Best Strategy: How To Hyperlink Pages Within Your Website

HTML Linking: Some Dos and Don’ts When Inter-Linking Pages on Your Site

As far as basic SEO steps are concerned, it is important to provide good HTML linking to help your website rank higher in the search engines. In addition, the HTML links – called “hyperlinks” because when you click on the link it takes you to another page – between all your website’s pages should also be thought of as a user-friendly, ease-of-navigation issue.

What do I mean by this? Well, let me use a real life example from a website that I am currently hired to not only search engine optimize, but to also rearrange so that the site visitors can more easily navigate their way around.

Keep Navigation Easy for Your Visitor

I’ll share this example: the site owner emails a very nice, content rich newsletter to her list each month. She also smartly utilizes each newsletter as a new page of content for her website. So, we can all agree that this would mean that she places twelve new, keyword focused web pages on her site every year.

In the simplest form of navigation hierarchy, it would make the most sense to have a navigation button (this is another HTML linking example) that would link us to a second-tier page where she could list out each month’s newsletter with a brief overview of what the subject was. Each listing would contain a hyperlink that when clicked on would take the visitor to the actual month’s newsletter. The individual newsletters would sit on what would be the third-tier. Each newsletter would site on its own web page.

In addition it is a good idea to have the most current newsletter listed first. In other words, in reverse chronological order. This makes it extremely easy for those people who bookmark a site to return each month to read the newest, current newsletter. The most current newsletter would be the first hyperlink they’d find.

Here’s an example of the newsletter links she could have on the second-tier page:

February 2008: Aromatherapy Using The Essence of Rose Yes, this is the month of love! Learn all about the scent of Rose and why it’s used for love and romantic intentions!

January 2008: Aromatherapy Using Rosemary The herb rosemary helps bring clarity of mind. Learn how to use it when defining your New Year’s intentions.

To repeat: each month’s newsletter would be hyperlinked in this fashion and each newsletter would be sitting on its own web page.

Also, each page’s file name should be keyword optimized such as the file names for the above could be:

     www.nameofsite.com/feb2008-aromatherapy-rose.html

     www.nameofsite.com/jan2008-aromatherapy-rosemary.html

The search engine spiders would easily find that the pages are about “aromatherapy” and also that each pages focuses on a specific plant or flower. Keyword optimization is good SEO practice when deciding on file names.

Unfortunately, This is Not the HTML Linking Structure Currently in Use

My client has made a BIG mistake by linking her newsletters in the following way:

• She has not provided a landing page from the navigational HTML link to a second-tier page as I have mentioned;
• Her HTML linking structure for all the newsletters consist of one link at the bottom of each newsletter, stating “click here for last month’s newsletter”;
• And worse yet … it isn’t the current month’s newsletter that is accessed when you click on her “Newsletter” navigation button, no! It is the oldest newsletter.

Can you understand how clumsy and aggravating this is to someone who wants to access her most current newsletter to see what she’s writing about this month? Or to someone who wants to see a nice overview of all her newsletters because they wish to reference back to one they had read months before?

You need to think out the HTML linking you’ll use on your site. Not only is it advantageous for SEO ranking purposes to have all your website pages inter-linked, but it is also most important to have a very carefully thought out, easy-to-navigate website for your visitors.

TIP: Think about the last time you visited a website that made you scratch your head as to how to find the information you wanted because the navigation was such a messed up hodge-podge. And how frustrated you became … and how quickly you clicked OFF that site because you didn’t want to waste any more time there.

I don’t know about you, but I encounter this irritating situation quite often, and it doesn’t take me too long to decide to leave and go look elsewhere for the information I am trying to find.

Make your HTML linking structure simple, clearly defined and easy for your visitor to figure out “where to go next”. This is but one more way to encourage your visitors to stay on your site for a longer period of time.

Remember: the longer they stay, the more opportunity you have to make them aware of your products or services!