Improving positioning results
Links, like signposts, allow customers to get an idea of the structure of the pages and the content embedded in them. Linking also allows Googlebots to scan and index sub-pages more quickly.
Linking
One of the final stages of the site audit work is the link building assessment. Basic link audit terms include backlinks, internal links and external links. The main problems include a lack of internal linking, a lack of external links and backlinks and their poor quality.
Other errors include broken redirects to pages that no longer exist. Such ‘blind’ links are seen by algorithms as harmful, as they direct users to a path that leads nowhere (thus wasting Usera resources).
Link structure
What does internal and external linking provide? Comparing this mechanism to a bloodstream, we feed the structure of the site with traffic from indexing robots, which move between sub-pages and pages by means of this type of ‘gateway’.
The more often the robots find our site and the longer they stroll through its sub-pages, the greater the chance of a higher search engine position. This is, of course, provided that we maintain our working standards and thus avoid mistakes such as too many links or, for example, the use of the wrong phrases when creating anchors.
Aesthetics of links
In addition to serving snooping robots, the function of links is to help users find content they are interested in.
Although the primary function here is that of the search engine, so there is some likelihood that the user will use links to sub-pages within the horizontal menu, the vertical menu, or links within the text of the article (although in the latter case, such links need to be really strong).
Anchor text
Linking should not be accidental. It is very important that external pages linking to our site have a high Page Rank and that the links within our site have appropriate link content (anchor text), i.e. phrases that coincide with the content of the sub-page to which the link is directed.
Visibility
Thanks to this type of treatment (linking), we increase the Page Rank of the website, which translates into an increase in its position in Google and other search engines, and thus its visibility (the number of times the website is displayed on a search engine page [which is not tantamount to a click]) and the total number of clicks (the sum of clicks may be less than or equal to the number of impressions).
CTR
Not every display of a page on one of the search engine’s subpages results in a click. Obviously, the higher the percentage of impressions that lead to a click (click-through rate, CTR), the higher the position. CTR is taken care of by improving the title, meta description and other content marketing. CTR also improves the average position of your website in search results.
*Note: The fact that other methods of customer acquisition, such as webinars or short tutorial videos and other neo-advertising on social media, are competing with websites, does by no means mean that classic organic SEO can be neglected, or that these types of activities are unsuccessful. On the contrary, websites are and will continue to be for a long time to come to a very good means of promoting services and products. If a website ‘doesn’t sell’, it only means that it is badly optimised, both in terms of content and the accompanying treatments (such as the linking described here). The possibility to create and use various forms of online promotion and advertising does not exempt us from the obligation to take care of the form and content of the means of advertising in which we invest resources.