[Guide] Making the most of internal link building

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TooCorny said:
Will it work if I do add a menu but I Nofollow its items?
Click to expand...

I do that for a load of my sites. I can then have something asthetically pleasing for users and NOT going to mess up my anchor ratios with Google. Just remember that Google made nofollow a 'suggestion only' and not a commandment with the March 1st update. But I mentioned a few ways around that in one of my earlier replies which should fix that for you! ;)
 
fasttrak said:
However saying that. I was reading a cool case study on BHW last month where a member used Bitly to juice up his nav bar links and used normal linking in his body content. Smart.

I forget who it was, sorry to whoever you are, and thank you for the study and idea.

Please note: Again, I have not tried this personally, but it is interesting and might be worth looking at.



And free as well. No brainer.



I do that for one of my sites, but I do not use category pages on any of the others as I do not index them. Works well on the one I do index though.
Click to expand...
It's @ThisIsMyLife
Pretty smart tho.

Im gonna give it a try.
 
Interesting guide, but I don't agree with him. You've heard of html5? About the sections:

<article>
<nav>
<main>
<footer>

Google Bot knows perfectly well what the menu is and what the link is in the content.
 
Raoul_Duke said:
@fasttrak - it was the post from @ThisIsMyLife

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/implement-this-little-technique-and-see-the-results.1193931/

thanks for your interesting guides! :)
Click to expand...

Myst3ry said:
It's @ThisIsMyLife
Pretty smart tho.

Im gonna give it a try.
Click to expand...

Thanks for linking the post and crediting @ThisIsMyLife. It is an interesting concept, something I had not thought of previously, and one I will do a little test on myself. Nice thinking outside the box.
 
Something I use to bypass the first link count issue is playing with the anchors (not anchor texts). So, I would use http:/website.com/bats in the link from the menu and http:/website.com/bats#types inside articles; something like <a href="http:/website.com/bats#types"> wood baseball bats types</a>. Just make sure you put id="types" inside the tag (probably an H3 or H2) containing Types. Something like that <h3 id="types">1. Types</h3>. So, this way you have actually two links, with two different URLs poingting to the same page.

  • <a href="http:/website.com/bats">Bats/a> the menu bar
  • <a href="http:/website.com/bats#types">wood baseball bats types</a> - link inside posts

A funny thing I discovered (in Google Search Console) is that Google actually indexed URLs containing # (http://website.com/bats#types). Also, another benefit is that Google displays that URL containing # in SERPs to help visitors jump directly to that section, 1. Types, let's say. So, by indexing the URLs containing # I assume that Google is seeing them as unique URLs, so the links containing them are also considered unique.

Another option is to place the navigation area somewhere in a sidebar that appears after or below the main body area (the main body of your articles). This way, the links used for navigation will always be read/crawled the last. You can check this very easily by reading the source code of your pages. I am not a front end developer, but I assume there are some CSS tricks that can help you to put/insert the navigation elements below the content in the source code but do display them in some more visible areas.

Here is good article touching this topic https://moz.com/ugc/3-ways-to-avoid-the-first-link-counts-rule
 
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Thanks for the info, can't tell if it makes a difference, but I won't risk it :D took just a minute to move my navbar to the bottom of my html, so why not.
 
fasttrak said:
Internal link building is hugely important to ranking your money site, it is also really easy to get wrong. Something which I never see mentioned on BHW is the First Link Priority Rule, which is criminal.

If you do not know what it is, you are missing a trick and wasting your hard earned internal link juice.

So with that in mind, let me explain what it is and how you should be managing your internal link strategy.

Don't worry, it is really easy and can take you just a few minutes to fix your money site, and maybe even push pages stuck on page 2 to page 1.

A4VVWln
​


If you missed any of my previous guides, you can follow the links below to catch up.
  • https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ahrefs-hacks-4-part-guide.1202274/
  • https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ahrefs-hacks-guide-part-2.1203512/
  • https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/ahrefs-hacks-guide-part-3.1205843/
  • https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/another-ahrefs-trick-you-didnt-know-about.1202027/
  • https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/semrush-hacks-guide.1204498/ (this one is free...)
  • https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/method-semrush-hacks-guide-part-2.1211806/(NEW)
  • https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/method-how-to-find-if-a-google-update-hit-your-site-free-no-costly-seo-tools-required.1207195/ (100% free - no tools required)

Smart Internal Link Building - First Link Priority Rule



So how does this effect your money site? How are you losing your valuable link juice?

Imagine you have 2 links on the same internal page, both pointing to your money page, which anchor text does Google prioritise?

According to this rule, it is simple, the 1st one.

How does this work in practice?

