Link building is one of the key ways to build the authority of your website in the eyes of the search engines.

And the greater the authority of your website, the higher up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) it will rank.

Its important to remember when link building that you don’t just concentrate on your homepage, but build links to high quality sub pages too. This is called ‘deep linking’, and can significantly boost the traffic – and conversion rate – of your site.

Most websites only have links going to their homepage. This is because when they are mentioned and linked to from other sites, its easiest for others to lazily link to the homepage, even though there may be more relevant pages on your website.

Why you need to focus on deep links

1. It will improve your link profile.

Your website is best served by a range of links including those that go to sub pages, those that include images, some with your website name and others with appropriate anchor text. This link profile makes your website look authentic in the eyes of Google, and is a good basis for long term link building programmes. .

2. It will improve your useability

Links work best when they take users directly to the most relevant content. If people arrive on your website expecting certain information, and then have to search and click around to find it, many will leave before completing that exercise.

3. It lets you get more varied traffic

Deep links will make certain pages on your site rank much more highly for keywords that your homepage can’t. If you focus your homepage around one topic, but have other pages on other topics, those others need good external links in order to get a chance to rank highly in the SERPs for searches that are relevant to those other topics.

4. It lets you exploit the long tail

The chances are your sub pages include longer and more varied keyword phrases, since sub pages usually have more in depth information on a particular product you sell, or highlight a particular element of your service. This make your sub page more likely to rank highly for those longer tail keywords. If you build inbound links with the right anchor text too, then those pages will easily rank more highly for those longer tail terms.

How to improve your deep links

1. First of all, check how many – and what type – of deep links you have.

2. Work out which sub pages would benefit from inbound links

How many do they have already
What anchor text do they have
Do they get search traffic already?
Are they an important page?
Are they a good landing page for users?

3. Assess your internal links to those pages, and make the necessary improvements.

Do they have links from the homepage?
Do they have links from other powerful pages in your site, especially from within blocks of text?
Do you have sitewide navigation to your sub page?

Now its time to build some links to those pages!

Use directories for these links, even if your site is well established. Try to use niche directories relevant to those sub pages

Look at your homepage inbound links and work out which of those would be better off pointing towards your sub pages. Contact the party responsible for those links, and ask them to modify them. The chances are that the change would take their users to the most relevant page on your site, so they should be happy to make that improvement.

Utitlise relationships your business already has with suppliers and trade bodies, and try to work out if any of those are ripe to be approached for a link to relevant content.

Thats it.

Deep links are better for users, and they give more pages on your website the chance to rank highly in the SERPs and get more, relevant traffic. If you want Barracuda Digital to show you how to improve your website link profile with our link building services [link] then get in touch.