digital marketing trends 2022 Archives - MIU Your Creative Digital Agency

March 21, 2022July 29, 2022

Here’s why You Should Prioritize Internal Linking in 2022

Here’s Why You Should Prioritize Internal Linking in 2022

Most SEO strategies incorporate internal linking, but that’s not enough. They deserve more priority.

SEO often tends to focus on a host of other ranking factors; internal linking is one. However, we often fail to realize how powerful internal linking boosts keyword rankings.

Take a look at the chart below.

According to this 2021 data, out of 15 SEO factors responsible for search rankings worldwide, internal linking figures are just at 13.7%. But that does not mean it is any less critical for digital marketing campaigns. It means that it is not being utilized optimally.

And this is what we are going to show you in this article.

We’ll tell you:

Why is internal linking so important?
How to set up an internal linking strategy?

What are internal links?

An internal link connects two pages of your website. It has many benefits, and we’ll come to that in detail later.

Let’s say that it helps both website visitors and search engines. It allows website visitors to look at related information and know more about your company. Doing so decreases your site’s bounce rate, especially if your website’s content is informative. It helps you rank higher on search engines since they use links to navigate your website.

There are many types of internal linking. No website can do without links on the menu, the home page, links to post feed, etc. But you can add links within the content called contextual links.

Contextual links are important because they lead readers to find related and exciting content.

Besides that, Contextual linking also allows search engines to find out which content is related, which determines which content is most valuable. The more links a page gets, the more valuable it will seem to search engines.

Internal linking vs and external linking

Before we understand why internal linking is necessary, we must clear out the confusion. If you’ve ever been confused between internal and external linking, this is where we sort it out.

Internal links connect pages within your website.

External links connect your pages to other websites.

In this post, we’ll focus on the former.

Why is internal linking so important?

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(Click on video to see the YouTube video explaining why internal linking is essential)

This video shows several reasons why it is essential to focus on internal ranking in most SEO campaigns. Search engines follow links to find content on websites, and then they rank these websites on search results. When search engines see a page or post having a lot of links, it sees them as being high-value content. It works for both internal and external linking.

You’ll also see how you can build an internal linking strategy. We’ll talk about that later as well, so hang on!

If you are new to all this and want to learn from the ground up, Ahrefs has this handy video on internal linking for beginners.

Relationships between content

We’ll talk about Google for our topic. There are other search engines, but Google is the most dominant one.

Have you wondered how Google crawls your website? Or how does it determine which site deserves to be ranked higher?

Google does that by using its Googlebot. It is a web crawler that follows both internal and external links. When this crawler comes to your website, it renders your homepage and goes for the first link. The search engine can determine the relationship between your pages, posts and other materials by following the link. This lets Google understand which pages are related.

Link value

After understanding the relationship between content, it is essential to comprehend link value. Google divides link value across all links on a web page. The homepage tends to have the most backlinks and has the highest link value. This link value is shared between all the links on the homepage, and it then gets passed onto the next page and then gets divided between all other pages linked to it – the process repeats.

If you link your newest article on your homepage, it’ll get more link value. Doing so helps Google find your recent posts faster as well.

When you understand link value, you’ll see that more links in a post mean adding more value to it. Google thinks pages with more valuable links are more important than your competitors. That’s how you rank higher.

Advantages of good internal linking

There are many ways in which internal linking is valuable for your overall SEO strategy. In this article, we will focus on the top six benefits.

They improve usability through anchor texts.

Internal links help visitors navigate to your website easily. This is made possible when you add sufficient user-friendly links to your articles. You must ensure that these point to related, relevant content pieces when you add anchor text. The aim is to direct viewers to content that shall interest them.

They spread the link juice.

It is equally important to focus on both external and internal linking. Creating backlinks is essential. Yes, but don’t ignore internal linking. They aid in spreading the link juice to other pages of a website. While building backlinks to a page, ensure that the page has links to other relevant pages. Here’s the most important thing you should ask yourself: is the link juice reaching your monetization pages? Is it reaching your blog, information repository, and product or service pages?

They boost your page views.

