one can be not only visually repulsive, but also considered spam. Stick to the rule of no more than 3 links per 1000 characters and not 50 units per page.

Link anchors should be different.
Links with duplicate anchors can "stick together" and then the transfer of weight will be reduced, moreover, a large number of links in text descriptions with the same anchor can be considered spam by search engines. Come up with different texts for internal linking and do not forget about the relevance.

Create a blog for your resource
Create a section on your site for posting high-quality and thematic articles that may be of interest to your user. Articles should be sharpened according to information requests that can be picked up in Yandex. Wordstat and Google Planner. Provide internal links from them to the promoted sections and increase the weight of the promoted pages.
Re-link old content with new
Are you adding new content? Wonderful. Link from it to old pages, and from old to new ones. And you will be happy. New content will be indexed faster, and old content will improve relevance.
Also remember that pages should not link to themselves and you should not additionally highlight link anchors in the text.
It is necessary to place links correctly. Internal linking is a user's guide to the site, allowing him to save time on searching the information you need... The search robot thus gets an idea of the structure of the site. Internal linking takes the most important place in SEO optimization. And it is an effective method of website promotion, due to which you can significantly increase the position of the site.

What do I mean when I say "Correct linking of site pages"? Of course I only mean handmade on human and competent distribution of page weight to achieve the set goals. Forget all the nonsense you might have heard before and accept the current information.

You've probably already heard about such types of linking as: ring, cube, etc. All this is mechanics and it is good only where there is no way to do it by hand. For example, on portals, online stores, etc. There can be tens or hundreds of thousands of pages. We're not masochists, are we? 🙂

Let's take a closer look at everything and I'll show you how I myself link pages to each other.

How to make the correct linking of site pages

First, we need to decide what we want to do the linking for. The option "Everybody does and I do" will not work here. There are times when it’s worse with a grief than without it at all.

Why linking may be needed:

For the convenience of the user. This option must always be present - otherwise our idea loses all meaning.
Promotion of the main page for RF requests. It is clear that the main one in the standard structure of the site will always have more weight even without working as a "file". We also pump it up with internal links.
Promotion of categories or midrange queries. In the standard structure of the midrange, requests go to categories in most cases.
Promotion of low-frequency queries or pages of 3 levels of nesting. Moving our articles.
Improving site indexing and comprehensive promotion. If the structure of the site is complex and there are many pages on the site, there are many keywords that are promoted from different pages.
Raise the PR of the page. If you need to increase the PR of specific pages.

Now we will analyze these points in more detail and start with the convenience of users.

What is the initial meaning of linking? It's very simple - we tell the user what else he might be interested in. For example, I got to the site on the request "how to make a site on Joomla". Your article answers my request, everything is cool. The article contains specials. terms or subtopics. If the terms can still be chewed up in 1 article, then to reveal many subtopics - no. Accordingly, you put a link to an article in which the subtopic is disclosed in detail. Conveniently? Certainly!

Further, I read the article - everything is clear to me. But it turns out that I don't know HTML and PHP well, and in the same article you give me an announcement that you have an article "How to make a website". Oops! I also need it, but I did not realize it until I read your 1st article. Accordingly, I went to the page about layout, etc.

So we keep the user and give him maximum information on his request and related. He is happy and now he knows exactly which site to go to + you have improved behavioral factors + you have raised the authority of the site in the eyes of the visitor.

Do not forget this item never. Without it, linking simply loses its meaning. Now in more detail.

Linking types

Here are some abbreviations and terms, you can familiarize yourself with them in my article -.

Relinking for RF requests

You decided to pull out HF requests for which the main page of the site is optimized. Then you should overtake the weight from all pages to the main page. So you need to take and put a link to the main page from each page and that's all. If a category (section) has internal pages, then the category refers to them and to the main page. Below is a diagram of site linking for RF requests:

Relinking for midrange requests

It is also a fairly popular type of linking, perfect for online stores and other sites where people often search for a product group like "Samsung Refrigerators". In addition, the interlinking of midrange queries is quite easy and straightforward to implement. You just need to link the sections of the site with each other, the rest of the pages link in 2 directions (from category to page and from page to category). Scheme of this type You can see the linking below:

One of the most difficult types is the interlinking of LF queries. But the result is good. Ideal for sites that are planning. You need to link all pages of the site of the 3rd level (if you have a standard 3-level structure like site / category / page) with each other. It can be either rings within each category, or one large ring). Moreover, pages of the “page” type should not contain links to the main page or to categories. Only to another "page"! Internal linking for low-frequency requests is implemented according to the following scheme:

Internal linking to raise PR

As you know, PR is the weight of a particular page. It depends on a combination of internal and external factors, in contrast to. Although we can already get PR growth due to the correct linking of pages, we can also contribute to it somewhat. After the linking is ready for the pages on which we want to raise PR, we need to add several satellite pages. Those. in this page all links will be closed and there will be only 1 link leading to the acceptor page. We create 3-5 such pages (they should more fully disclose the topic and are written for low and ultra low frequency requests so that there is minimal traffic to the donor page).

My version of the correct linking of pages

I mostly use an integrated approach to linking. Although, of course, a lot depends on the type of site and the specific situation. Those. somewhere I close all links except 1, somewhere I add satellite pages, etc.

