How many internal links does my content need? See what a new study found out about this
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 3:50 am
Ashley Rodriguez
Jun 8, 22 | 6 min read
Reading time: 5 minutes
A link building strategy is essential to give solidity to any SEO plan. This includes not only obtaining external links to generate more authority, but also exploring internal links (and not underestimating the opportunities they provide).
In fact, a new study conducted by Zyppy , a company focused on SEO solutions, showed how internal links, when used correctly, can be a pretty powerful strategy to increase traffic.
Most marketers focused more on guest posts or getting backlinks , which are also very effective strategies, although it is interesting that, according to a study by Backlinko , 94% of the content in the world does not have any external links.
However, Zyppy did show data that reinforces the taiwan email list importance of working on your internal linking tactics as a vital part of any SEO strategy.
But if you think working with internal links is a piece of cake… think again. You’ll see that taking care of your URLs is not a simple task; just keep in mind that 66.5% of links are to websites that are deactivated , making it a huge challenge for SEO professionals and marketers.
Let's dig deeper into that study to see what insights we can gain for your strategies. Shall we look at them together?
The study
Before we discuss our ideas and advice, it is important to understand the characteristics of this study and how it was conducted:
Zyppy analyzed 23 million internal links across 1,800 websites, representing approximately 520,000 individual URLs. They then compared these to Google Search Console data to determine the search clicks for each URL.
The Internet is home to 1.6 billion sites in total . For this research, they used 23 million internal links. Although this is a large number, it only represents a small portion of the entire web.
This is a correlation study, meaning we're going to look at how one factor relates to another. It's not necessarily scientific, but it can be very useful when planning your next strategy.
The discoveries
Something that is very interesting to see is how internal links work for these sites.
The study found that URLs with at least 40-44 internal links received 8 clicks, while those with 10-14 links only received 2 Google search clicks.
But those clicks start to drop and then rise again as we add more and more internal links. Basically, they remain unstable.
It should be noted that this research does not specify whether these are unique links in the body of the text or navigation links. So we can easily assume that when it comes to 40-45 links in a URL, most of them come from the site navigation itself.
The big question is: how to find a balance between navigational links and unique links? This is where information architecture and anchor texts play an important role in a link strategy.
This is supported by research.
The importance of site structure
Today's consumers have higher expectations when it comes to website usability. The issue goes beyond site development. Good SEO optimization must take into account the site architecture from the start of the project.
ADVERTISEMENT
It is necessary to think of navigation links as something that will complement the information architecture of the website.
I like to think of information architecture as building a house; the first thing you'll probably see is a living room, and each hallway will lead you to other places in the house, such as the kitchen or bedroom. A website works the same way, looking for usability and experience.
This is how you need to rethink your internal link building.
Jun 8, 22 | 6 min read
Reading time: 5 minutes
A link building strategy is essential to give solidity to any SEO plan. This includes not only obtaining external links to generate more authority, but also exploring internal links (and not underestimating the opportunities they provide).
In fact, a new study conducted by Zyppy , a company focused on SEO solutions, showed how internal links, when used correctly, can be a pretty powerful strategy to increase traffic.
Most marketers focused more on guest posts or getting backlinks , which are also very effective strategies, although it is interesting that, according to a study by Backlinko , 94% of the content in the world does not have any external links.
However, Zyppy did show data that reinforces the taiwan email list importance of working on your internal linking tactics as a vital part of any SEO strategy.
But if you think working with internal links is a piece of cake… think again. You’ll see that taking care of your URLs is not a simple task; just keep in mind that 66.5% of links are to websites that are deactivated , making it a huge challenge for SEO professionals and marketers.
Let's dig deeper into that study to see what insights we can gain for your strategies. Shall we look at them together?
The study
Before we discuss our ideas and advice, it is important to understand the characteristics of this study and how it was conducted:
Zyppy analyzed 23 million internal links across 1,800 websites, representing approximately 520,000 individual URLs. They then compared these to Google Search Console data to determine the search clicks for each URL.
The Internet is home to 1.6 billion sites in total . For this research, they used 23 million internal links. Although this is a large number, it only represents a small portion of the entire web.
This is a correlation study, meaning we're going to look at how one factor relates to another. It's not necessarily scientific, but it can be very useful when planning your next strategy.
The discoveries
Something that is very interesting to see is how internal links work for these sites.
The study found that URLs with at least 40-44 internal links received 8 clicks, while those with 10-14 links only received 2 Google search clicks.
But those clicks start to drop and then rise again as we add more and more internal links. Basically, they remain unstable.
It should be noted that this research does not specify whether these are unique links in the body of the text or navigation links. So we can easily assume that when it comes to 40-45 links in a URL, most of them come from the site navigation itself.
The big question is: how to find a balance between navigational links and unique links? This is where information architecture and anchor texts play an important role in a link strategy.
This is supported by research.
The importance of site structure
Today's consumers have higher expectations when it comes to website usability. The issue goes beyond site development. Good SEO optimization must take into account the site architecture from the start of the project.
ADVERTISEMENT
It is necessary to think of navigation links as something that will complement the information architecture of the website.
I like to think of information architecture as building a house; the first thing you'll probably see is a living room, and each hallway will lead you to other places in the house, such as the kitchen or bedroom. A website works the same way, looking for usability and experience.
This is how you need to rethink your internal link building.