You already know that anchor texts help visitors navigate to your website. They are more likely to read the articles you have linked from the original content if they are relevant. Linking through your content helps in increasing your conversion rate. Relevant links are great for assisting visitors in discovering a website. The more links they follow, the higher your page views get. You have to avoid those significant bounce rates and optimize page speeds for all this to work.

They improve PageRank

Before we move on to why internal linking is vital for PageRank, let’s define PageRank first.

PageRank is a metric devised by Google to find out how essential web pages are. This is based on the number of backlinks relieved by a website, and the score is from 0 to 10.

Pages with PageRank can increase the metric score through internal linking since that helps spread the ‘juice’ to other connected pages. As a result, the related pages slightly boost authority and rankings.

They improve time on site.

One of the best things about using internal linking is the lower bounce rate. Since you take viewers from one page to the next relevant one, they remain on your website for longer. To reduce bounce rate, link them to essential pages for them, relevant and valuable.

They help Google crawlers in indexing your site

We have saved the best for last!

Google bots are getting smarter every day. Already, they can replicate the way a human browses your website. These bots follow all the links on your pages and thus get a good idea of your site’s architecture. With a solid internal architecture backed by internal linking, crawlers can visit pages that website visitors do not often see. Thus, linking to pages increases your search engine ranking.

Now that we have seen why internal linking is so important, it’s time to make sense of it all. It is time for…

Setting up an internal linking strategy

Internal linking is for your website what cardio is in a fitness regimen.

It can jumpstart your SEO strategy when you’re stuck in a rut.

When you add relevant links on your website, you’re telling Google:

How relevant your pages are
How your pages are related
What is the value of your pages

If you want to set up an internal linking strategy, you need to proceed step by step. Of course, it all depends on your website, but there are some steps to follow.

Determine your website’s ideal structure

Imagine your website as a pyramid. At the top, you have your webpage, below which you have sections and categories. Further down, you have individual pages and posts.

It is a basic site architecture, and if constructed well, your website’s menu will reflect the structure.

Want to know how to create the ideal site structure? Click here!

Determine which one is your most important content

Once you have created the best possible site architecture, it is now time to determine which your cornerstone content is.

Not sure what cornerstone content is? Here’s a handy video!

In short, it is the content that you want people to find out the most. It is your best and most complete content. It can be the content that tells people about your company, its values, and its functions.

Now, the way to make Google know this is the critical content you have to add links to it.

Add contextual links

At the beginning of this article, we spoke about contextual linking, remember?

Well, here is where we’ll talk about that in more detail.

How can you show Google that your articles are topically related? By linking them to each other. It doesn’t need to be complicated either. You can add links in the content itself or at the very bottom of the post.

Remember, you want to show Google your cornerstone content. You have to link to your cornerstone content from all the relevant pages and the other way around.

Link hierarchical pages

Suppose your website has a hierarchical structure that interlink parent and child pages. Additionally, interlink sibling pages as well. These pages should be related to a well-organized site, and it makes sense to connect them.

Think about adding a related post section

Whether you’re using WordPress, Wix, or something else, plugins and modules add a related post section to your blogs. If you have a similar strategy, determine whether the associated posts are related. If you’re unsure, it is best to add links manually.

Add navigational links

Apart from interlinking related pages and posts, you can make your cornerstone content even more authoritative by adding links from your home page and even from the top navigation. Ideally, you should do it for posts and pages most valuable for your business. Doing this will give the pages more link value, which ultimately helps rank higher on search engines.

Add links to taxonomies.

Taxonomies, such as tags and categories, help you organize your website, and they also allow both Google and viewers to understand your content’s subject. If you have a blog page, it can be good to have internal links in taxonomies to which the post belongs. This helps Google’s bots understand your blog’s structure, and your website visitors navigate your posts with ease.

Think about adding links to recent and popular posts

It is a no-brainer. If you have recent or all-time popular posts, don’t hide them away—link to such posts from your homepage itself. There are several ways for doing this, and you can link them on the:

Sidebar
Footer

That way, viewers will see them on every page they visit!

Remember about the little thing called link value we spoke of? These pages get a boost in authority when they get more link value. Additionally, showcasing your popular and recent posts help viewers to find them easily. And more traffic is an excellent sign to Google.

We have seen the benefits of internal linking, and we have also seen how to start building an internal linking strategy for your website.

