Most people with even an inkling of SEO knowledge understand you need a solid internal linking strategy to build credibility and enhance your search engine ranking. (Don’t let the term scare you, internal linking strategy is simply links that point to pages on your site other than the landing, or home, page.) But what you don’t know about internal linking strategy can really hurt your marketing efforts.

Are you making these common SEO mistakes in your internal linking strategy?

1. Using tracker identification (like Google Analytics) on links. Tracker ID has its benefits, allowing you to measure conversion and sales to see which links are most worthwhile. But spider bots don’t rank these links as highly as natural links, because they associate profit motives with tracker IDs. Of course, profit isn’t a bad thing, but the pursuit of it in blatant ways can hurt your search engine rankings.
2. Using the same links over and over. Exclusive  links carry more weight with the search engines. Link to pages that haven’t been linked to before; unique, juicy content that adds credibility to your message.
3. Judging links by rank alone. Google Page Rank status only tells part of the story when you’re determining a website’s link value. Also check the website’s Alexa rating and the number of pages indexed at Google, MSN, and Yahoo! Use tools like Yahoo! Site Explorer (www.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com) and other online resources to gauge its back-link popularity.
   Look for backlinks from sites with a good reputation in the industry and posts from bestselling authors. Links from these sites give your own website the credibility you want, improve your rankings and help conversions.

Dawn Allcot is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch, a full service content marketing agency serving hundreds of clients and thousands of writers since 2000.

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