You need to combine all the linking options and not leave the pages in the air. Yes, if some pages hang without links - it's not fatal, but they could be useful.

P.S. tried to write an article for 1 person. Is it easier to read or worse?

This article will be useful primarily to those who do not yet have a website. If you already have a website, you may find some ideas for improving the existing structure, or for creating new sections.

Here are my observations from my own experience with external and internal links. Only what worked for me personally badly or well on several dozen diverse projects:

For a new project, waiting for traffic from Google without links and clicks on them (from sites, social networks, forums, etc.) for the first 3–6 months makes almost no sense. If your audience is Google users, you will have to learn to work with external links in one way or another.
Internal linking is needed primarily in order to solve the user's problem, and not to be able to cram required request in anchor links.
A link that users regularly click on works much better than one that is just somewhere.
All other things being equal (if two pages are very similar in content, site trust, behavioral factors, etc.), the page being linked will be higher.
Great content will not be left without attention - it will be linked to without you.
Building rankings and traffic with internal links is sometimes faster than creating new content. Yandex and Google love links.

A site filter or its ban in search engines is also the fastest to come precisely because of the links. Including for the abuse of internal linking, since it is easier for the site owner to influence it.

The importance of internal linking

The importance of links has been declining over the past few years. No offense to patriots, but the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet is essentially copying the development of the English-speaking Internet with a delay of 3-5 years. In the MOZ data from three years ago, the first 2 places are occupied by links:

Here lies the most common mistake- in the West, the process of working with external links is called "link building", that is, creating links to a site, building links. Not a purchase, but primarily work with thematic sites, their authors, forums and others. Create better content to be shared.

And this is how it works in the West - if your target audience uses Google (for example, they are US residents), you need to understand that with a probability close to 100% you will NOT promote the project without working with external links. Not buying them, but doing this "link building", analyzing competitors, working with other sites and their audience.

For Russian-language projects aimed at residents of Russia, in the first year of the project's life, from 50 to 95 percent of visitors are brought by Yandex, and we still have a shortage of high-quality Russian-language content, that is, first of all, we have the factors that work in the study MOZ are in 3-5 places. These are factors related to the quality of a particular page on the site:

How much the page content matches the user's request. The quality of the content on the page, the convenience of its consumption, to what extent it solves the visitor's problem.
The volume of content, its readability (markup), uniqueness, page loading speed, additional "features" like micro-markup, https-protocol, correct display on the user's device.
User engagement, behavioral factors. This is the click-through rate of the page and the domain at different positions in the issue, the percentage of bounces, the depth of site viewing, the time on the site.

And with the help of internal linking, you can influence all 3 factors. Now let's look at examples. Here's a very well done:

What's good about this example:

The block with an internal link is placed as if it should be - this is useful Additional Information for the user.
The link is contrasting and noticeable, the request of the promoted page is organically entered into the anchor.
Good readability, it is clear what the user will see when they click on the link.
In the linking block, which does not stand out from the page theme, you can enter from one to 10 words that will give additional traffic for low-frequency and low-competitive requests for the current page. The attentive reader will find in the first example several nonrandom matches with Yandex data:

In fact, such a block of internal linking does not contradict any of the 3 points that relate to the concept quality page... The linking block complements the content of the page, increases its volume and readability, increases the chance that the user will stay on the site to learn more about the insulation of the balcony.

What can be done better in my opinion - since this block already exists, it was possible to refer to other pages that invite the user closer to signing the contract - terms, guarantees, prices. Here's another example:

What's good about the second example:

Prices are indicated.
Links are divided into groups.
A separate block of advantages of ordering in this particular company.

What is not very good is that it is a pass-through block, that is, it is the same on many other pages. With an SEO component (transfer of weights to important pages) such a block copes. And the disadvantage is that on the page about balconies there are 3 links exclusively about windows, they do not carry any added value and most likely are not needed by the user.

A few more reasons to set up competent linking

For large projects, linking blocks are one of the ways to quickly index site pages. The most understandable (although not entirely correct) example is news sites, it is critically important for them that all news gets into search results as soon as possible. Specifically for news sites, it is also important to add the site to Yandex.News and Google News, since, first of all, news issues are generated on the basis of RSS feeds. This is how it looks:

This issue is generated precisely by sending data to Yandex.News and Google news... Here's how linking is used on a news site:

Such blocks on any site will speed up the entry of new pages into search results. A little tip - new pages in niches with empty search results give the first visitors a few days after publication.

The main plus of internal linking is not SEO. The main advantage is the correct alignment of user paths through the site and, as a result, the increase in conversion. The fattest example from personal experience:

A section with reference information was posted on the site.
After 3-4 months, the attendance of the reference section from the search exceeded the attendance of the main selling pages of the site several times.
Over the next 4 months, experiments were carried out to place links to selling pages on help pages.
Selling pages in search increased by an average of 25-30% for basic queries (SEO-effect, which, however, could be the result of other work on the site).
From 5 to 11 percent of those who came to the selling page using the links in the linking blocks ordered a product (on average, about 8% conversion). Despite the fact that average conversion selling pages for all traffic sources, including search engine - rarely exceeded 3%.

That is, simply due to the fact that on all information pages of the site there were links of the form “You can see the price and buy here” - there were from 30 to 50 new hits per month.

