Get the most out of your on page links

Internal links are the only true way to channel the PageRank of your site to the main parts of your website, channelling this rank effectively can make all the difference between your site placing higher in the SERPs than your competitor's website. However, not all links in your site are as effective and channelling authority.

An average website is very heavy on internal links, not just in deliberate attempts to channel rank but also just to make the website function. A page will certainly contain header links, footer links, internal navigation links and news/blogroll links. In addition the content area of the site will contain other links, in the case of a blog post these links will usually be to either an external page or a reference page within the site while on ecommerce sites links within content are more likely to be to images or other media (or other products within the site).

Search Engine algorithms tend to create a top down hierarchy of relevance for links on the page, based on where the link shows up within the code. For this reason header links and body links receive the highest weighting for passing on the pagerank. Body copy is usually presented in the code before sitewide structures so links here are also extremely relevant. Footer links are the lowest of the low because they appear last in the code.

This methodology is also backed up by some sound reasoning regarding the purpose of the links on the page, Header links aside in Content links are extremely valuable as they are within the flow of information, this means there is no need for the reader to move their attention away from the text in order to follow the link. These links also gain relevance by being in context to the words around them, something that it is important to consider when creating these in body links. The surrounding, site wide links form the interface of the site. These are also weighted by position in the code which means that for these to be effective it makes sense to place news links and blogrolls as high as possible, to channel Rank onto these content pages better so that in content links can pass it on to the desired pages. Footer links receive very low importance, not just because they are low in the code, but also because their function is almost universally to link to the necessary pages of content, disclaimers, terms and conditions, pages which while necessary are almost never read by visitors to the site and do nothing for the themes and topics of the site as a whole.

So how can we use this knowledge to ensure that our on page links are effective as possible? This is actually quite simple. As well as making sure that the most important links are placed as high in the code as possible it is very useful to maintain an academic attitude to links within your content. These links act as references in the way that footnotes, quote references and index markers work in an academic document, by providing a link out to relevant information without disturbing the flow of information. Treating in content links in this way makes it far more normal to place a link on a relevant phrase than on an arbitrary word like the "here" in "click here". This also allows you to be sparing with your words and not add waffle that may serve to water down your keyword density.

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