Do you have navigation bar on your site? Yeah, me too. Does it look like this one?

dMZuBnq

​

Yeah, I know, I am back to baseball bats again, I told you before, I am lazy.

Anyway, why could this be a problem?

Well perhaps you have written a great supporting article to link to your Wood Baseball Bats money page. Maybe it looks something like this.

F7eeiTM


​
Nice content, nice keyword rich link to your money site.

Unfortunately, Google sees this.


nYiZRs3

​

So Google ignores the "wood baseball bats" link in the copy, which is the actual KW you are trying to rank, and uses "Bats". After all, who in their right mind is trying to rank Bats or even Baseball Bats. That is not low hanging fruit, which is where I prefer to play and bank.

Lesson

A navigation bar is not just there to make your site look REAL. If you put a link on it, Google will prioritise it as it comes 1st on your page, and your hard worked content and keyword rich anchor was for nothing....

So either use keyword rich anchors that you are targeting to rank in the navigation bar, or remove it completely.

Bonus Tip - Remember to consider KW anchor density when you are planning your site structure. You do not want to destroy your anchor text ratio and your money page, which is why many of us have navigation bars with Nofollow links only.

Bonus Tip 2 - Remember that Google has recently implemented an algorithm change (March 1st), and now takes your Nofollow commands as a 'suggestion' only. :mad:

Conclusion

Simple onsite SEO changes like this one can make all the difference from you having lots of dead bodies on page 2 or lots of money pages ranking on page 1.

Hopefully this helps some of you move up the serps, and best of all, it is pretty easy to implement.


Let me know what you think and if this is something you want more of? If so, I will get to work on some more.

:):):)

↓↓ This guide has been brought to you by ↓↓
Click to expand...

Does that mean that if you are using anchor text links in your copy you should only use 1 anchor link and that's it and not insert a second or third link in the copy. Assuming that you are not using any links in the navigation bar?
 
Sburator said:
Something I use to bypass the first link count issue is playing with the anchors (not anchor texts). So, I would use http:/website.com/bats in the link from the menu and http:/website.com/bats#types inside articles; something like <a href="http:/website.com/bats#types"> wood baseball bats types</a>. Just make sure you put id="types" inside the tag (probably an H3 or H2) containing Types. Something like that <h3 id="types">1. Types</h3>. So, this way you have actually two links, with two different URLs poingting to the same page.

  • <a href="http:/website.com/bats">Bats/a> the menu bar
  • <a href="http:/website.com/bats#types">wood baseball bats types</a> - link inside posts

A funny thing I discovered (in Google Search Console) is that Google actually indexed URLs containing # (http://website.com/bats#types). Also, another benefit is that Google displays that URL containing # in SERPs to help visitors jump directly to that section, 1. Types, let's say. So, by indexing the URLs containing # I assume that Google is seeing them as unique URLs, so the links containing them are also considered unique.

Another option is to place the navigation area somewhere in a sidebar that appears after or below the main body area (the main body of your articles). This way, the links used for navigation will always be read/crawled the last. You can check this very easily by reading the source code of your pages. I am not a front end developer, but I assume there are some CSS tricks that can help you to put/insert the navigation elements below the content in the source code but do display them in some more visible areas.

Here is good article touching this topic https://moz.com/ugc/3-ways-to-avoid-the-first-link-counts-rule
Click to expand...

I mentioned using the hash workaround, plus a couple more workarounds in my 1st reply on page 1, but CSS is an interesting idea also. You just have to remember that Google reads page code, so where CSS creates the visual structure, it does not necessarily translate well in to a workaround. Probably a lot simpler and safer to use any of the link methods.

AnonMouseBH said:
always important, cheers for the information
Click to expand...

Thanks

Aulig said:
Thanks for the info, can't tell if it makes a difference, but I won't risk it :D took just a minute to move my navbar to the bottom of my html, so why not.
Click to expand...

That is one way of achieving the result ;)

seopenguin said:
Does that mean that if you are using anchor text links in your copy you should only use 1 anchor link and that's it and not insert a second or third link in the copy. Assuming that you are not using any links in the navigation bar?
Click to expand...

You can use as many as you like, but Google will weight the 1st most heavily. I use the same link in a 4k word article a few times, the 1st has perfect anchor text for SEO purposes, the rest are click here, more information, this guide etc. Something which gets the visitor increasing their dwell time on my sites.

Please note: you do not want to use exact anchor text too much, even for internal links, as Google is definitely penalising sites for over optimisation of KW anchor text. I had a few sites hit in Oct 2019 and again in Feb this year and by diluting my KW anchor text they recovered VERY quickly. So be aware of that.