I conducted similar experiments on different projects, on different topics. In financial terms, the linking gave clear and measurable financial results that are very easy to measure:

In the linking block, a UTM tag was stitched into the link, indicating which page the click was from.
In the analytics system, for the purity of statistics, data is taken, where the entry pages to the site are pages that have a link block.
By tags, site visitors are counted who have become customers (for this, you need to set up goals in Yandex.Metrica or Google Analytics).

More clearly:

This method is available for any CMS and even for a small site that uses HTML files. There is only one drawback of this method - you will not have quick access to transparent statistics for each link, if you have not configured the connection between the statistics systems and the application registration program.

More advanced level - set up a module for working with links for your CMS, which allows you to:

Insert the code on several pages at once (first, you place in the page code the places where the links will be located, and then in 1 click put the desired block on any number of pages).
Automatically count the number of clicks on links (allows you to select the most clickable blocks).
Conduct A / B tests automatically (if you are satisfied with the current click-through rate and conversion rates for option A, do not change all blocks, but show option B to a given percentage of visitors).
Show linking blocks designed for the user's device (depending on the used OS and screen resolution, a block adapted for this device is shown).

If the site engine you are using does not have such modules, most likely you will have to master one of the TDS (Traffic Delivery System) systems. TDS - traffic distribution systems, allow you to replace the page code with a specified one, depending on dozens of parameters - by display resolution, by OS, by keyword, by geolocation, etc.

The introduction turned out to be quite voluminous, so once again, briefly about the important:

Previously, the number of external links to the site and to specific page was more important than content quality and behavioral factors. Now (by at least for Yandex), even a site with zero links can receive visitors if the page is of high quality.
Without external links in Google traffic hard to get. Many commercial topics in the top 10 are old, awkward but link-inflated sites.
Yandex also takes into account links in commercial topics.
For the purchase of links, you can get a filter in both Google and Yandex. A good purchase link is one that you yourself would not think was purchased.
Internal linking works well for SEO, but it is more justified for large projects, where there is where and where to put links.
With the help of internal linking, you can improve the donor page on your site and get the desired anchor to another page.
Internal linking allows you to "hook" the user and redirect him to the landing page.
Internal links from the visited pages of the site to new ones accelerate their getting into the search results.
Re-linking with an emphasis on marketing, not SEO, can be calculated very accurately - in the money earned.
You need to deal with internal linking with a scientific approach - consider everything and everyone, experiment.
Do not reinvent the wheel - most likely, there is already a module for the site engine for your needs, or one of the TDS systems will suit you.

Site structure. Why is power in SILO and where did the term come from?

For myself, I first discovered the term "SILO" by reading (you can also do this, there is a volume of about 30–35 book pages). The basic idea is simple:

Grouping site pages into thematic sections allows search engines to more accurately determine the topics of pages in these groups and the topic of the site as a whole. The optimizer can selectively "strengthen" some pages in groups using internal links.

The literal translation of "SILO" (bunker) was not used by Russian-speaking SEO specialists. Commonly used terms are "cluster", "page group", "category".

Now there are 2 most common approaches when designing a site architecture. "Site architecture" sounds clever and it immediately seems that it is very difficult. To put it simply, this is what pages on the site to create and why, how to group them.

Site structure for SEO

The first approach is to collect as many user queries as possible and distribute them across the pages of the site according to the principle of semantic relevance. That is, queries are grouped by text match. It looks something like this:

With this approach:

All possible requests in the site's niche are collected, non-target ones are removed (other cities / countries, not suitable for the type of goods or services, for the price, and so on).
Requests are divided into groups by text (and partially) by logical coincidence. The quality of the breakdown depends on how well the performer understands the site's niche. If you don't understand well, you can landing page see requests for different target audiences, for example, "cheap" and "premium".
The site structure is sketched from the list of pages. Very often - the main 10–20 pages have some kind of coherent structure, and the rest of the pages are simply published in the section "Information", "Useful materials" or similar.
These pages are posted on the site, after which promotion is reduced to buying links and rarely adding new pages.

The first drawback of this approach is that most often new groups of requests are not collected. The site stops developing at the stage at which it was created.

The second drawback is that internal linking is done according to one of the schemes found on the Internet:

If the site does not have a clear logical structure, it is very difficult to do normal linking in it.

If all the pages on the site are piled up in a heap, search engines cannot determine the topic of the site section or group of pages. Small (100-1000 pages) sites are bypassed in the search results of giants like "a site about everything", including due to the narrow specialization of the site or its section.

The third drawback of such a scheme is the very quality of the pages, but this is a topic for a separate article. In short, in most cases it is impossible to take and create a page that will qualitatively answer 40-50 requests, especially if some of them are commercial, and some are informational.

How do search engines determine the structure of a site?

Search engines can determine the theme of a particular page on a site. And they can quickly and correctly determine the structure of the site if the pages are divided into sections of the site physically or logically. Physical separation:

That is, in a browser, the URL structure looks something like this:

site-name / legkovie / diametr
site-name / legkovie / marka-avto
site-name / legkovie / brend
site-name / legkovie / sezon
site-name / legkovie / sezon / letnie
site-name / legkovie / sezon / zimnie

With such a site structure, search engines perfectly understand which pages more accurately respond to a user's request. And you will get more or less correct linking within one group of pages automatically. The most important pages will go to the main or extra menu, the nesting of pages will be indicated by "bread crumbs" - navigation through the sections of the site and their hierarchy. Here's an example:

In this case, all pages of one group refer to parent pages, child pages, neighboring groups. In general, it is easier for a search engine to understand what a section of a site is about. The site receives traffic:

For narrow queries (for example, “buy a laptop asus model X ") - to the page of product cards;
For broader inquiries ("buy an asus laptop") - to the category page;
By competitive high-frequency requests("Buy a laptop") - to the "Laptops" page.

