Internal linking structure and link organization is important part to meet your SEO objectives, Internal links to your site are the links that reside on pages and help you in search engine optimization; Here are the guideline to improve your linking structure which you should care about while developing your website;
* Make your links descriptive. They should indicate what the user will be linking to, as opposed to just saying “click here”, take care while you use anchor text, the landing page should be quite relevant to the keywords you use in your anchor text.
* Don’t underline anything that is not a link, otherwise your customers may click on it and become frustrated, underlines have become synonymous with links on the web.
* Underline your links and use a consistent color for them across your site (the standard color is blue).
* Use a different color for visited links, so that your visitors know where they’ve been (opt for a more subdued tone of the unvisited links color).
* When linking to a non-HTML file, such as Excel, Word or Acrobat, make it evident, by including a small icon next to the link or text identifying the link.
* Don’t link to “under construction” pages, if they are not finished, do not add them to your site’s navigation.
* Make sure that your links work and that you don’t have broken links. There are free online tools that can help you with this.
* If you use graphic links, don’t forget to use the ALT attribute. The ALT attribute should describe what are you linking to.
The navigation of a website should be a major part of a website since your websites navigation should meet the expectations of people, here are few point you should consider while designing your website.
* Design your pages to load in less than 5 seconds on a 56K modem.
* Group your navigational options in relevant categories.
* Use common names for your menu options: Home, About Us, Contact Us, Help, Products. Avoid “clever” or “trendy” alternatives.
* If your site uses Flash, provide also an HTML version for users who prefer a less fancy, faster site.
* Provide simple text navigation links at the bottom of long pages, so users don’t need to scroll back up.
* Link your logo to your homepage, except in the homepage itself. Put a link to your homepage on all your internal pages.
* Display a “breadcrumb trail”; it is basically the path from the homepage to the page where you are. A breadcrumb trail looks like this: Home > Section > Sub-Section > Page, and it greatly facilitates navigation.
* If your site is too big, provide Search capabilities. Include a search box in the upper right corner of your homepage, and a link to a Search page from your interior pages.
* Set your search box to search your site, not to search the web.
* Create a custom error page that displays a simple site map with links to the main sections of your site. this is the way, you will not lose visitors that have followed a bad link to your site or who have misspelled your URL while typing.
bob on March 28th, 2008