Wolfy Ofspring said:
Great share.
Click to expand...

Thank you
 
habibhahaha said:
So now wouldn't it be better to try to rank for internal pages for which you don't have a link on the navbar?
Thanks for info.
Click to expand...

It is widely believed that Google does not consider navigation links and gives contextual links more prominence. How does this stack up with OP's guide?
 
OlafRustle said:
I am not sure if this is true. This would mean that sites with a menu would not see any benefit from internal linking...
Click to expand...
Exactly what I was thinking. It's also widely acknowledged that Google in most cases ignores navigation links when it comes to link juice...
 
Although its true to some extent that Google devalues link depending on several factors (http://www.seobythesea.com/2010/05/...pon-link-and-document-features-and-user-data/) but based on Quality Rater Guidelines, google classifies your site in main content vs non-main content and Menus/Footers are often considered as not main-content.

So a link from non-main content wont be considered anyway

Also as far as i recall this first link priority rules apply to "external links" only...but i might be wrong :)
 
seoz87 said:
Although its true to some extent that Google devalues link depending on several factors (http://www.seobythesea.com/2010/05/...pon-link-and-document-features-and-user-data/) but based on Quality Rater Guidelines, google classifies your site in main content vs non-main content and Menus/Footers are often considered as not main-content.

So a link from non-main content wont be considered anyway

Also as far as i recall this first link priority rules apply to "external links" only...but i might be wrong :)
Click to expand...

this
 
Sburator said:
Something I use to bypass the first link count issue is playing with the anchors (not anchor texts). So, I would use http:/website.com/bats in the link from the menu and http:/website.com/bats#types inside articles; something like <a href="http:/website.com/bats#types"> wood baseball bats types</a>. Just make sure you put id="types" inside the tag (probably an H3 or H2) containing Types. Something like that <h3 id="types">1. Types</h3>. So, this way you have actually two links, with two different URLs poingting to the same page.

  • <a href="http:/website.com/bats">Bats/a> the menu bar
  • <a href="http:/website.com/bats#types">wood baseball bats types</a> - link inside posts

A funny thing I discovered (in Google Search Console) is that Google actually indexed URLs containing # (http://website.com/bats#types). Also, another benefit is that Google displays that URL containing # in SERPs to help visitors jump directly to that section, 1. Types, let's say. So, by indexing the URLs containing # I assume that Google is seeing them as unique URLs, so the links containing them are also considered unique.

Another option is to place the navigation area somewhere in a sidebar that appears after or below the main body area (the main body of your articles). This way, the links used for navigation will always be read/crawled the last. You can check this very easily by reading the source code of your pages. I am not a front end developer, but I assume there are some CSS tricks that can help you to put/insert the navigation elements below the content in the source code but do display them in some more visible areas.

Here is good article touching this topic https://moz.com/ugc/3-ways-to-avoid-the-first-link-counts-rule
Click to expand...

i need to give a try for this. Sound very useful.
 
Hello to all precious member of this community..
I am a newbie here so apologize if i did something wrong..

I have been here for a long time and read all the threads of ahrefs tricks and guides by which I am able to imply those methods and grow my pinterest account.. I thank this community for it.

I am getting more than 100k monthly views on my profile, and some good link clicks to a website but my problem is how can I make the most out of my pinterest account..

Are there any other ways that I can implement to make money fast?
 
Koffein said:
i need to give a try for this. Sound very useful.
Click to expand...

You simply need to take this in to consideration when you are planning the layout of your sites. Most of the time, we do anyway ;)

sowmyasri said:
Great share Thanks for posting Informative post..
Click to expand...

Your welcome.

Websettled said:
Hello to all precious member of this community..
I am a newbie here so apologize if i did something wrong..

I have been here for a long time and read all the threads of ahrefs tricks and guides by which I am able to imply those methods and grow my pinterest account.. I thank this community for it.

I am getting more than 100k monthly views on my profile, and some good link clicks to a website but my problem is how can I make the most out of my pinterest account..

Are there any other ways that I can implement to make money fast?
Click to expand...

This question is a bit off topic from this thread, but the way I use Pinterest is to simply drive traffic to my money sites. For example I have an account that gets about 600k interactions per month and generates 1500 clicks per month to money pages on that site. Obviously the pins I have created are designed to get users to click through for more information, and hopefully click my affiliate links.

There are a few Pinterest AMA's on BHW that you might want to check out, as the folk running those threads know a LOT more about Pinterest than me.

But I hope this helps a bit? :)
 
Hmm thanks great idea. How about if the first link is the logo and the second in the menu has your keyword? Should I nofollow the logo link?
 
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