At the same time, it is enough to simply "pump up" the necessary pages with internal links - for example, by placing in the category the block "top sales", "best rated" or similar ones with links to required pages... This does not only apply to online shopping. Here's from another niche:

Together they form a cluster. For general queries, the search results show the entire catalog, for narrower queries - the corresponding cluster page. As you can imagine, the more niches a site unites, the more clusters it can accommodate.

The logical separation of the site structure differs only in that the URL structure is not specified by the site engine, and the search engines determine the connectivity of the pages by their linking. All site pages can have the same nesting level, for example:

site-name / page1 site-name / page2
site-name / pageN
…
site-name / pageN + 1000

In this case, search engines are likely to identify the most significant pages by internal linking. These will be pages from the main menu (since it is present on all pages of the site), as well as pages with the maximum number of internal links.

Clusters will also be identified by internal links. For example, 100 pages of the site link to each other, and they all link to the 101st page, and the text on these pages has a common semantics (for example, "project", "home", "bar", "price"). Search engines will determine that these are pages of the same section. But organize correct structure links on such a site are more difficult, and it will not be possible to do basic linking within clusters by 100% automatically; you will need to think over and write down the rules for each group of pages. What it looks like:

By the structure of the links, search engines understand that pages 2, 3, 4 and 10 are pages of the same group, and that 10 is the main page of the group (since everyone else links to it).

The main disadvantage of such a site scheme is the difficulty in building the site structure through linking. Here's what John Mueller, Google's Webmaster Specialist, has to say about this:

Changing the structure of the site can take time and not bear fruit. So if you don't have an obvious confusion with the structure, it's best to just keep going.

Site structure for people

When creating a site structure "for SEO", all possible user requests are found and page groups are created for these requests. When creating a website for people, the situation is reversed. A site structure is created that covers all possible queries from users, and when created, these pages are optimized, including for queries from search engine statistics.

The main advantages of this approach are:

There will be more pages on the site due to understanding the needs target audience.
Pages will be linked primarily not by semantic basis, but by user needs. This makes it possible to bring a visitor to the site at any stage from choosing a product / service to choosing where to buy.
Due to the connectedness of the pages, the behavioral factors on the site are better - more depth of viewing, time on the site.

Let's take several different commercial niches and analyze clearly how the structure of a website for people will kill two birds with one stone - get the correct internal linking and excellent behavioral factors. Niches:

1. Construction of houses from a bar

As an example, let's take one narrow group of clients' interests - houses from a bar with an attic. In the best case, with an SEO approach, from 1 to 5 pages will be created on the site (projects, photos, reviews, finished objects).

But such a group of pages on the site can be made if you think about the needs of the user:

Here you can also add different foundations, roofing, quadrature, geometry (6 x 6, 8 x 8, 10 x 10), the presence of a terrace and another 30-50 options. With this approach, the number of relevant internal links between these pages will be tens or hundreds, there would be something to show on them. Such a group of pages will collect traffic for hundreds of requests - from low-frequency to high-frequency. And if for SEO purposes it is necessary to "transfer" the weight to some of the pages, you can do it, it will be enough to add linking blocks to the donor pages.

In addition to internal links - conversion on these pages will be higher, tested in different niches.

And when you create such groups of pages, ideas for creating new content will snowball. For instance:

Differences between glued and profiled timber, advantages and disadvantages.
What type of foundation can be used in the construction of a two-story house from a bar.
What is included in the construction of a turnkey log house.

2. Online store of building products

If you take a step away from the catalog structure of almost any online store that sells materials for construction and repair, a lot of ideas will open up that have not yet been properly implemented. In the best case, to help customers and to increase the average check, blocks “buy with this product” are used.

At the same time, GOSTs, SNIPs, regulatory documents are completely ignored. Everyone who has started a renovation will remember repeated trips and trips to “buy this or that”. This is an almost inevitable step, even with a well-made budget. And to get internal links you can use:

Technological maps for work with a list of tools and materials. For example, with technological map for installing laminate flooring, you can get links to materials, to the tools used, to the laminate category pages by grade.
Instructions for the selection and use of consumables - from paint to cutters.
Photos of interiors from catalogs of suppliers - you can put internal links to the used article numbers of materials.
Instructions of the form "How to do such and such work yourself."

And now the question is - have you seen this somewhere? I've only seen so far in directories like this:

And such pages fit perfectly into the structure of the site, they are useful to visitors, they provide internal links. You just need to think about people, not SEO.

3. City portal

Usually a city portal is a collection of news, a directory of organizations, posters of various events and other things. It is easy to make the site more useful for users and get internal links to the necessary pages. It is enough to output the data in a format useful to the user:

Not just a list of kindergartens or schools - but by districts and stops.
Any services like food delivery can be divided into round-the-clock and non-round-the-clock.
Events are divided into free and paid. For children and adults. For preschool children, for elementary grades, and so on.

