Site Architecture and Internal Linking

Website architecture is the layout of pages on your website. The structure and linking of pages can influence the visibility of your site's content in search engine results.

This impact is due to search engines viewing links as endorsements or "SEO juice" that aid in gauging the relevance and significance of a page, as well as its credibility.

Moreover, search engines evaluate the anchor text or the clickable text in links. Using clear and descriptive text for links helps search engines understand the content of the linked page.

But what "are" anchor texts?

Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. SEO best practices recommend that the anchor text should be relevant to the page it links to, instead of being generic. Typically, anchor text appears as blue and underlined by default, but its color and style can be modified with HTML. The keywords within the anchor text are among the various cues that search engines use to understand the topic of a web page.

If you frequently link to a particular page from multiple parts of your website, it signals to search engines that this page is highly important to your site. Additionally, pages that accumulate the most links from external, credible sites have the strongest ability to enhance the search rankings of other pages on your site.

Here is a simple example to show how link equity, which is determined by the number and quality of links directed to a page, affects site architecture and your internal linking strategy. Consider a website dedicated to marketing:

1. We publish an amazing guide on SEO and the impact it has on business on the internet. It gets linked to from all over the web.
2. The guide is published on our main marketing services site. All of the other pages are general pages explaining various aspects of our company’s marketing offerings. No external site has linked to any of these pages.
3. The guide might be ranking highly in search results for various phrases, while the general pages generally are not. However, by linking from our guide to our general pages, we can transfer some of the guide’s trust and authority to those pages.

While they won't rank as highly as the study, they will be in a much better position than if they had no authoritative links pointing to them. It’s important to note that in this example, the most-linked-to page is our hypothetical study. Often, your most linked-to page might be your homepage—where links typically point when mentioned in the press or discussed. That’s why, it's crucial to link thoughtfully from your homepage to the most vital pages on your site.

Here are some key points to keep in mind;

• You need to identify which pages on your site receive the most links. Use tools to identify top pages like Google Search Console, SEMrush, and Ahrefs.
• Position your top search pages, those targeting your key keywords, prominently within your site’s structure. This involves frequently linking to them in navigation menus and from your most linked-to pages wherever possible for example, make sure that both your homepage and your site's equivalent of our SEO guide are linking to these valuable pages, your highest volume pages, from a search optimization standpoint.
• Generally, aim for a "flat information architecture" on your site, ensuring that pages you want to rank well in search engines are just a few clicks away from your homepage and most linked-to pages.

The architecture of your website plays a critical role in how effectively your content performs in search engine results. With strategic internal linking and the careful use of anchor text, you can enhance the visibility and credibility of various pages on your site. By understanding which pages receive the most external links and using this information to boost lesser-linked pages, you can create a more powerful and interconnected website structure. Remember, a flat architecture where important pages are easily accessible will facilitate better SEO outcomes, making your site more navigable and influential in the eyes of search engines. Keep these strategies in mind to maximize your website's potential in the digital marketplace.