links for seo - Express Writers

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Internal Linking & Its Importance in SEO with Sarah Danks

December 31, 2020June 9, 2017 by Rachel Moffett

The latest #ContentWritingChat was all about SEO as we talked about the importance of internal linking. In this chat, some amazing tips were shared regarding this tactic and how you can use it in building your own website’s online presence. If you’re ready to learn more about it, keep reading for the recap! #ContentWritingChat Recap: Internal Linking & Its Importance in SEO with Sarah Danks Join us for #ContentWritingChat on Tuesday, June 6th at 10 AM Central Time with @ThinkSEM! pic.twitter.com/XOUOS7Vit2 — Express Writers (@ExpWriters) June 3, 2017 Our guest host this week was Sarah Danks from ThinkSEM. She’s their Digital Strategist and is no stranger to a great Twitter chat. In fact, if you’re a regular participant you’ve likely noticed Sarah in our chat before, as she typically joins us every week. It was great having a regular participant step into the guest hosting role and she shared some fantastic advice with all of us. Q1: Why are internal links important? To kick off the chat, we asked everyone to share why they felt internal linking was an important part of SEO. Here’s what a few of our participants said: A1: The World Wide Web is all about connections. What’s related to this content? What else is relevant to my search? #ContentWritingChat https://t.co/MJNwGN1WzR — ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) June 6, 2017 Aii: And it doesn’t get more relevant than showing the relationship between pages on your own website! #ContentWritingChat — ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) June 6, 2017 As Sarah pointed out, the web is all about connections. Internal linking allows you to to connect pieces of relevant content to one another. You’re able to show the relationship between pages on your own website, which is a great way to keep them on your site longer. A1 If SEO is a house, internal linking is the framework of the house. It moves your “traffic” from room to room onsite. #ContentWritingChat — Julia McCoy ? (@JuliaEMcCoy) June 6, 2017 Julia’s response is really a helpful way to think of internal linking. It helps to move traffic from room to room onsite. This basically means it keeps people from moving from page to page once they’ve first landed on your site. It’s key if you want to keep someone digging into the depths of your archives. A1: Internal links spread your authority and ranking through the site and builds structure! #ContentWritingChat — Jeff Higgins (@ItsJeffHiggins) June 6, 2017 Jeff knows that building up those internal links is a good way to increase your authority with your audience. And who wouldn’t want that?! A1. They help make you a credible, reliable source by showing readers that you’re the authority! #contentwritingchat — Kristen Dunleavy (@KristenWritesIt) June 6, 2017 Kristen also mentioned it’s a way to show you’re a credible and reliable source and builds your authority. A1: Makes it easy for everyone. Without these, people will go elsewhere for answers and info. #ContentWritingChat — Jeremy Murphy (@jeremypmurphy) June 6, 2017 By providing internal links, it also makes it easier for your readers to find more relevant content. As Jeremy pointed out, people will go elsewhere to find what they’re looking for if you don’t give it to them. So, if you have more content you know they’d enjoy, link to it! A1: Internal links help guide your audience through your site to other valuable/actionable content #contentwritingchat — Elizabeth Greenberg (@BettaBeYou) June 6, 2017 Elizabeth feels internal linking helps guide your audience through your site and leads them to other valuable, actionable content. Keep that in mind when adding links to content so you can be sure you’re sending them somewhere worthwhile. Q2: How do internal links affect overall site structure? Now that you know the importance of internal linking, you should also know how it’s going to affect the overall structure of your website. Here are a few responses we received in Tuesday’s chat: A2: Internal links are a major part of website architecture. A well-linked site is easy to navigate.#ContentWritingChat https://t.co/R2ISQMC1eI — ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) June 6, 2017 A2ii: Conversely, if the linking between pages is sparse it will be difficult to find related content or even convert.#ContentWritingChat — ThinkSEM (@ThinkSEM) June 6, 2017 As Sarah pointed out, a well-linked site is easy to navigate. This is great for visitors to your site because you want everything to be accessible. There’s nothing worse than a site that makes it difficult to find what you’re looking for. Also, if you’re lacking when it comes to links, it makes it harder for readers to find related content. It can also make it more difficult to get them to convert. A2) It offers flow & stability. Internal linking saves the users from thinking where to find additional content. #ContentWritingChat — Jason Schemmel (@JasonSchemmel) June 6, 2017 Jason said internal linking offers flow and stability. Instead of forcing your reader to figure out what to do next or where to go, you can direct them to additional content. Don’t leave it up to them, otherwise there’s a greater chance they’ll leave your site. A2: It helps create a hierarchy of your content and allows users to flow from broad content to more specific content. #ContentWritingChat — Pinpoint Laser (@PinpointLaser) June 6, 2017 This is another important thing to consider! Linking helps create a hierarchy of your content. Through those links, a reader can flow from broad content to more specific content that’s still relevant. A2) Done correctly, Internal linking helps customers more easily find relevant information on their topics of interest. #contentwritingchat pic.twitter.com/batd9sXPaV — Jeff Reno(e) ? (@Renoe) June 6, 2017 Jenn knows internal linking is going to help customers easily find the relevant information they’re looking for while on your site. Make sure you’re taking advantage of that by directing them to the next page you think they’d be interested in. A2: Internal linking is like a roadmap… you can subtlely lead your viewer where you would like them. #contentwritingchat pic.twitter.com/lXEy22t4Q0 — Sarah Nelson (@Blogging_Geek) June 6, 2017 Think of … Read more

