I Think This ONE FACTOR is Causing a Huge Spike in My Traffic
This post may make you roll your eyes, but when they come back to the right position, make sure to try this out. Hahahaha.
There are quite a few metrics that can lead to posts ranking. One of those metrics is internal links.
Most of us remember to put an internal link in each post, and we definitely don't forget to add an affiliate link, but we might forget that when we're posting a new article, it needs links going to it.
What is an orphaned post?
Google measures the importance and relevance of your content partially based on how many times you link to it. If you have a post that you link to quite a bit, then Google would assume that out of all of the posts on your site, that one post is one of importance.
If you have a post you don't link to at all, it's called an "orphaned post" and Google would assume, it's not as important in context to your website.
Internal links are like navigation signs. Can you imagine what the airport would be like if there were no signs helping you get around? It's the same feel when we don't add internal links.
People can't get to the good content you have if they don't know about it, so add your links to be helpful to them. Take time adding your internal links to your posts so your internal linking is well thought out.
I Started Experimenting with Internal Links
Starting around Christmas 2019, I started going thru my articles and looking for "orphaned posts". At the time, I had well over 200 orphaned posts which is HORRIBLE!
It's like the posts I really like are the ones I'd add links to, but I'd forget to put links to other posts. After you have quite a few posts, you forget what you said in each one, and it gets harder to remember which post would offer relevant value to the reader.
Either way, I decided to go thru many of my orphaned posts, and see how my website rank would improve if I improved my internal linking plan. I believe this one change has contributed to some of the great results I'm seeing with my posts that are ranking.
I'm seeing drastic growth in search traffic month over month, and I'm way past the "sandbox" period.
Sarah Titus - Another Case Study Aside from Mine
Sarah Titus is a blogger who earns $300,000+ per month selling printables from her blog. She has massive traffic (like 1 million+ pageviews per month). She said one key that helped her break the glass ceiling with her traffic was internal links.
Like me, she had lots of posts and many of them were orphaned posts. As a result, she was seeing a glass ceiling with her traffic until she combed thru and added more internal links. Here's a quote directly from her:
" Even if you start with just the top 10 most popular posts on your site, you will notice a HUGE increase. On my most popular post on my site, I added 7 more links to it of my own content in a list form and depending on the day and week, it has gone up 5-10% in traffic to those list links!
That’s about 70-143 clicks a DAY for that ONE post. Doesn’t sound impressive? Think about it in terms of this:
143 more clicks a day is 4,290 clicks a month or 51,480 clicks a year. Even 4,000 clicks isn’t going to make you FLY, BUT…if you do this with ALL your popular posts, let’s say you have 60 popular posts and you take 4,290 x 60. That’s TWO HUNDRED FIFTY SEVEN THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED clicks a month!!!!! Get that?
It’s 257,400/month MORE just by simply updating your most popular posts."
This is Simple and Free
I personally decided to use a plugin called Link Whisper to help stay on top of this. If you're interested, you can see a demo of it on my Youtube channel (check my profile). Even without the plugin, you can do this for free, and it can be very simple if you don't have alot of content.
For Sarah, she said, this one tactic helped her reach 1 million pageviews per month. Of course, she has alot of content and with her math, you can see she had alot of traffic anyway, but this was a key factor that took it up a notch for her. She says it's one of the most important factors.
I know for sure that my posts with my highest number of internal links are doing amazing in the search rankings, so I believe what she's saying is a key factor that we shouldn't overlook.
Jaaxy Tells us how Many Internal Links other Sites Have
Nowadays,when I'm doing my keyword research, I analye my competitors pretty closely. I use the Jaaxy Search Analysis feature (that not many people talk about) and analyze how many internal links my competitors have when I'm trying to compete for a keyword. It lets me know how many relevant articles they think they have on their website, and helps me to see what I may need to do to claim a ranking.
Of course, this isn't the only factor, but I do believe it plays a huge role in improving the user experience, time on page, and overall winning a spot on the first page in search.
My Warning to You
I'd recommend you go thru your posts and see if each of your posts has a link to it. The ones that don't have a link to it, add one (if you have enough relevant content). If you don't have enough relevant content, consider making more relevant content, so you can get rid of those orphaned posts.
Avoiding orphaned posts is another reason why "niching down" is a good recommendation considering it's a key ranking factor. Just maintaining my internal linking plan has made me niche down more.
This is probably something that should go into your calendar for weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly review (depending on your publishing schedule and other time commitments).