But that happens when a website has poor internal linking? How does that affect your SEO?

Let’s find that out next.

Consequences of poor internal linking

We have seen how essential internal linking is. However, they still require manual upkeep and maintenance. This is why you should have regular site audits, and not doing so can create the same kind of problems that inadequate internal linking brings.

Your website does not remain the same over time, and it goes through significant change, both in structure and content. Unfortunately, such changes tend to produce broken links, and broken links lead to a dead-end or a page that no longer exists. As you can understand, this can put off most website visitors.

So what can you do?

Each time you remove pages or migrate them to a new location, you also need to redirect their links. Find out which links direct visitors to the migrated or deleted page, remove the links or redirect them to a new URL.

Several tools will be of help to you when auditing website:

Discovering broken internal links is essential for your SEO campaigns, as is ensuring link equity from external links throughout your website.

A Recap: Why should you pay attention to internal links?

Internal links are as important as external links.

External links empower your website’s search engine ranking and visibility. Internal links influence your SEO as well.

To recap what we talked about in this article, internal links:

Help search crawlers in determining which pages are important to viewers and search engines
Deteriorate over time naturally, which necessitates the fixing of broken links
Build direct link equity, which is essential for your pages

You should undoubtedly go for external links, but don’t forget your internal links.

January 4, 2022February 11, 2022

Four Digital marketing trends for 2022

Entropy.

That is possibly one word by which you can denote everything that happened in 2020.

We’re not just talking about the changes in people’s lives, or about changes that the countries were forced to grapple with, but also about the changes forced on different industries.

The digital marketing industry saw unprecedented changes last year. While marketers played their best cards to stay on top of trends, the developments came in fast and furious. The speed at which these new developments came rarely gave any scope to prepare for them.

Thankfully, 2021 has been more about working with those trends, and the risk factor was even lower this year.

Let’s not forget that the pandemic is yet to cease; the intensity has just reduced. However, it continues to affect the global economy, leading to uncertainty.

The fate of the ‘new year’ is uncertain as well. For instance, what shall be the landscape of social media advertising? How long will the current digital marketing trends be valid when remote jobs end? It is worthwhile to note a few potential digital marketing trends for 2022. Businesses taking these trends seriously will be successful and enjoy more profit.

Digital marketers need to pay attention to the various performance indicators, learn and analyse their goals. This is a transition period, and such times are certainly not easy.

However, if we pick a reasonable approach, it is quite possible to use the current situation.

In this article, we will consider and analyse current trends and technologies that can be useful to digital marketing. While we shall come across multiple new trends, some are not entirely new.

Search Engine Optimization

Search algorithms evolve constantly. Now, there won’t be any dramatic changes in 2022, but some trends have been noticed already.

Google Trends

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Want to know how key terms are being searched? Use Google Trends a bit more in your overall SEO strategy after considering the search engine’s actions and how it uses keywords for business development.

User Experience

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Users online always have expected fast turnover, whether it is getting an answer to a query or finding information online about a company. With more and more people working from home, the competition for companies to get a customer’s attention has only got tougher.

Your customers want feedback right now—every second matters. So if something is not working out right now in your UX, maybe it’s time to look for alternatives. Also, remember search engines factor in your User Experience. It means that if your website constantly loads slowly, visitors may leave the site sooner, search engines will penalize you.

How?

Giving you a lower search engine ranking also lowers your traffic footfall. Yes, UX is that important!

Want to create a positive UX?

We know you do! Here’s how to do it.

1. Have fast page loading times.

2. Your website needs to have a simple and logical structure.

3. Your website needs to be mobile-friendly since more and more people use smartphones to access websites and other online utilities.

Semantic search

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Most of the time, web users are searching for something. Keywords have been a prominent factor behind such visibility. This allows search engines to rank content according to search relevance, which also aids in ranking up a site. All of this is due to semantic search methods and content SEO.

Search robots, also called crawlers, use the web searchers’ query semantics to determine their search intention. As years pass by, this capability of crawlers is only increasing. Search queries are becoming more conversational, and this is done to understand one’s intention and goal quickly and precisely.

Today, voice assistants perform better in semantic search and are based on A.I. technology.

