Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks

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Home » Link Building

Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 6

Submitted by R.J. Breakaway Adams on Wednesday, 18 June 200816 Comments

Click here to read from the beginning of the internal link building series.

I’m not going to go into the importance of building internal links, (for that, click above for the whole series), but I just want to let you know, it’s important! For a brief description, internal link building is building links between the pages or posts on your website or blog, in order for better reader usability, and for better search engine crawling.

The problem I have when doing internal link building is that I usually link to the same sites. You’ll probably find tons of links to my What Is DoFollow? What Is NoFollow? post and of course tons of links to DoFollow Diver. But, I have almost 50 posts, but I link to the same handful all of the time. Although that’s really building up THOSE pages, other, perfectly great posts, aren’t getting the exposure they deserve.

Well, I found out a way to see which sites are being neglected when it comes to internal link building. That tool, is Google Webmaster Tools…

Follow these steps:
1) Choose which site (your site should be already added to GWT, if not, add it….)
2) Click “Links” on the left sidebar.
3) Click “Pages with internal links.”
4) Then, look in the “internal links” column and see which posts have the least amount of internal links.

For me, Dofollow Diver has 70 links on my site…. whereas The Ultimate List of CommentLuv Blogs and How NOT to Build Backlinks only have less than 7 links each! That’s 1/10th of the amount of internal links! They don’t all have to be equal, but it definitely helps me to identify what pages I should link to more.

I hope this really helps you to build more backlinks to your internal pages. It sure has enlightened me, and makes me remember that I have many posts that I can link to and share with my readers.

Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Prequel
Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 1
Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 2
Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 3
Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 4
Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 5
Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 6

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16 Comments »

Gadgets said:

I read all your internal link building series. Internal linkink is very usefull for geting backlink from our internal pages and it is also helpful for optimize each and every pages.

- 19 June 2008 at 1:53 am

Traffic: Your Focus Point As An Internet Marketer : IM Conversations With Sonja (author) said:

[...] Using Internal Linking to Build Backlinks - Part 6 [...]

- 19 June 2008 at 11:12 am

All Weeds Episodes said:

Google Webmaster Tools sucks especially if you have a new website. It takes a week just to get indexed. I’d advise websites not to use this mechanism until they have a full developed website and is already have a majority amount of their pages indexed.

Lamonte

- 19 June 2008 at 11:49 am

teeth whitening strips said:

More backlinks pointing to your internal pages really help boost your rankings. It works very nicely when the site is established. Ranking high for competitive keywords was never easier

- 19 June 2008 at 2:57 pm

Breakaway said:

I agree…. but if you have a brand new site with only 5 pages, and you have troubles doing internal linking to all 5 pages, then you’re doing something wrong, ya know? =) This is for managing bigger sites, and building internal links to all of your pages.

- 19 June 2008 at 3:48 pm

All Weeds Episodes said:

100% agree, nice article

- 19 June 2008 at 3:54 pm

Dennis Edell said:

This helps a lot actually. I’ve been very lax up to now in checking out GWT. I must do it!

Dennis Edells last blog post..7 Turbo Writing Tips

- 20 June 2008 at 9:18 am

Tool Belts said:

great article I need to go back and re-read the whole series. Thanks

- 20 June 2008 at 9:49 am

Jeremy said:

Which would be better for internal linking?

a) a href=”/page/”

or

b) a href=”http://www.blog.com/page/”

or

does it not matter?

- 20 June 2008 at 11:59 am

Breakaway said:

I do the full linking… even when designing themes and stuff, i always do the full linking. I don’t know if it’s better or not, but it seems better to me, so that’s what I do. No specific logic to it, but yah.

- 20 June 2008 at 12:20 pm

Uncle Che said:

I never took internal link building seriously. I always concentrated on external links, but your series has given me light on this. One question, though. HOW DO I ENSURE THAT MY INTERNAL LINKS ARE NOFOLLOW FREE?

Uncle Ches last blog post..Blogging – Love, Willingness and Ability

- 20 June 2008 at 11:08 pm

Breakaway said:

Well, add the links in the post or site page. Then, just using Firefox, go to that page, and with the find nofollow Firefox plugin i talked about, see if it is or isn’t. 90% of the time, it probably will be dofollow, and you don’t have to worry.

If it is nofollow, shoot me a message on the contact form, and I’ll help you debug it.

- 21 June 2008 at 3:20 am

Dennis Edell said:

Silly question - do internal links have to be do follow? When the spiders crawl, don’t they see all and where they lead?

I dunno, this just seemed different then outgoing links to me…like comments and such.

Dennis Edells last blog post..7 Turbo Writing Tips

- 21 June 2008 at 11:57 am

Breakaway said:

They CAN be dofollow, but then it’d be treated just like any dofollow link. There are many reasons for internal linking:

1) Your visitors can click through to more pages, which means more pageviews (for those with banners based on pageviews) more time on site (so more chances to click ads) and more likely to subscribe/bookmark the longer they stay at your site.

2) Search engine crawling… it allows the search engines to crawl throughout your site more.

3) It passes your page rank to all of your internal pages. People go back and forth about if page rank matters or not, but if you ever are planning to sell your site, PR increases the $$$ you receive.

Hope that kinda clears up the use of nofollow in internal linking. Some people make their about page and contact pages links nofollow, since those pages don’t really need pagerank and authority anyway.

- 21 June 2008 at 2:20 pm

Dennis Edell said:

I knew all the benefits to it, I just didn’t know that it was best to be do-follow, since the SE’s were there anyway. I forgot about passing PR from page to page though.

Dennis Edells last blog post..7 Turbo Writing Tips

- 21 June 2008 at 4:20 pm

Bonnie said: