Christopher Iwundu, Freelance Writer

Can You Have Too Many Internal Links?

There have been several debates on whether an SEO page can have too many internal links. What’s a fact, and what’s a mere suggestion? What matters when it comes to using internal links, and how should you structure your internal linking strategy to get the best results?

Really, Can You Have Too Many Internal Links?

Yes and No.

According to Google, excessive internal links on the same page can dilute the links' value and confuse Google on your site structure. Having ‘too many internal links’ can depend on the page's quality and relevancy of the links to the target page.

Away from SEO, an adaptation of the law of diminishing marginal utility is that too much of everything is not good, and the value of an item declines as more is added.

Two Major Reasons Why Excessive Internal Links Can Be Bad, According to Google

Firstly, tons of internal links can communicate poor website structure and confuse search engines trying to understand your website.

Ideally, internal links help search engines to better understand how a page relates to other pages on a website. With fewer internal links pointing to relevant pages, Google will understand the hierarchy of your pages and the pages that are important to you.

If there are too many links, with all pages linking to all other pages on your website, the website ends up having no fundamental structure. You get a website with a bunch of pages pointing to each other without a well-thought-out plan or strategy.

This does more harm than good.

Another reason is that excessive internal links dilutes the value of every link on the page. The more unnecessary links are added, the more the link value is diluted.

With fewer outgoing internal links, search engines understand the importance of the target pages. However, too many links leave search engines guessing which target pages are the priority. It distributes the total value across the numerous target pages.

How Many Internal Links Are Considered Too Many?

There are many thoughts on how many links are considered too many on a page.

For a long time, 'too many links' was defined as 'more than 100 links.' How did this number come up? Is it a mere suggestion or a strict rule?

The origin is traced back to Matt Cutts's post in March 2009, where he quoted Google guidelines, 'keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).'

Back then, Google used to index only about 100kb of a page. Considering how many links a page might reasonably have and still be under 100kb, it seemed right then to recommend 100 links or less. This is because pages with more links stand a chance of being so long and heavy that Google would truncate the page and wouldn't index the entire page.

Google has developed massively and can process way more than 100kb.

So, is 'not more than 100 links' a suggestion or a strict Google rule?

It's only a suggestion to help people avoid link stuffing and has never been a penalty situation. There are successful pages out there with over 100 links. If your page has quality, Google will be interested in its internal links and target pages.

Once again, 'quality content over everything.'

To answer the question, no exact number of links is considered excessive. 'Too many links' is relative and can be determined by the links' relevancy and page quality, amongst other factors.

The rule of thumb among SEOs and website owners is to add internal links only when necessary. Priority should be on link relevancy, user experience, and content quality.

Two to Three Internal Links

Databox statistics reveal that 51% of SEO experts agree that a blog post should have two to three internal links. Another 36% preferred four to five, while 10% said the number of links doesn't matter.

If a link doesn't meet these requirements, adding the link might not be a good idea.

Don't Add Too Many Links

Adding unnecessary links to a page tends toward link stuffing which is terrible for SEO. Link stuffing might have worked back when search engines were basic. Search engine algorithms are intelligent now, and stuffing your page with unnecessary links can give your website a lower ranking or completely blacklist your site.

How to Do Internal Linking Right

To avoid wondering if excessive links will affect your site or not, you should develop an internal linking strategy that matches your website structure. That way, you're helping search engines understand your site map better while giving value to value pages where necessary.

For instance, you can internally link your pages in a way authority flows from the homepage down to the product/service pages.

Homepage => Category => Sub Category => Service/Product Page.

You can also channel value from your blog pages to a pillar blog page, guide, course, service page, etc., or vice versa. For example, you can have all blog posts relating to Service A internally linking to the service page.

The goal should always be to align your linking strategy with your website structure and communicate a flow of information with contextual internal links.

Expert Tips

If you must use internal links, optimize them. Here are expert tips on the best ways to execute such a strategy on your pages.

