Link juice fundamentals: how to control your links
Links, both internal and external, and how to distribute your link juice is one of the most important factors for search engines to determinate your rank factor.
But… what is link juice?
The word “juice” sounds like a liquid and it’s pretty appropriate. So imagine you have a bottle of orange juice and six glasses, start filling the glasses with your juice and there will be a moment that you will need to refill your bottle to keep spreading the juice in more and more glasses in order to grow .
Links work the same way: consider your homepage and domain your bottle, your website sections your glasses and your outbound links your refillers. Search engines will check the distribution of your website and will rank everything depending on the content and the strength of the internal link distribution.
Best Website architecture and your link juice
Homepage! That’s the reference point for any website. Keep in mind the homepage is the most important page of a site, so it’s full of juice. To start spreading the juice to inner sections, think of the most relevant sections (categories for example or whatever users look for the most) so the juice concentrates in the right spots, based on your SEO strategy. Inner pages depending on main sections and all depending on the homepage will create a “vertical” structure for search engines, so the priority of your “juice” is always focused and organized.
The website navigation is vital. Make sure your main domain is static in time and well defined, focusing on main sections. The footer is your friend, so that links you want to keep up and don’t fit in the main menu, are perfect for the footer.
What NOT TO DO when working on your link strategy
- Do not use a flat architecture; search engines won’t be able to determine which page is the most relevant.
- Sitemap is extremely important, so work on it properly.
- Do not buy links, Google can penalize you if the referral is considered a paid farmer linker.
- Do not use nofollow in internal links that are actually linked in other pages (use noindex instead).
- Do not create duplicated content.
- Do not remove a URL directly if it is linked internally, use 301 redirects.
- Avoid links in iframes, flash or javascript, most of them are not “crawable” by search engine.
What NOT TO DO when working on your link strategy
- If you have a blog post and product pages, use them to reinforce the inner link building to main categories and sections.
- Get external links in an ethical way. Search engines love quality links, in relevant content websites, so look for them, there are plenty on the net.
- Check your outbound links with tools like ahref.com: it’s vital for your link juice health not to have toxic or suspicious links.
- Remember, link baiting is the best way to get links and gain juice, so quality content is very important. The more “shares” your content gets the more links and juice you’ll get… and in a natural way! Google loves that.
Need help with your website architecture and link building strategy?
Digital Marketing Consultant