A Military Combat Writer Takes a Look at SEO

December 31, 2020March 20, 2015 by Dan Blottenbergerd

Dan, one of our full time writers, is the guest author of this blog. With degrees in communication and history, Dan has been a professional writer in the U.S. military as a combat correspondent for over eight years, and was a journalist for the Stars and Stripes European edition. His experience has included penning press releases from a cot in the deserts of Iraq, and writing breaking news from his Ford Focus in a Bavarian snowstorm. We asked him to write about how Google looks at SEO and linking strategy. Ok, let’s start with a little disclaimer. I am fairly new to the SEO world. I have been writing professionally for a decade now, but somehow missed out on how to increase search engine rankings while I was following U.S. soldiers around in Iraq. I always assumed you write something interesting people read it, and it moves up on the SERP. But now I am finding there is far more to it than I initially thought. After leaving the military I realized I was missing a lot of skills that were necessary to be an effective multimedia journalist or copywriter in today’s Web-driven market. So after two college degrees, a certification course in SEO copywriting, and a lot of time spent on YouTube watching Google’s experts talk about this stuff, and daily practical use of creating original content at Express Writers, I am starting to get the hang of it. From reading some of the SEO and copywriting experts’ articles on the subject, I noticed how links were very helpful when gathering research on a topic. So, I decided to use links more often when I was writing. I began to research links and found out it is hard to know a natural link from what Google considers an unnatural link. Now, I feel like I have to cross my fingers when including a link with a post online? Man, I hope Google does not flag this one. You never really know do you? Sometimes you can write a quality post, with a unique angle, with links connecting to what you view as beneficial content for your reader and it can be flagged as an unnatural link. There are two possible problems here. One, Google thinks your post or the link you are using is, in fact, low quality. Two, there is a discrepancy in what you think a natural link is and what Google’s algorithm thinks a natural link is. Google’s algorithm is not perfect. You can deliver an excellent post with solid “natural” links, and somehow you could still get flagged, or the site linking to you also could get tagged. The problem is Google does not precisely define natural links, leaving SEO gurus a bit agitated. “Natural links to your site develop as part of the dynamic nature of the web when other sites find your content valuable and think it would be helpful for their visitors,” according to Google. Natural links are the only links valuable to your search results. But this is often simply not the case. You can write posts specifically for the benefit of your targeted audience and still get flagged by Google because your link is somehow still being labeled unnatural. “Unnatural links to your site are placed there specifically to make your site look more popular to search engines,” explains Google. To make sure of this I consulted SEO experts with far more experience than myself. In her recent blog on Search Engine Land, Julie Joyce points out that not all user-generated links are useful links, even if they appeared to pass all the natural link rules. It seems that even if you are producing natural content, it could still get pinged either manually or by the Big G machine. Google lists examples of these types of links as link schemes and doorway pages. Ok, I understand Google’s algorithm is based on links, and quality search results drive their business. Hence, the reason they try everything in their power to make sure link schemes or doorway pages are not impacting rankings. But there is a fine line between link schemes, doorway pages, and keyword phrases. Right? What if I am car rental service in Tampa, Florida? Of course, I am going to mention Tampa as a key phrase, but what if Google’s algorithm figures my website is a doorway page. “Multiple pages on your site with similar content designed to rank for specific queries like city or state names.” As the basis of the Google algorithm ranking system, links will be around for a long time. Simply because there is no better alternative at the moment, according to Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team. The better the links are connecting to your site the higher you rank in search results. The problem is spam and the use of manipulative links and Google’s algorithm’s inability to accurately decipher between natural and unnatural links. How To Create Successful Links in Your SEO Content On their Webmaster Guidelines Google gives this explains guidance: “The best way to get other sites to create high-quality, relevant links to yours is to create unique, relevant content that can naturally gain popularity in the Internet community.” Useful content equals more links to other sites because readers’ find value in what you write. So what is the best way to make your content go viral without upsetting Google? If you follow Google’s error message guidance for “thin content with little to no added value”, there are several easy to follow characteristics of what is considered user-centric content. In other words, content that will get you better rankings. You need to ask yourself the following things: Does this content add value to my readers? Will it benefit my reader? Is this content original? Is this content unique or does it have a unique angle? Things such as thin affiliations or syndication will cause a page or Website to be flagged and sometimes removed from Google’s search results. So, it seems … Read more