Here's an example for Moscow:

And there will be many groups of queries like “where to go with a child 2/3/4 years old in Moscow”, “where to go with a girl at night in Moscow” and others.

How does a site structure for people find site ideas and improve conversions?

The site structure for people approach can be perfectly combined with a marketing approach. This works in niches with large checks, with long way from visitor to client. Companies that are the first to learn how to build the structure of pages in such a way as to direct the future client to the right stage before the sale will sooner or later overtake competitors. Or they won't let competitors get around them.

What questions will interest me if I want to build a house, but I myself am not associated with construction?

How many floors and rooms do you need?
Should I order the project and construction separately or not? What's the best and why?
What shape of the house should you choose (if it is not limited by the shape and size of the plot)?
Do you need a basement / ground floor?
Do you need an attic or attic?
Ceiling height?
What kind of foundation is right?
What are the walls made of?
If there are several floors - what kind of floors to make?
What is the roof from?
How many cameras should there be in a glass unit?

These are just a few of the steps involved in building a "box". Each of these items can be "expanded" to the same list.

And here a huge field of activity opens up for the development of the site and the creation of new materials. For example, in my region, wall materials can be called 7 or 8 offhand (brick, shell, aerated concrete, timber, sip-panels, cinder block, thermo, foam concrete). Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. If the company is only engaged in construction, you can safely create a cluster of pages, professionally comparing all these materials.

And it will be very useful material... And visitors readily follow the links between such pages. And the site rises to the top simply due to the fact that the time on the site and the number of page views are 2–2.5 times higher than those of competitors.

Such pages increase the credibility of the company and can generate leads. A subscription form of the form "Specify your mail and phone number and get a comparative description of the top 10 wall materials in 3 minutes" will give applications from potential customers.

This approach will not yet let you miss out on pages that could have been missed when creating the site structure and collecting requests. And each of these pages will allow you to place internal links to the selling pages.

Also, on pages with a narrow focus, the conversion is higher. If you are reading this article, you probably have a website. Imagine that you are not satisfied with the current hoster (your online store on Bitrix began to slow down after adding 30,000 products) and you are looking for a new one - which offer will suit you:

Great hosting for your website.
Hosting for large online stores on Bitrix.

Most likely the second. And it works in any niche where most customers are making choices rather than being driven by wow.

Site structure and promotion

Site structure and linking greatly affect the position of the site. Of course, if the site meets the basic requirements:

There are no technical errors on the site that hinder promotion.
The information is relevant and competitive (eg prices plus or minus market averages).
The site loads quickly, user-friendly.

How to more or less correctly compare the effectiveness of promoting a large site that tries to cover the topic completely, and a small narrowly focused project that compete in a group of requests? If you do not know the financial indicators, you can compare the number of visitors divided by the number of pages on the site. For example, here are the averages for two topics:

The data for all sites was taken from the same services, so the errors for all are approximately the same. Competition is the percentage of requests for which sites intersect in the top 10. It does not take into account domain trust, site age, links, and more - although by all of these indicators, large sites have an advantage.

I collected such data for absolutely different projects in different niches. And there is only one dependence - sites operating in a narrower niche (with rare exceptions, less than 5%) collect many times more visitors per page. For example, here are the sites that voluntarily shine their traffic. I selected sites with less than 1,000 pages in the index of Yandex and Google:

The other 30 are specialized sites. What does it mean:

The site is not about all banking products in general and their comparison, but only about debit and credit cards. Or just about the mortgage and its terms.
The portal is not about accounting from foreign economic activity to 1C, but only about everything for individual entrepreneurs.
The site does not sell 100,500 items construction goods, but only doors. Or just wooden doors.
The online store does not sell everything for needlework, but only everything for knitting.

Why do sites with a narrower subject matter have hundreds of times more visitors per page than their larger competitors?

The less content, the easier it is to make it of high quality.... Backlinko.com, a website of a foreign SEO specialist, can be considered an excellent example. Hundreds of thousands of clicks from the search every month, despite the fact that there are 71 pages on the site. Internal linking is also excellent there - I want to click on every link in the text.

Pages on such sites are usually linked, giving more information ... Where there will be 1 page on a large project, on a small one there will be several linked together in a cluster or group. Moreover, more often than not, each of the group pages on a small project will be more complete than a page on a large one.

Due to the previous point, visitors spend more time on the site, look at several pages... Follow internal links. That is, internal linking works many times better if the site has a cycle of materials that is conveniently linked to each other, than if these are just links for pumping the page weight.

Many topics have their own slang or specialized terms.... Small thematic sites are many times superior to large ones in terms of semantic coverage. Like that:

So it turns out that small sites with well-designed pages, with cool content, with a good logical structure (visitors "hang" on the site and look at 5-10 pages) collect traffic comparable to mastodons, at incomparable costs.

How to build a logical site structure?

If you have a commercial resource that makes money selling a product or service, the correct logical structure can be described in one sentence:

A potential client on each of the pages of the site should see a simple and understandable next step, which brings him closer to making a deal.

In some cases, this is very easy to do. For example, online stores almost always work according to this scheme.

The goal is to place an order. To do this, the visitor must add the product to the cart. You can add a product to the basket either from the product card, sometimes from a category. This means that all the user's paths through the site must be built in such a way that he falls into either a category or a product card. In the example above, a popular article can be referenced by 10 categories, an article (or several), neighboring articles.

