While optimizing an enterprise-level website for search engines, SEO enthusiasts often ignore maintaining the internal links. And this where the main problem lies. Unlike other websites, enterprise-level sites must have internal links to be favored by the search engines. In this blog, what you can do for Enterprise Internal Link Optimization.
But before we jump the gun, let us understand what an enterprise website is and how enterprise SEO differs from traditional SEO.
What Is an Enterprise Website?
To begin with, an enterprise website is a website developed for any business, organisation, or group. It can be a Fortune 500 company, an E-commerce site, businesses having multiple locations, or even a single enterprise owning several different websites.
The main difference between the normal website and these types of websites is that the number of internal links is way more in the latter as they might have pages ranging from a few hundred to millions. For example, GitHub has more than 80 million pages indexed in Google. And all these pages need to be in constant connection with each other for the website to rank properly.
Let us ask you something now, what’s the one common thread between all the pioneer enterprise websites? The answer is they have mastered the game of linking all their information to let Google discover new content on their domain and index it quicker than their competitors. This is where Internal Link Optimization comes into the picture. Internal Link optimization is the process of checking the internal links and making the necessary tweaks.
So, what’s an internal link?
An internal link is an interconnection between one page to the other of the same website under a domain. These links build a bridge for both the users as well as the website to connect with the required information stored in several pages.
Though internal link optimisation is a good practice for normal websites, it is a must in the case of enterprise websites. Here are some reasons to justify this point:
- One of the most significant differences between a normal site and an enterprise one is its scale. While the normal site may have only a few pages, the latter might have hundreds, if not more.
- Lack of internal link optimisation for regular websites will not put such a huge dent in the website’s overall ranking as it would in the case of enterprise websites.
- Due to a large number of pages, the flow of traffic in an enterprise website takes more effort, unlike its normal counterparts.
So now that you’ve got a clear idea about what enterprise website and internal link optimisation are and how they go hand in hand, let us proceed to the next part.
How to Optimise an Enterprise Level Website?
Now, we shall discuss the things you need to keep while optimising an enterprise website. Here’s the checklist you should follow:
- Take your breadcrumbs very seriously.
Breadcrumbs are nothing but providing the user with a way to navigate smoothly through the various content categories or pages as well as different site sections. Though it is one of the easiest on the list, unfortunately, it is the most ignored step. For the ‘middle breadcrumb’, you can use a mid-value page and spread the primary content and core categories in a balanced way to maintain the functionality.
- Repair your broken internal links
One of the most common practices is worrying about building new links instead of checking on the existing ones. Let’s explain; suppose you put all your concentration on building new links on the foundation of the previous existing links only to find that most of them are broken. Then, you’re stuck with the task of fixing the broken ones and remake the new ones, wasting more effort and time.
- Know your chains and redirect them
Suppose you own an e-commerce site, and your users want to buy a certain product. But due to limited stock, they find it to be sold out. Surely, they would leave the site to check for other sites.
But what if you could hold them from doing so? The trick is simple; all you have to do is redirect them to the closest products that match the desired one. If that’s not possible, at the very least, you need to redirect them to the main category page. However, it is to be remembered that the first option is more effective.
- Organise your links systematically on a map
While you’re dealing with a massive number of links, it is very obvious to lose track of a few. To avoid this, you need to keep track of the links. You can copy them down in a manual or digital sheet. This way, you’ll be able to not only keep track of all the links but also identify the under/over linked as well as the orphan pages.
- Fix the website’s click depth
Similar to the first point, it is one of the most overlooked steps despite being pretty much self-explanatory. Try to keep it as low as possible; for example, a three-click journey from the home page is a better option than that of 5 clicks. The business-critical pages like top products, most requested or ordered products, top categories should be immediately accessible for the users without any difficulty.
- Use quick checklists to push the contents live
In most scenarios, a major chunk of the great content tends to get lost in the details of go-live. Here are few things you can do to avoid such from happening:
- Update the Link map.
- Ditch the ‘book a consultation’, ‘click here’, ‘read more’ for quick anchor text QA.
- Place the links of relevant content into the body copy.
- Don’t romanticise the task and stick to automation
It’s not at all a good approach to build 1000s of links manually. Unless you want to sit at your system for eternity, switch to automated processes for doing so. This way, you can free your team from mundane tasks and channelize them to other fruitful tasks.
- Designate links into the new content as they are published
Every new content you publish must have several links building a pathway to them. No new page should be allowed to go live without having a family of existing links like related Blogs, category pages, high-ranked pages for similar keywords, etc., to support the new pages.
Conclusion
If you’re planning to do proper SEO for your Enterprise website, your internal links are one of the best tools you may have in your arsenal. Strategic optimization of internal links can improve your SEO efforts by leaps and bounds. Moving forward, you can leverage content marketing to boost your SEO efforts. All you need is, to create a strategy using automation and routine maintenance. We hope you found this blog interesting, and that we were able to help you with the tips and tricks of internal link optimization.
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to gain a competitive edge. Contact our team for expert assistance.