PPC Advertising

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PPC advertising is highly appreciated for its effectiveness, and this trend will continue in 2022. The truth is that high-quality PPC advertising is essential for digital marketing.

According to Google Economic Impact, a business gets $2 back for every $1 they spend on Google Ads. This is something you may want to remember when creating your PPC campaign strategy for 2022. Here are the top contextual advertising trends for the coming year.

Privacy concerns

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Many companies are collecting user data like queries, location, and interests. This is being done to make using the World Wide Web more accessible and effective for users. However, it becomes tough to pay more attention to confidential information and personal data protection. User information is taken only to understand target audience behaviour and choose the ideal way of advertising. Most search engines and companies allow people to determine what information can be collected; it doesn’t compromise confidentiality.

When it comes to PPC advertising, these limitations create issues. For PPC marketers, these limitations directly affect the effectiveness of their campaigns. The bad news is that evolving data protection laws will be coming in 2022, and these requirements will only increase from here on. Non-compliance will only cost companies a whole lot more due to hefty fines.

According to Gartner, content personalization will be abandoned in the coming years, mainly due to personal information fraud rather than strict rules protecting personal information online. Only 12% of users are happy about their data being collected for advertising as it helps them search for what they want.

Companies shall protect their users’ personal information and won’t go against the confidentiality norms.

A.I.

It is essential to know how to increase conversion when it comes to advertisement campaign efficiency. This is where Artificial Intelligence is proving to be helpful. It allows automated contextual advertising to appear and thus increase the success rate of an ad campaign. Due to A.I., it is easier for ad campaigns to be client-focussed and forecast clicks and conversion ratings.

Voice search analysis

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This is a relatively newer technology. Big names like Apple, Amazon, and Google have all created their versions of voice search. All one needs to do is to use it. Voice allows businesses to grow organically. Most of the time, people who search by voice are more interested in the search results, be they services or products. Such an audience is more likely to buy, which boosts your sales.

Predictive chatbots

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Chatbots are getting more predictive, and that’s a good thing. They can learn how to communicate better through communicating with clients and customers. Such chatbots are essential for your client service department.

They can answer questions faster, can solve problems more quickly, and if all else fails, they can transfer the communication to a human agent. And since chatbots are fantastic in helping people advance from being a visitor to being a buyer, these are good sales agents as well.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO)

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CRO or Conversion Rate Optimization allows for the fine-tuning of a sales funnel. This increases your ROI. CRO aims to get visitors to your website and then turn those visitors into revenue-generation avenues. This does not necessarily mean a purchase since revenue can also be generated by downloading a specific free resource, booking a class, or buying a subscription.

For CRO, there are two crucial factors:

– How are people arriving at your website?

– What are they doing on your website?

Analysis of these facets lets you know where to optimize and what to strengthen. For instance, you may need to change the website, add advertising, adjust a page structure, change content, etc. For 2022, CRO trends shall be:

– Adapting the website to mobile devices

– Reasonable personalization in compliance with data confidentiality rules

– Building trust with users by providing transparency of work

All of these shall increase your conversion.

Social Media Marketing

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Covid-19 has forced people to work from home or has given them more time to spend on social media platforms. Due to this, more marketing strategies have also moved to social media avenues.

When creating a social media strategy, it is essential to consider the current global scenario and the location you are targeting. The more global and local knowledge you get, the more personalized and empathic your messages can be. Thus, it is vital to keep in touch with current trends.

Video marketing

Advertising by video format is on the rise. More and more users don’t like to go through a wall of text each time. Video is faster to go through, can be more fun, entertaining and informative.

For digital marketing, it means that professionals need to experiment with, create and perfect various video formats and interaction methods. It is crucial to optimize all videos for increasing page view numbers. To do that, you need a good thumbnail image, good subtitles, and a transcription text of the video.

Conclusion

In 2022, digital marketers will have to walk a fine line between compliance with confidentiality laws and providing personalized content. Keeping customers and users in the centre of a product has always been important, and this trend will only grow stronger from here on.

All of the trends discussed above will be useful for digital marketers in 2022. However, two things shall continue to play a pivotal role: the pandemic and technological developments.

The pandemic is not over. Thus, it will pay to remain flexible in marketing planning and to know about changing market conditions, interest and demand, and global and local trends.