Take more time when you're writing your posts to think about all of the relevant content you have that could add value to the end user. Don't rush this portion of your publishing process because this is what keeps people around, and it's what takes 1 pageview to 2, and so on.
When you have more customer satisfaction => more time on page and pageviews => more repeat visitors = > more traffic => more ranking.
Conclusion
Internal links isn't something we talk about much, but since it's contributing so much to my rank improvement, I thought I'd share. I've been trying to find every factor I can to improve my results, and this one has worked for me (and many others), so I hope it works just as well for you.
Best wishes on your site growth.
Recent Comments
343
I didn't know that Jaaxy was this helpful in helping see how many internal links a competitor has!
I love the advance insight you've shared, it is extremely useful and right on target!
Being a newbie learning content building this input will improve my site's relevance just becoming aware of the method for building up niche traffic!
Thanks a million!
All the best.
I'm glad to hear that Walt! Yes, Jaaxy has quite a few features that aren't discussed as much as they should be.
It is also said in google webmaster central that this (internal linking) helps and the anchor text too. They also say that over doing it can have a negative impact.
(too many links, not enough variation in anchor text).
Link whisperer - ughh! I tried that and found it clunky and pretty useless. It works based ONLY off article title.
I found it much more useful to do what that plugin does mechanically using GSC to find pages that are poorly linked internally and the search facility using keywords in WordPress dashboard and the Control +F in the content. Longer, slower
but not clunky and annoying like that link whisperer - which I asked for a refund for...2hours later! - I found it that bad!.
I did try a very early version I'll add!.
Thanks for adding all of your nuggets. Now, the plugin doesn’t only work based on article title. It’s much better at pairing content based off of keywords than what it sounds like it was when you had it. If GSC works fine for you, then stick with it! Don’t break anything that’s working. It’s awesome this was already on your radar.
Thanks, I got in like October. I was disappointed due to Spenser Haws reputation and having created a pretty awesome keyword tool.
Funny you mention on my radar as on my Radar was also to check if had been updated as a lot of top bloggers are recommending it (and not just for affiliate commissions).
The only other similar plugin that is good for that is......US$600!.
Automation is better...but being a Scotsman I cringe at US$600 for a plugin - more chance of me spending an hour at the hairdressers getting my hair done than spending US$600 on a plugin!.
Just to add what I liked is that link whisperer keeps the content related (links to related content) which as Mat Cutts says is good practice for internal linking.
Hahahahaha. An hour at the hairdresser?!!!! You’re hilarious! Check out my demo and see if it’s changed from when you tried it. Even after my video, there have been significant updates.
Oooh, thanks for this Tiffany. I know this is something that I want and need to do. Thanks for adding something else to my plate! haha. Just kidding.
I actually love this, and it's something I will definitely look into. And I will absolutely check out the plugin that you recommend (along with your video).
- Christina
Yes, it's so easy to overlook. I don't know anyone who would say they forget about this from time to time. I hope this helps you out like it's done for me.
Hi Tracy, thanks heaps for the info. I'm a newbie still going forward. If I may ask a few quick questions. An internal link. Is that a link from your web site blog to a product review to a product sale opportunity. Or is it a link from a web site blog to another blog that you have written to provide additional support info. This is to benefit your ranking within google and not WA
Thanks heaps
Have a great day.
Stephen.
An internal link is a link from one post/page to another. It doesn't matter the cause of the post/pages.
The purpose is to help with navigation to content that's helpful to the end user, which usually results in higher Google rankings.
See more comments
I installed Link Whisper and while going through adding links to posts, I realized on one pst I have 3 links point to 1 other article. That got me wondering if I should remove duplicate links or if it's ok to have many links from one post to another.
Any thoughts on that? They are spaced out and all have different words used to link the two posts.
I really don’t have any set theories on that. I’d say test to see if it’s helpful with an A/B test. If you weren’t getting people to go from the one post to another before, and the links are relevant and they’re moving thru your site better, then I’d keep them.
If you go to the post and you feel like it’s overkill, then consider taking some out or spacing them out more.
Do you have other relevant articles that you can swap the link with instead of having two of the same?
I have some articles with two of the same, but that’s when it’s super relevant.
It definitely is relevant ... I think that's how they all wound up in there LOL, but I agree if I can find some different, but still relevant articles to replace I'll do that and spread the love a little!
Or, it might be a good topic to write more about.