Over the years, I’ve been experimenting with different link building strategies, trying to find which produces the highest results. For the last three months, I’ve been playing around with the concept of deep linking after it was introduced by a blogger I regularly follow. The concept of deep linking is very simple and it involves focusing on building links to your entire website instead of just your home page. There were several reasons deep linking has shown to be quite effective but it does take time to start showing results. Why? The more deep links you have throughout your website means waiting for Google to re-index your entire website. The larger the website, the longer it will take for the indexing to occur. This is why link directories are so effective in boosting rankings, but it does take anywhere from 1-2 months to completely be indexed.
If you haven’t considered deep linking, then it’s important you start implementing it within your link building strategy going forward. Google has stated the entire authority of the website will play a more important role in ranking websites going forward. Having an entire website with authority pages is a great indication of credible link building and NOT someone trying to simply rank one page for profit.
Deep linking does take more time because you’re NOT focusing on a single page, however, in the long run, the benefits cannot be underestimated. You’re essentially increasing the total value of your website and with Google, this means you have a website of entire value and relevancy.
Anyway, if you are having a hard time wrapping your head around the concept of deep linking and why it’s important to your optimization, then here are a few things to consider.
Entire Website Authority
Many bloggers make the mistake of just optimizing their home page and this can be doing your SEO more harm than actual good. Google looks at the entire website to determine its true authority and recently, with the Google updates, they are beginning to eliminate thin content, low quality websites from the SERP’s. Focusing on just the home page will increase your rankings for that page, but when Google indexes the rest, they’ll be able to determine the rest of your website has no authority. This will actually bring down the average score of your website, lowering it within the SERP’s.
The key to being an authority within your niche is to have a website with pages full of authority, which is why it’s recommended you scatter your link building efforts through your website. In the long run, it will be more of a benefit than a disadvantage in case Google decides to tweak their algorithm going forward.
Can Help With Relevancy
With optimizing your home page, you won’t be able to focus on every relevant keyword within your niche. Your homepage can only be optimized for a handful of keywords that correlate well with the content and/or meta tag elements. However, with deep linking, you have more control over the keywords you’ll rank for because you have a wider selection. How does this help your website?
By focusing on more keywords, you’ll be able to increase the relevancy of your entire website. Search engines will be able to gather a range of keywords that help describe your content and website.
Increase Traffic
This is the most important benefit of deep linking and can help with blog growth equaling profits. The more deep linking you do by building links to other pages in your website, the better the chance of those ranking higher within the SERP’s. This all translates into more traffic for you and conversions. Here’s what I recommend doing…
If you have a very large website, then it will be difficult to deep link to every page. I recommend by starting with the top 5-10 pages that are most important to your blog. These can be pages containing tutorials, highest comments, social shares, and that are already ranking within the SERP’s. Make sure they have the correct on-page elements like title, description, keywords, etc. Link building does take time, so start slow, but be sure to build some links to these pages so you can start deep linking.
Internal help with deep linking as an authority page on your site can pass juice down to your other pages. You should already have a solid internal linking pattern, but if you haven’t been focusing on building internal links connecting relevant content, you should run a quick site audit and connect pages together. It’s great for SEO and visitors as they’ll be able to locate relevant content on your website.