If you want to get pages ranking quickly, then you need to build internal links. These links help the search engines’ spiders to find and index new webpages as they crawl your website. If you want to know how to optimize internal links using Website Auditor by SEO Powersuite, then here is one tip.
Yesterday, I was working on optimizing internal links. My first idea was to use Google Search Console (GSC) to find internal links. However, within a few minutes, I realized that GSC only shows a fraction of a site’s internal links. Plus, it’s not up to date!
Thankfully, I remember that Website Auditor can easily crawl a live website and show you all of the internal links. Here’s how to optimize internal links using Website Auditor.
Enter Website Auditor
After struggling for a short while with GSC, I then remembered that I could use Website Auditor to speed up the process. Olga, who runs their Facebook Group told me to scan the website using Website Auditor. Next, use the Visualization tool to see all internal links.
It might take the software a few minutes to complete a crawl of your website. So grab a coffee or tea.
After crawling your website, you’ll be able to see every internal link on your website as well as the anchor text. As you can see the internal links pointing to a page, you can assess if you’ve over-optimized the anchor text.
Website Auditor will also show you if you’re linking to pages that are 301 or 404. In either of these cases, you want to update the link to a live page rather than sending people down a redirection chain or to a now-deleted page!
Why anchor text matters
Ideally, you should use the keyword that you’re trying to rank the post for in the anchor text about 80% of the time. If you’re closer to 90%, then you need to go and change the anchor text of a few links or build some new ones.
One thing I must stress is to make the anchor text look natural otherwise, it’ll look spammy, and you might get slapped by the Search engines.
For example, if you have 5 internal links pointing to a page, you want a maximum of four to have the keyword in the anchor text. Within these four links, we don’t have to use only the keyword and nothing but. You do have some space to play around.
So if you’re trying to rank a page for “blue mens running trainers”. You could you “blue mens running trainers”, “blue running shoes for men”, “blue men shoes”, “full product details”.
WordPress hack for Website Auditor
As I’m working on WordPress, I used a filter to remove category pages, making it even easier to see the internal links that I need to optimize, not a load of noise.
Simply, press the filter icon at the top right. Next, select “Canonical URL” on the first drop-down, select “does not contain” on the second drop-down, and type “/category/” in the final box. Click OK to complete. You’ll notice all of your category pages have disappeared.
My results using this method
Within an hour, I updated about 30 internal links using Website Auditor. 50% of internal links to those posts now have the keyword in the anchor text. I’m hoping for a nice ranking boost in the next few weeks.
Start building internal links using Website Auditor
Hopefully, this tip makes building and optimizing internal links easier, and it’s all thanks to Website Auditor! And if you haven’t built any internal links, then now is the best time to get started.
If you haven’t tried Website Auditor, the basic package is Free, and the paid plans are very affordable. You might want to start with my Rank Tracker review as this is my favorite element of the SEO Powersuite toolbox.
In addition to building superb SEO tools, the team runs an excellent Facebook group where you can ask questions. The team is also always available with tips, tricks, and advice.
Last month Izabela saw her search traffic from Google increase by 400% using 3 SEO tips we taught her.
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