Certain types of link building are vital in Search Engine Optimization or SEO but many website owners don’t fully understand it. There’s internal linking, follow links and nofollow links. Which should you use? What are the benefits? Internal linking and backlinking are key aspects of improving your websites’ SEO. If you are managing your own website(s), it is essential to understand these because it will impact how your website shows up on Google.

Internal Linking promotes an onsite architecture that is Google-friendly and allows for easy follows between various pages on the website. According to Moz, a well-known company that does SEO development, internal linking is good for three reasons.

1. They allow users to navigate a website.
2. They help establish information hierarchy for the given website.
3. They help spread link equity (ranking power) around websites.

NoFollow Links are hyperlinks on your website that Google can’t actually follow to another website. While the link physically goes to the other website, Google is told not to follow it through the html code on the back end of the website. What does this mean?

1. Google does not actually follow those links!
2. These links do not influence search engine rankings

Follow Links can give the receiving website an SEO boost. How are these different? These may also be referred to as backlinks.

1. When you click on these links, you may see the same type of link as a nofollow link in that it still goes to the other website. What is different is Google is able to follow these links, which can be beneficial
2. Backlinking, which is a vote of confidence from one website to another, is one of the key forms of SEO. If your website has a lot of well thought of websites linking into it, your SEO ranking will increase.
3. Backlink example: if you or your company are a member of an organization, quite often that website will link back to your website. You should check to make sure it is a follow link that benefits your website.
4. The important thing to understand is while backlinking is a key piece of SEO, not all websites are created equal. If a website known for spam is backlinking to your website, it is not helping your website but hurting it.

Link Equity is all about whether the link helps or hurts. As mentioned in the previous point, not all links are created equal. What does a link need to have to add additional value to a webpage?

1. The page’s authority is key. The domain authority of a website is key as is the page authority. Domain authority ranks between 0 and 100 with very few websites achieving 100 unless you are Google, Facebook or another large company. The higher the number, the better it is for this website to link to your website.
2. If you don’t know your domain or page authority, download the Moz extension on your Chrome browser or check Ahrefs.

Search Engine Results Page (SERP) are the results listed by Google in response to a query by a user. If I searched ‘plumber Delray’ then the results that come up are the SERP.

Internal linking as well as backlinks into your website are essential in improving your SEO. It is something that must be monitored on an ongoing basis. Understanding that not all links are created equally is key. Know your website, have a plan and create your linking strategy. If you aren’t sure about this, contact the experts.