Create text links using contextual anchor texts.
Anchor texts must not exactly match the primary keyword of the target page.
Do not link entire paragraphs. A word, phrase, or, at most, a sentence is the best for user experience.
Avoid using generic phrases like 'click here.' They add zero value.
Avoid adding all your links in the first or last paragraph. Distribute them evenly across the page.
Avoid having orphan content on your website.
Align your linking strategy with your website structure.
Your quest to add a link shouldn't supersede your quest to produce quality content.
Make your internal links DoFollow.
Link to high converting/value pages
Ultimately, don't overdo it.

Balance Is the Key

Having too many internal links is relative. Instead of forcing in as many links as possible, focus on giving your readers an excellent user experience by creating quality content with relevant internal links to value pages. That way, even when the internal links seem too many, it'll be negligible.

Seven Oaks Consulting can help. Our talented content writers understand the rudiments of search engine optimization and produce quality SEO content with the right amount of internal and external links to yield results. Reach out to discover how our services can take your business to the next level.

by Christopher Iwundu

13 Benefits of Content Marketing

These 13 eye-opening benefits of content marketing will convince even the most hardened skeptic that content marketing works wonders to generate leads and cultivate loyal audiences.

But What Is Content Marketing...?

If you’re a business owner, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of content marketing.

Maybe you’ve been told it will help you dominate search engine result pages (SERPs) and generate leads.

Or you’ve heard that it’s a form of inbound marketing that will help you attract, engage, and convert prospects by delivering the value they’re actively seeking.

No matter what you’ve heard, one thing is certain – there are many ways that content marketing can benefit your business.

Content Marketing isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a digital marketing channel you MUST adopt if you want to thrive in today’s digital marketing landscape.

It’s an effective and practical digital marketing strategy you should adopt to attract and convert quality leads into paying customers.

Here we’ll discuss 13 powerful and eye-opening benefits of content marketing you should know before hiring a content marketer.

Understanding these benefits will help you understand why content marketing is vital for your business.

But first...

Does Content Marketing Really Work?

Short answer: More than you can imagine.

Quick Fact: By prioritizing blogging (an aspect of content marketing), marketers are 13 times more likely to see positive ROI. In fact, marketers who blog generate 67% more leads than marketers who don’t. (HubSpot 2019)

HubSpot highlights that 70% of marketers actively invested in content marketing in 2020. This supports SemRush data indicating that 78% of companies have a team of one to three content specialists.

Investment in content marketing wouldn’t be this high if the strategy didn’t work.

To further explain why content marketing works, a Databox 2019 survey found that 70% of companies generated more sales through SEO content marketing than through PPC (Paid advertising).

This content marketing case study is a practical example of how content marketing works for businesses.

With the right content marketing services, the website was indexed by Google, acquiring 859 unique visitors in the first month. Within three months, that number grew to 2,490 visitors, and then more than doubled to 5,370 within six months’ time.

It’s clear that content marketing works. Now let’s explore the primary benefits of content marketing for your business.

Benefits of Content Marketing

Content Marketing Boosts Your SEO and Generates Quality Traffic

Content marketing helps your business rank high in the search engines and generates traffic from people hungry for your product or service.

If you’re looking for the best way to drive website traffic, look no further than content marketing.

To do this, starting with a content marketing strategy is highly recommended.

And here’s why.

Not all traffic is quality traffic.

With a good content marketing strategy, you’ll produce strategic content that answers search queries and gets quality, easy-to-convert traffic.

Attracting high-quality traffic is one of the benefits of a content marketing strategy that you don’t often hear about.

Don’t just focus on boosting your SEO and attracting traffic with content marketing. Focus on generating qualified traffic that will easily convert.

Once you’ve started generating high-quality traffic, what’s next?

Content Marketing Drives More High-Quality Sales

Here’s a question for you:

Would you prefer to chase your client or would you rather have them seek you out?

Undeniably, the latter is your answer.

With content marketing, your potential customers will seek you out.

And here’s why.

Because unlike other lead generation strategies out there, content marketing gives instead of asking for something.

Does it seem crazy that giving something away can drive sales without even asking for them?

Consider this: According to Content Marketing Institute data, content marketing, among all other benefits, has six times the power of conventional marketing for converting people into leads and then converting those leads into customers.

With content marketing, you’re giving out information that benefits your ideal customers without asking them to buy anything.

The truth is, today’s consumers shy away from sites that always preach ‘buy now’ and ‘shop now,’ without offering value.