And the rest of the pages that do not directly sell a product or service link to the selling pages. This could be a Q&A section, background information, comparison pages, blog articles, news.

On small sites (10-100 pages) everything is simple, the most basic pages are located in the menu, which means they receive links from all other pages. In addition to menus from other pages, internal links can also be placed for marketing or SEO purposes.

On medium sites (up to 10,000 pages) usually implemented either a catalog structure (if it is an online store) or headings. Pages are arranged by groups (headings, categories), each page of the group links to other pages of the same heading. For SEO, the most important headings and pages are linked from other relevant headings.

On large portals (with hundreds of thousands and millions of pages) either an approach with categories is implemented (only adjusted for the number of categories), or simply all pages link to more or less suitable pages according to the Wikipedia principle. Some system work for linking on such projects is unrealistic for the following reasons:

Lots of UGC content - users create site content.
The site receives traffic from hundreds of thousands of requests. You can only selectively “pump” pages with internal links if there are some pages that give the main result (selling something).
Often the traffic is event-driven, or generally one-time. This is especially true for news resources - you just need to post more news and do it faster.

Site URL structure

Today it makes no difference whether the structure of the site is organized by nesting levels (sometimes it reaches 4 or more levels) as in large projects:

Sometimes it also happens - Main page / category / sub-category / sub-sub-category / sub-sub-sub-category / page / page-option

This option is convenient because automatically all pages in the chain link to each other. Disadvantage - you need to think over the structure of the site in advance, otherwise transferring pages from one section of the site to another will require setting up redirects. What kind of hard labor it is - you will not understand until you need to smash several thousand pages into several hundred different sections.

The second approach - all pages of the site can be nested at 2-4 levels:

But in fact, the product is on the second level, and the / p block displays either the current category or some other parameter of the store.

The advantage of this approach is that all main pages can generally be in the same category, and the rest of the pages simply display lists for the convenience of users. For example, all products are located at site / tovarN100500, and the categories are of the form:

Home / notebook-asus /
Home / notebook-asus / 8gb-ram
Home / notebook-asus / core-i3

They are simply listings of goods according to specified characteristics. The main advantage of this approach for internal linking is that from such categories you can get dozens of internal links to promoted products.

The disadvantage is a lot of work either with the head or with the hands. Products themselves will not appear in the category, you will need to include them by hand, or think over output templates.

I give examples for online stores as the most accessible to understanding, but the same principle can be applied to projects of a wide variety of topics. For example, for a site about dogs, information about the breed can be kept in one category, for example, "Main page / poroda / haski", and links to it can be displayed on dozens of other project pages:

Home / srednie-sobaki /
Home / krasivie-sobaki /
Home / sobaki-dlya-semei-s-detmi /

Which internal linking option should you choose?

If you know for sure that you will not have the time or the opportunity to do point-to-point linking, choose one of the automatic schemes tied to the URL structure. The following options are obtained ...

First, all pages link to each other:

In such a situation, all pages are more or less equivalent, all pages are linked to each other.

The third option - the weight is poured onto the final pages of the site. The layout would be similar, only the arrows would go in the opposite direction (to the page blocks).

Any of these schemes are usually hardwired into the logic of the site's engine. If you want to go to advanced internal linking, then the scheme will be something like this:

How it will be implemented in URL structure and in the physical structure of the site - depends on the technical solution used.

In my opinion, this option (or its adaptation to your business) provides maximum flexibility. In the example above, a specific model was left from production and sales - it was replaced with a similar one. And in more conservative topics, tens and hundreds of internal links can be put on the main selling pages in a year or two.

How to organize data storage on the site?

If it seems to you that the diagram from the previous picture is my hypothesis about content marketing "like in the West" and this will either never happen here, or it will come sometime in 5 years, go to any of the articles on request:

More than 1,000 materials, which perfectly fit the internal linking with the intention of inviting the visitor to walk closer to the checkout and unbutton the wallet:

Each link leads to the corresponding section of Yandex.Market. Of course, 1000+ articles on the Internet are a drop in the ocean. But this is Yandex. Which to its entire audience for any commercial inquiries can display "Yandex.Market".

And big companies do the same:

Think big companies can't count money? Experience tells me that the production of one page for these sites can cost tens (if not hundreds) of times more than the owner of an online store or a thematic site. And 2,000 articles for the example on the right almost certainly cost several million rubles (or rather a sum with 7 zeros).

There are many niches in Runet, where large companies will reach only in a few years. And all these years, it is you who can receive visitors and sell them your goods. You just need to start early, this is almost always enough.

To successfully implement internal linking that combines SEO and marketing, take note of the following tricks:

Characteristics of goods or services... Everything that can be considered a characteristic should be stored in a format that will allow you to get complete information automatically. For example, if you sell wallpaper, all characteristics like "plain", "with a large pattern", "white wallpaper", "with a black pattern" and other options should be assigned to the corresponding articles. So that you can create a category "white wallpaper with black pattern" in a couple of clicks, simply by adding the characteristics.

Better to see once than read several times... Classic links work well too, if they are in place. But in information materials and it is better to provide a beautiful linking output. At least with banners, if appropriate:

Here's another good example:

Think Big - The Bigger possible groups target audience you will be able to reach - the more visitors and sales you will get.

