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Internal Blog Linking Experiment For SEO

By Todd | December 3, 2008

How much will internal blog linking help you in the search engine? I’ve always known about the SEO power of internally linking your posts to other posts within your blog, but I’ve picked up a new technique from Jeff Johnson that I want to try and you can watch the results right here.

The strategy is probably obvious SEO for people with regular websites, but not necessarily for those with blogs. Take your top two or three keywords you’re trying to rank for and make sure they appear at the bottom of every page on your blog inside “<h1>” tags and with links pointing to your most important page.

In my case I want this blog’s home page to be the most important and the keywords I want to rank for are

  1. Learn Affiliate Marketing
  2. Affiliate Marketing Course

You will now notice that just prior to this very post I placed these two keywords in “<h1>” tags at the bottom of each of the individual blog post pages (not the home page) with a link to my home page.

here are my current SERP ranking for these two keywords

  1. Learn Affiliate Marketing (# 44)
  2. Affiliate Marketing Course (#29)

So now we wait …

The great thing about this experiment is that you can check the results yourself simply buy putting the keywords into google :)

I know the concept is very simple, but the fact is most people are not doing it so while it may be simple it’s certainly not obvious is it? And before you answer that … are you doing it?

Well lets not get ahead of ourselves because we need to see if it will work, but my stinking suspicion is that it will help a great deal.

If you’ve tried this technique before I’d love to hear your thoughts and results so drop me a comment and tell me what you think.

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Topics: SEO, link building |

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29 Comments »

Comment by Normal Joe
2008-12-03 13:21:25

Cool Man! I’ve seen it done a few times around but I haven’t actually done it on my own sites…that’s some good stuff man. I’ll be watching.

Normal Joe’s last blog post..Blog Talk Monitor From Jack Humphrey Is The Best Research Software Period

 
Comment by Todd
2008-12-03 22:19:02

I just checked and here are the keyword results after less than a day

“learn affiliate marketing” went from #44 to #32

“affiliate marketing course” went from #29 to #23

not bad so far :)

 
Comment by Terrie
2008-12-04 03:51:39

Todd, are you placing the code manually in each post or inserting it somewhere so that it shows up on every post except the home page? (if so, where?) Thanks.

 
Comment by Todd
2008-12-04 05:53:25

Hey Terrie how’s it going?

Placing the code in every post would be far too time consuming. I’m using Wordpress and I’m assuming your are too.

In the admin tool if you go to
Design / Theme Editor

you should see all the files that make up your particular wordpress theme.

Most themes will have a file called “single post”. Click this file and you will be able to edit the file on the left in the editor.

I placed my links at the bottom of the file just before the final closing div tag. I tried to include the code sample here but the “code” tag was messing up and rendering the html tags in the comment box rather than showing the code. I’ll have to look into it. Anyway, if you still have a problem send me an email and I can send you my code snip.

You have to be careful because not all themes are the same so just don’t going messing around all over the template if you’re not sure or comfortable with html.

For most cases this is all you should have to do and it’s should be good to go.

hope this helps
todd

Comment by dave
2009-08-15 18:18:28

Great optimization tactic todd.
I will be using this on all my blogs and will be watching closely how it gets treated in stats and serps.

 
 
Comment by Terrie
2008-12-04 16:12:02

Thanks! I was trying to figure it out last night and I did click on single post but I don’t think I actually pasted the code in and tried it. I’ll do that now. For some reason I was thinking I needed to put it in one of the other areas.

Anyway, it’s a great idea, thanks for posting about it.

Comment by Todd
2008-12-04 22:48:25

hey Terrie no problem. The idea definitely came from from Jeff Johnson , well at least that’s where I got it form.

 
 
Comment by bigknoxy
2008-12-04 19:07:25

Hey Todd,

I was following you back when you first started this course but then kind of got away from it I guess. I plan to get back on it soon…
BUT anyways, I just wanted to say thanks for the tip man, I have already implemented this in some of my blogs and am now waiting to see the results.

Comment by Todd
2008-12-04 22:51:03

hey man glad to see you back. be sure to let me know how it works out on your blogs. always like to compare notes

Comment by bigknoxy
2008-12-04 23:28:24

Will do.

bigknoxy’s last blog post..MISSION TO FIND THE BLOGGERHOOD: Where is your site?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by ultragreen
2008-12-06 06:24:14

One of my buddies is always talking about your blog at work - finally came and checked it out today, nice work! I’m subscribing to your rss feed - keep on posting!

