SEO Copywriting Tip

I know I promised some SEO copywriting tips, and have not yet delivered...so here's a really simple one for you to chew on.

Crosslinking Your Content
So you have a nice site, you have it built well, and everything is ready to go. You have plenty of good content, the navigation is clear and works well, and you have both an html and an XML sitemap in place. How else can you help to increase the assumed relevance of your content? One simple answer is crosslinking your content.

Why do It?
The engines might clearly see the pages you have out there, but what do they think of them? If each page only has a navigation link, and a link from the sitemaps to it, it is what I call a "dangler," which means it is kind of floating out there. Think of a tree branch with a single leaf on it.

Danglers might be important pages to you and your site, but the spiders only see it dangling...so they don't understand that these are so important to you. Cross linking your pages from within the body content gets rid of this situation--and instead of a site filled with danglers, the spiders start to see it as a nice little compact web of information.

It's Easy.
All you need to do to crosslink your pages is to link important words to pages that help illustrate what those words are. They don't have to be exact matches to work well either. For example, let's say you have a site about getting small business money containing a page giving loan details, and you want this page to really stand out among the rest.

Look through the other pages, and find out where you are talking about loans, financing, money, or other similar ideas. Hyperlink these references to the loans page. They might be single words (like loan, loans, financing, money, etc.) or might be short phrases like "getting business loans" "small business financing options" and so on.

I have found that a contextual reference is increasingly important--meaning simply that you don't want to only look at linking the word "loans" to make the page for loans work. If it is a related idea/term, it will help you to associate it with your loans page...the engines (especially Google) are doing this more and more as time rolls on. Think of it like anchor text..because that is, after all, exactly what it is. And just like you don't want every anchored link on someone else's site to say the same thing about your site, the same holds true within your own architecture. Show the engines that your loans page is about all things related to loans, and you will find the juice you need.

How Many Links are Enough?
There is no single answer to how many links are enough...but don't go completely crazy with this idea. Ultimately, you are linking these terms and phrases to help the user learn more. If you overdo it, it becomes kind of a hassle to look through your site, and it starts looking like you are simply trying to manipulate the system which is never a good thing.

As a general starting point, if I have about 300 words on a page, I might look to hyperlink about 10 of them to other pages. It may be more, but not too often less. This gives some depth to the contextual content without going nutsy with it...and it has never had an adverse effect on me doing it this way. I am reasonable with what I am trying to accomplish, not spammy. If I have one page I am trying to really boost, it will get linked from a bunch of pages, but I try to mix it up and "spread the wealth" across all the pages as best I can.

When your page is linked from a couple or more places in your site, it takes on a little different stature in the eyes of the spiders (do search bots have eyes?). It will diminish the dangling, and overall, make the search engines happier with what they find on your site. Will it boost rankings? Probably not...but it will make each page stronger, which will increase the assumed strength of the domain--which definitely will end up helping you in organic search.

Just do it.
Internally cross linking pages is one of the easiest, and cheapest ways to help you get more mileage out of your SEO efforts. I am surprised at how many people don't employ this simple strategy...but look at the sites doing well in your niche, and I'd be willing to bet that they are doing it. Just jump on in--as long as the links all work (very important--don't allow broken links in your site!), it will have a positive effect. Hard to measure perhaps, but positive nonetheless.

Get linking!