Content marketing works best in the long run... Search algorithms change from year to year, every month a new wow-technology comes out that "should break the market and take a significant share of sales." And projects that systematically work on the production of high-quality content simply grow every year. In attendance, in recognition, in money.

And this is not only in conservative niches, where nothing new has appeared in the last 20 years and will not appear for another 20 years (for example, many construction niches). See how many tech projects are attracting visitors. The technique becomes obsolete every year, but the leading portals and many newbies are quietly gathering their share of the audience.

Think about how to create new pages with existing content that address the needs of your potential customers.

When designing a new site functionality (content section, filters, blog, question-answer, etc.), think about how you can quickly put useful and convenient links to the goods and services sold from this section.

Consider efficiency right away. Analyze your competitors, make predictions.

What if you have a small project?

Many of the techniques mentioned earlier can be easily implemented in online stores or catalog sites. But what if you have a small project with a narrow topic? Universal option- section with questions and answers.

Don't make it all one page. Separate question- a separate page.
Provide helpful answers. Pages "for SEO" with answers like "and you can find out by calling by phone" if they go to the TOP, they won't stay there for a long time. In addition, it is more difficult to link to other pages of the site on uninformative pages.
Make the section convenient. No 11 size light gray fonts. If you yourself are uncomfortable reading such pages, visitors will also be uncomfortable and they will leave.
If there are a lot of questions, make the navigation easy. Subsections, headings.
Strange advice, but proven on my own projects. If you have an online consultant, don't let visitors add questions. They will often be short, stupid, and illiterate. And the same or the same type. Which is bad for both convenience and SEO.
On the question pages, give the opportunity to contact you from the same pages - phone numbers, instant messengers, social networks.

In addition to questions and answers, you can use references, comparisons, instructions, standards. If you have few ideas for such sections, check out the most trafficked sites in your niche in big cities. If old projects can still go out due to reference, domain age, site trust and other things, young sites have to create cool content.

Why does it generate sales?

If you are looking for "black womens long down jacket with a hood" - you will linger on this page:

And it is in the top 3 for many targeted queries. Including because of the linking - on other pages there are links with a direct entry of the request.

The next time you walk around the city, pay attention to the colors of the PVC window profile, except for white and wood-like. And then look in your city for something like "pvc windows% color%% city% price". And look at SERPs in a very competitive niche. Yes, at least in Moscow:

Even the screenshot shows that the price of windows with a colored profile is 40% higher. Such a request can be perfectly worked out in the "question-answer" section, you can create a separate page with standard sizes and prices. And the buyer will call if everything suits him. And such pages can pump other pages with links. Solid benefit, in general.

As always, there is a little catch. For such pages to appear on the site, you first need to think and then work.

How to make correct website linking - checklist

If you already have a website with large quantity pages, I can only advise the obvious - count the page weight and link to the most important pages from the rest. This is the easiest and most painless way to transfer weight. Finally, a small checklist.

You must have a semantic core for the site - user requests distributed across the pages of the site. Information requests should be placed in the information section, commercial - on the selling pages.
If possible, there should be no cannibalization within the same project. That is, one group of requests on the site should be represented by one page. If there are several pages, the site will compete with itself in the search results, this is bad. If there is such a thing, combine it into one page, set up redirection from a remote page.
When working with internal links, the ratio from paragraph 4 can be disregarded, there is only one rule - do not bend with anchors. It is better to write an incomplete request naturally than it is unnatural to write a full one.
Avoid broken links on the site, if you have a lot of them - you "overflow" the page weight to nowhere.
On the donor page, 1 link to the acceptor page is enough, if there are several of them, the transferred weight will not increase from this. If you need to put several links, you can close unnecessary links in scripts.
Links that are followed carry more weight than just links.
The link should look like a link (eg different color, underline, hover effect) if it is text.
The acceptor page can be downgraded for too unnatural internal linking environment. Therefore, it is better to use constructions of 2-3-4 words, while not often repeated within the site.
If an image is used as a link, the “alt” tag for this image will be taken into account as an anchor.
Search engines are smarter than you think, so do not try to "pump" important pages with js-scripts with different ways hiding links.
Bother less. Any excessive manipulation by the site is a signal that the site is trying to somehow outwit the search engine algorithms. I have yet to see a site that gets significant pessimization for working with internal links if the links there simply provided easy navigation (and still promoted landing pages).
Use such linking blocks in which you yourself would like to click on the link.
For a visited project, you can quickly promote new pages for non-competitive requests simply by placing links and getting transitions within the site. This technique also speeds up the pages to get into the main search engine index.
When you work with a reference, consider the result. In SEO metrics or money. If you are using internal links for marketing purposes - test, choose the best option.
If you do not have interlinking, implement it, you increase the time on the site, the number of page views.
If your site structure is built not on URLs, but on links, try to link within the thematic sections of the site.
If you don't know where to get links from, start a blog or content section.

A little practice

Two simple rules:

Correct or remove broken links.
Make sure important pages receive the largest number internal links.

Search for broken links on the site. How to check and quickly fix broken links for free?