Comment by Todd Alan
2008-12-06 07:24:02

hey thanks ultragreen. Yeah I got some really good posts in the works which should be comming your way in just another day.

cheers,
t

 
 
Comment by Todd Alan
2008-12-09 08:40:02

Just checked the SERP positioning for my keywords and it does indeed seems like it’s helping as I haven’t done much additional promotion in the past few days. (FYI, these results are taken before todays new post today)

“learn affiliate marketing” went from #44 to #32 to #22

“affiliate marketing course” went from #29 to #23 to #22

t

 
Comment by Get My Ex Back
2008-12-10 01:47:46

Wow. Im adding this to my wordpress as we speak. Thanks for the amazing info. But i see that your keywords have around 500k traffic without quotes. I wonder if this will work better with less or more traffic?

Get My Ex Back’s last blog post..What Should I Do to Get My Ex Back

 
Comment by Get My Ex Back
2008-12-10 01:50:26

did my last post go up?. anyway just wanted to add if you use the ‘title’ attribute for the link it helps the serp’s also

 
Comment by Todd Alan
2008-12-10 03:00:36

@Get My Ex Back -
Hey thanks for stopping by.
By traffic I’m assuming you mean page results. I’m not sure how well it will work with pages using keywords with higher or lower pages in the results. I’m trying it out on some of my other sites and will report when I have a better idea. One thing I’m sure of is that it’s a 5 minute task to set up and it’s not likely to hurt and even a little help for 5 minutes effort is well worth it.

All these small pieces add up to big pieces over time.

cheers,
todd

 
Comment by Todd Alan
2008-12-10 03:08:30

@Get My Ex Back -
Interesting you brought this up … I’ve actually had pretty mixed results with this to the point that I’ve been unable to draw any conclusions. Have you had personal success with this?

thanks
t

 
Comment by Todd Alan
2008-12-22 19:46:53

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know I did a new blog post with the latest update for the experiment. The results for a simple 5 minute procedure are pretty impressive so be sure to check them out
http://www.longtailtreasure.com/internal-blog-linking-experiment-for-seo-part-2/

 
Comment by Harry Harris
2008-12-31 16:01:43

Todd

Excellent stuff, really!

Just a little confused - what code do we have to put in? I found the page you described but confused about the rest :-)

Could you do a video?

Great job here - really.

Harry

Harry Harris’s last blog post..“Cross Town Traffic (Generation)…Get Through to You!”

 
Comment by Todd Alan
2008-12-31 23:51:26

@Harry Harris -
Hi Harry, thanks for the comments.
You’re not the only one asking about this so I think a quick video is in order just like you suggested. I’ll put that together in the next day or two at the latest.

I wanted to include the code in the blog post but for some reason the “code” tag that is supposed to let you display html code without rendering it was not working right. Anyway, I’ll put together a short video tomorrow.

cheers,
todd

 
Comment by Harry Harris
2009-01-02 09:15:16

Todd

Thanks mate!

Enjoyed your Q&A’s as well by the way!

Harry
http://harryharrisblog.com
http://twitter.com/harryharrisblog

Harry Harris’s last blog post..Twitter Followers Growing

Comment by Todd Alan
2009-01-06 23:41:44

thanks Harry. I’m thinking of doing another Q&A shortly.

 
 
Comment by stuart
2009-01-11 17:29:50

Thanks Todd, i havent started blogging yet but you have convinced me!
i am involved with the GDI project and this is going to put our sales through the roof!
i look forward to hearing more from you mate.
Cheers

http://www.money4nothingchicks4free.ws

 
Comment by Todd Alan
2009-01-12 08:05:42

@stuart -
Hi Stuart,
I hope it does put sales through the roof for you. Please let me know how it goes
thanks,
todd

 
Comment by Patrick
2009-04-09 01:17:43

All this code stuff is confusing. I’m new to the art of building websites. Is there an easy way to learn HTML? A lot of what you read says you don’t need to know HTML or any technical stuff but I have found that you do need to know. Great site by the way, I’ll be comming back.

Patrick’s last blog post..U.S. warship arrives as pirates hold skipper

 
Comment by Creditos online
2009-05-28 17:59:43

I´m putting this too on my blogs, I hope it works. I will measure my position in a week and see the chandes

Creditos online’s last blog post..Credito por telefone passo a passo

Comment by Todd Ariss
2009-09-01 04:55:02

I’ve been using it on a number of blogs now and seems to be helping in every case I’ve done it.

Internal linking has become a key strategy for me now and is being integrated into the next version of my course.

let me know how it goes for you. Just remember the more you post the more it will work for you.

cheers,
Todd

 
 
2009-09-08 10:16:21

I have been using “All in one SEO” plugin…Which is very useful if you are using Wordpress to make your h1 and h2 tags.

By the way….A good insider from you…Thanks.

 
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