Why is interlinking so important for SEO?
This is the million-dollar question that is on everyone’s mind. When Google’s John Mueller was asked this question.
He answered the question about interlinking and, affirmed that interlinking that extends beyond site breadcrumb navigation is one of the “biggest things” a publisher can do to tell Google.
What is the most crucial content?
Breadcrumb navigation
It enables website visitors to move across a website in a natural and seamless manner. Visitors will be able to see where they are on your site with breadcrumb navigation, making it easier for them to figure out how to go where they want to go.
This is especially important if you have a lot of pages with multiple subsections on each one. Breadcrumbs will show your readers or customers which page they are on and where else on your site they may go for further information.
Breadcrumb structured data
Under the title of a Google search, you’ll frequently observe breadcrumb structured data. The breadcrumb structured data is linked to your own website, with each item relating to a different section; this allows users to navigate across your website and return home if desired.
Breadcrumbs are a fantastic method to help customers navigate your site without getting lost or seeing items that aren’t relevant to them, and they also help Google identify what content is connected so that their sites appear when users search for them.
Is Breadcrumb structured data enough for internal linking?
A person who is asking this question wanted to know if setting up breadcrumb structured data is sufficient for interlinking for SEO.
Interlinking is important
Interlinking, according to Google’s John Mueller, is a way to connect with Google more than internal navigation links can.
If interlinking was important, John Mueller responded
“Yes absolutely.
It’s something where internal linking is supercritical for SEO.
I think it’s one of the biggest things that you can do on a website to kind of guide Google and guide visitors to the pages that you think are important.
And what you think is important is totally up to you. You can decide to make things important where you earn the most money or you can make things important where you are the strongest competitor or maybe you are the weakest competitor.
With internal linking, you can really kind of focus things on those directions and those parts of your site.
And that’s not something that you can just replace with structured data. So just there is structured data on a page somewhere, I wouldn’t see that as a replacement for normal interlinking.
Even if in the structured data you also provide URLs, we don’t use those URLs in the same way as we would use normal internal links on a page.
So, it’s definitely not the case that hreflang annotations replace links between country versions or breadcrumb annotations replace links between different levels of a website.
You should really have normal HTML links between the different parts of your website.
And ideally, you should not just have a basic set of links, but rather you should look at it in a strategic way and think about what do you care about the most and how can you highlight that with your internal linking.”
Why Internal Linking is Important?
Internal linking was not mentioned as a ranking criterion by John Mueller. He said that it’s merely a good way to tell Google which pages on a site are important.
If we take a step back and consider how a website is structured, we can see that the structure of a standard website resembles a pyramid.
The summit of the pyramid is a little point that usually contains basic information about the site and the services it provides.
As you navigate through the layers of categories and subcategories via the site navigation, the topics progress from highly general (at the top) to progressively particular (at the bottom of that pyramid site structure).
Strategic internal linking, according to John Mueller, is a strategy to direct Google and site users to the most popular or significant topics.
Interlinking can help Google and site visitors get to vital content more quickly.
As Mueller recommended
“…You should look at it in a strategic way and think about what do you care about the most and how can you highlight that with your internal linking.”
The significance of internal linking is not for “tricking” Google into thinking that a web page is relevant for ABC. It tells search engines what pages are important. Internal linking is just a way to point to your vital content and make sure that search engines can find it and rank it.
Conclusion
Without links, you cannot rank your content! By having a solid content marketing strategy, you can show which content is more related and which of your articles are most informative and valuable. If you follow the guidelines mentioned in this article both Google and your users will understand your site better, which will, in turn, increase your chances of ranking.
When it comes to interlinking for SEO it is advisable that you take the assistance of a professional digital marketing agency. Come to Stellar Digital we have a skilled team of digital marketers that can provide quality solutions. Simply, visit stellardigital.in and check out our digital marketing and SEO services.