The free Xenu program (you can download it from the official site) allows you to scan a small site in a few minutes and find broken links. Download, run. After installation:

To do this, use the Ctrl + R combination. A repeated error check is needed, because the program might have made a mistake - at the time of the check, the link might not be available, although in fact everything is in order. This can happen due to a second failure of the site, due to a too long server response. If after re-checking the errors remain, check what is wrong. In order to open a page with a broken link, you need:

Decoding:

Go to the properties of the URL with the "not found" status.
There is a broken link in the "Page URL" section.
The "N pages linking to this one" section lists the page (or pages) where this link is located.

All you have to do is fix the broken links.

How to find out the link weight of pages for internal linking?

For small sites (up to 2,000 pages), enough free version Page Weight Lite software, you can download it on the official website.

For small projects, 2 passes are enough to determine the most cited pages of the site. Exhibit greater importance it makes sense only if after two iterations the difference in weights differs slightly, and you cannot figure out which pages receive the most weight. It is best to ignore external links to calculate internal weight. Today they are there, tomorrow they are not --– so we disable this option.

Correct internal linking of website pages is one of the most important factors that has a direct impact on both its search engine promotion and the ability to effectively interact with the target audience.

What will we get if we are not too lazy and do this notorious linking correctly:

Convenience of visitors. Convenient when you can follow the link to receive additional material, and not look for it somewhere else.
... By clicking on the links, the reader views more pages and spends more time on the blog.
Increasing the page weight (PR) and, accordingly, the positions of these pages in the search results. Internal links transfer static weight as well as external ones. You can save a lot on buying links.
Complete and improved indexing of site pages.
Additional protection of content from theft from RSS feeds by autofilled sites. If there are internal links in the article, its text will be published along with them. Thus, I acquired several open backlinks to my resource :-).

Automatic internal linking

This type of linking is implemented most often using plugins and is very useful for improving the usability of the site and its.

With a competently performed automatic linking, the user will never get lost on your site and will always find something useful for himself with ease.

So, below is my scheme of automatic internal linking. The scheme can change over time.

A sitemap is a must-have page for any project (not to be confused with a sitemap for search engines). As any book contains its content, so any project should have a sitemap. Implemented with a plugin.
Bread crumbs. I have implemented this function through the Breadcrumb NavXT plugin. The reader can always look at the path traveled from the main page and return to any level back. It is useful for multilevel organization of records and is very popular with search engines.
Block of the most popular posts. If a recording is in demand, it means that it contains interesting and useful material. Visitors are encouraged to read it. Implemented via WP-PostViews plugin.
Author's signature with a link to the main page. This feature is made at the end of each article. Greatly adds PR to the main page.
At the bottom of each page, there is a duplication of the main blog menu. You can implement this in your footer. Write there the titles of your pages with links to them, here's an example:

Home | Gallery | Contacts | Subscription

In my opinion, this is more than enough for automatic internal linking. Many people put another block of similar posts at the end of the article. I did not do this on purpose for the following reasons:

Links from these blocks are not always thematic.
Excessive load on the server and, as a result, more slow loading pages.
A large number of links with the same anchor text is a big harm for internal optimization.
These blocks have long been numb to everyone's eyes and, according to statistics, their click-through rate is too low.
Excessive clutter of the blog with rubbish.

My advice to you is to demolish these blocks and breathe a sigh of relief.

Manual internal linking

This type of linking involves manually placing links from article to article. If in the case of automatic linking you don't need to do anything, then you will have to do a little work here. But on the other hand, the result will exceed all your expectations if done correctly.

Remember, manual internal linking is needed, first of all, to move to the TOP of search engine results for those articles of yours whose positions are sagging. So manual linking should be done purposefully, and not at random, so that it was.

So, select an article that is not in the TOP 10 (to reach the TOP 3, you most often have to buy external links). Here will help you free service(tab " Selection of requests»).

Do not be intimidated by the terrible numbers of your positions, the service displays only those requests for which promotion is necessary.

Or I also really like the Yandex Webmaster service. To select sagging pages go to Search queries → Popular queries .

Start with articles that aren't too far off 10 in the SERP.

Let's assume that you already know what keywords this article will be promoting by. If not, read the article first and only then continue reading. I advise you to do internal manual linking based on LF (low-frequency) requests.

Now we need to select several donor pages (from five to ten), on which you will place links to the promoted article. It is very easy to find them. Just in search string Yandex insert: “ your keyword site: http: // your domain ".

Yandex will display all relevant articles (descending from top to bottom) given request... All keywords in snippets will be bold. We make links from them.

For achievement positive result with manual internal linking, it is very important to observe the following rules:

1. Dilute anchors, for example, "here", "here", "here" and the like. Try to make no more than one links to the promoted page with a direct entry. The rest of the links with the same anchor text should not exceed 30%.

2. The number of links open for indexing on the donor page should be at the rate of 1 pc. for 1000 characters. For example, if there are 3000 characters in an article, place no more than 3 characters in it. open links... The more open links, the less weight each of them transfers. Cover unnecessary links with a tag.

3. The promoted article must be of high quality and be of real benefit to its readers. Otherwise, it won't last long in the TOP, no matter how you promote it.

4. Before promoting, check the optimization of the text of the promoted article. Its relevance to the search query must be 100%. I wrote how to do it.

5. Relink gradually through trial and error. First, get the desired result from promoting one article and only then proceed to the next.

Correct internal linking of site pages updated: April 29, 2017 by the author: Roman Vakhovsky