An internal contextual link is among the easiest SEO tool to implement. Unlike virtually everything else in the SEO, you have complete control over how links are implemented on your site. And this particular tool can make a big difference to where your site shows up in Google.

A contextual link is like any other HTML link, but the clickable text features a keyword phrase you want to show up for in a Google search. For example, an entertainment client of mine wants to rank well in Google for the keyword phrase Corporate Entertainment. They could easily add this sentence to the text on their ‘About Us’ page…

Incognito Artists provides premium Corporate Entertainment for functions, private parties and product launches…

As you can see, the phrase Corporate Entertainment is clickable. Anyone who clicks on it is taken to the company’s homepage. The link fits naturally into the page (i.e. in context). When Google sees such a link, and it deems the link is contextual, it creates an association between the keyword phrase and the page it links to.

A lot of professional SEO activity focuses on securing contextual links, and for the most part this is done on external sites. If the keyword phrase is popular, it’s highly likely external contextual links will be required to get to page one. If the phrase isn’t popular, it’s entirely possible a site can get to page one of Google with internal links alone.

An internal contextual link works just like an external one, but the link appears on pages within your own site. Here’s what you must do to make this work…

• Work out what your keyword phrase is. Use Google’s Keyword Analysis Tool to find a keyword phrase that people are searching for. This tool tells you how many searches/month are made on a specific phrase
• Pick a single page that all your internal contextual links will point to (the homepage is usually the best page to pick)
• Link back to the homepage from other pages on your site, making sure the clickable text contains the chosen keyword phrase

The page you’re linking to must be about the thing your keyword phrase describes. If I linked the phrase Corporate Entertainment to a page about Photography, Google will probably ignore it.

Your targeted page’s title tag must also contain the keyword phrase you’re creating a contextual link for. The title tag is the single most important element on a page in SEO terms. So make sure the title tag, page content and contextual links are consistent. This greatly increases your chance of appearing on page one of Google for a useful keyword.

About the Author:

Wayne Davies is a professional lead generation expert based in London (UK). Keep up to date with Wayne’s articles and advice through Twitter.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - SEO Masterclass: Internal contextual links

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