Advertisements are everywhere these days, and it keeps getting harder and harder to run away from them.

Stand out by offering something that your potential customers will value.

Effective content marketing will generate qualified leads who are happy to buy from you and recommend your business to others.

Quality Content Builds Your "E-A-T"

In February 2019, a Google whitepaper confirmed that EAT is very important to ranking.

According to Google, ‘our ranking system does not identify the intent or factual accuracy of any given piece of content. However, it is specifically designed to identify sites with high indicia of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT).’

What Google wants from websites:

Expertise
Authority
Trustworthiness

Effective content marketing meets these Google requirements. But that’s not all it does.

Besides ranking, EAT websites gain customers’ trust, and convert more than websites not utilizing effective content marketing.

When you publish content about your customers’ everyday challenges, it shows that you are knowledgeable and trustworthy.

Forbes, for instance, is known as an authority in the business, investment, technology, entrepreneurship, and leadership domains.

You can see them in the top SERPs for different queries, as well as being mentioned when someone is looking for authority information in those niches.

They didn’t get there by chance. They got there through well-planned content marketing.

When you establish yourself as an industry thought leader through content marketing, people will trust you and buy your product/services.

Content Marketing Puts Your Business On Your Customers’ Minds

When you have a robust content marketing strategy and write informative articles that rank well in search engines, your website will get thousands of visits per month.

This works like magic, especially when you adopt storytelling in your content writing.

Imagine your content ranking number one for a keyword that gets 50,000+ monthly searches. That’s your business in front of 50,000+ pairs of eyes every month!

Anything can indeed build awareness, but content marketing builds awareness and gains customer trust – icing on the cake.

Content Marketing Helps You Move Buyers Through the Buyer’s Journey Faster

To purchase a product, buyers move through a series of steps called the buyer’s journey.

The steps in the buyer’s journey are:

Awareness - When the buyer first notices they want something and comes into contact with your brand.
Engagement - When the buyer takes a more active role with your brand, contacting sales, or requesting a quote.
Conversion - When the buyer spends money with your business, purchasing your product or service.
Advocacy - When the buyer becomes loyal to your brand.

Every consumer goes through this process, but how quickly they convert largely depends on the quality of your content.

With effective content marketing, you can engage consumers at each step of the buyer’s journey and facilitate lead conversion.

Content Marketing Continues to Generate Traffic For the Long Run

This is one of the standout benefits of content marketing.

Content formats like blogs, ebooks, infographics, and many more continue to generate traffic long after they’re published.

This is unlike many marketing strategies where traffic and lead generation stop when you stop your marketing efforts.

How is this possible?

Your content assets compound to boost your authority in search engines and increase your organic website traffic over time.

This works very well when you use blogging as a content marketing tool.

Note that you need to focus on creating evergreen content to exploit this compounding effect of content marketing.

Some examples of evergreen content include:

Case studies and data
How-to guides
Listicles
Encyclopedic content
Industry glossaries
And so much more

Content Marketing Helps You Showcase Your Brand Personality

Brand personality is a set of human characteristics that customers attribute to a particular brand based on the brand’s consistency in reflecting those traits. It’s something the customers enjoy and can relate to, and it helps them identify with a brand.

Infusing personality into your brand is one of the most powerful benefits of content marketing.

It gives your brand a human touch and shows it’s not just another business on the Internet.

While some businesses’ branding stops at logo and color palette, successful brands reach deep into their values to give their customers an extraordinary brand experience.

Through content marketing, they reflect who they are, what drives them, how they’re different, their values and personality, and their unique promise to their customers.

When done well, content marketing helps you build a wonderful community and make customers part of your content creation.

Enhanced Accessibility and Open Channels of Communication

Efficient content marketing opens diverse channels for your customers to know and contact you.

Providing your audience with the content they need to solve their pain points will increase their loyalty and level of connection to your brand.

When they start to rely on you as their primary source of information, they’ll feel freer to reach out to you, ask their questions, and, of course, buy your products.

A good content marketing strategy includes content formats and distribution channels that will amplify your marketing and put your business in front of your potential customers.

When customers can access and contact you anywhere – social media, contact form, email - they build trust in you.

Your business becomes more than business as usual when customers connect with you on a more personal level.

