Achieving success in SEO is a goal for millions of bloggers and webmasters who want to increase their exposure, expand their subscriber lists and increase sales. Search engine optimization can be a difficult concept for many to grasp, mainly because it pertains to so many different elements. From marketing and social media to on-page optimization and keywords, there is a lot to digest. While you need to be aware of all of this, one area where you should be familiar above all else is how SEO pertains to your internal linking ability. Making a mistake here can fundamentally set you back with search engines in ways that will make the rest of SEO rather useless. In the following article, we’ll discuss some of the most common internal errors people make when building links so that you can avoid them.

Failing to Include Internal Links

Each one of your pages only exists in the eyes of search engines if it can find them. How do search engines find your pages? When pinging for SEO, you provide details about what the page in question entails, but search engines jump from page to page when indexing each one. This means that a lack of links to and from all pages will make it more difficult (or impossible) for search engines to track down all of your pages. As long as you have a solid navigation menu on each page, search engines should have no trouble at all finding your pages. Where many people fail is when they create sub-directories and sub-domains that use different templates than the main pages do; this can create issues when it comes to indexing, and thus will reduce the effect your SEO efforts have cumulatively.

Failing to Balance Outbound Links

Search engines like to assess quality over quantity, and the number of links on each of your pages can play a huge role. When pinging for SEO, having outbound links is crucial. Unfortunately, some believe that more is better, and ultimately produce way too many outbound links in an attempt to boost credibility with Bing, Google and others. When you have dozens upon dozens of outbound links on your page, search engines will view your site as one of those low-quality link directories or link farms, and likewise, will penalize you. In order to avoid this fate, be sure to weigh the necessity of each outbound link on your pages and include only those that are truly worth it. While you can have ten or twenty outbound links per page with no negative effects, including more than that can cause issues with your SEO efforts.

Failing to Create Site Maps

In the days of old, it was common to see site maps listed prominently on web pages, which helped internet users and search engines find all the pages on a given site. Today, search engines have become sophisticated enough that users can often find your pages through a simple search – but only if all of your pages are properly indexed. A site map can take some of the worry out of this, as its main purpose is to be a directory of all pages, organized by category and purpose. By using one of the many tools available now to quickly create a site map and include a link to it at the bottom of each webpage (in the footer, ideally), you’ll be able to ensure that search engines pick up on it and subsequently index each and every page.