Content Marketing Is Cost-Effective

Content marketing is more cost-effective in the long run.

It costs 62% less and generates more than three times the leads than most outbound marketing tactics.

Do you know why?

Content marketing is typically easier to start and has almost six times the conversion rates of other marketing strategies because today’s customers prefer content that provides value.

There may be upfront costs involved in content marketing, but they’re one-off costs for content that will keep generating results.

Content published on your website will continue to climb higher on SERPs, earning you continual traffic and leads without extra cost.

It Works For Any Business or Industry

Now you’re probably wondering, “This is great, but will content marketing work for my business or industry?”

The straightforward answer: Content marketing works for every industry and business, no matter the size, structure, or product.

Maybe you’ve tried before and didn’t see results. Or maybe you’ve seen others leverage content marketing without results.

If that’s the case, it was done wrong.

The key to reaping content marketing benefits is developing the right content marketing strategy that works for your particular business.

Content marketing often goes together with social media and PR marketing because content powers these other marketing channels.

The more quality content you create, the more material you’ll have to power your own social media and PR marketing.

This is one of the top reasons why content is important in marketing.

With a good social media presence, you’ll reach and engage more new leads while also fostering your relationship with existing customers.

Statista 2019 reports that 3.6 billion people were using social media globally, and the number is projected to rise to almost 4.41 billion by 2025.

And guess what?

Your customers are already on social media.

Once customers identify that you share useful and valuable content, they’ll seek you out and follow you on social media.

The more content you have, the stronger you become on social media. This increases your ability to attract, engage, and convert leads.

Less Invasive Than Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing involves approaching people and trying to sell to them.

But let’s face it, nobody likes being sold to.

It can be annoying.

More and more people are opting out of situations where they’re sold to.

Blockthrough reports that 527 million people used mobile browsers that blocked ads by default in 2019 – a 64% increase from the last edition of the report.

This number is expected to continue increasing as people lean more towards companies that provide value over companies that sell to them.

Rather than investing thousands of dollars in advertising, switch to content marketing. It costs less and yields more.

Why Is Content Marketing Important?

Because everyone loves content.

People love quality content that gives value, and search engines like making the content available to them.

In a series of interviews, publications, and algorithm updates, Google has emphasized the importance of quality content.

In fact, search engines are obsessed with providing their users with high-quality content.

If you can help them achieve this by continuously publishing valuable content, they’ll reward you with better rankings and keep sending traffic to your website.

You could call it autopilot marketing.

In addition, continuously publishing high-quality content helps you attract references and quality backlinks from high-authority websites.

This boosts search engines’ trust in your business website and sends an unending stream of leads your way.

These authority websites won’t cite you if you produce generic, low-quality content.

Furthermore, the more content you produce, the more keywords are added to your keyword arsenal. This gives you more authority in search engines and earns you more trust amongst potential customers.

Another great reason why content marketing is important is that content powers other marketing strategies.

Whether you’re doing print marketing, email marketing, or any other form of digital marketing, you need content.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well.

Why not develop a complete marketing strategy built on content marketing?

Then you can enjoy the core benefits of content marketing and also have all of your marketing bases covered.

Is Content Marketing Worth It? A Recap of the Benefits of Content Marketing

Yes, it's worth it. Here's why.

To put things in perspective, here is a recap of the benefits content marketing can bring to your business.

Content marketing boosts your SEO and generates quality traffic
Content marketing drives more high-quality sales
Quality content builds your EAT
Content marketing puts your business on your customers’ minds
Content marketing helps you move buyers through the Buyer’s Journey faster
Content marketing continues to generate traffic for the long run
Content marketing helps you showcase your brand personality
Enhanced accessibility and open channels of communication
More quality content; more reasons to stick around
Content marketing is cost-effective
It works for any business or industry
Fuels your social media and PR marketing efforts
Less invasive than traditional marketing

You see, it’s not a question of whether content marketing is worth it.

It’s a question of when you’re going to enjoy the full benefits of content marketing.

We highly recommend you start with a content marketing strategy built on your business goals. That way, you know you’re generating results relevant to your particular business growth.

Not sure where to start? Reach out to us to discuss your business goals and how we can help you with content marketing that converts.