Internal linking is the process of connecting your current blog posts to other pages on your site by linking to additional relevant content. Internal linking is huge for your blog for a variety of reasons. It shows your users that you’ve got other valuable content and helps search engines better understand your text. This means you’ll get more engagement and rank higher on those SERPs.
But, have you ever clicked a link and gotten one of those dreaded 404 error pages? Unfortunately, if your blog has any broken links, your readers will get that same evil broken page and quickly grow frustrated with your blog and maybe even question your credibility.
So, today, we’ll be discussing what broken links are, how to find them, and how to update the link once you’ve identified them! This process will help you increase your visibility, engagement, and user experience.
What is an Internal Broken Link on Your Blog?
When you’re blogging, you should use all sorts of internal links. Connecting to your other blog posts will prompt readers to travel to other pages and read more of your content. Once they see that you provide a lot of valuable material, they’ll be followers for life!
Additionally, these internal links will reflect positively on your search engine optimization (SEO) and increase your domain authority score. If all that is unfamiliar language, be sure to check out our terms list. In short, if you have good SEO, your posts will populate closer to the top of the search results pages when people search keywords from your post.
A broken or dead link is when the URL you hyperlinked to your anchor text does not work, and applies to both broken internal links and broken external links. This means the user can’t travel to your intended destination. This could happen for a variety of reasons, like the URL being mistyped, the content being moved or deleted, or the URL being changed.
When this happens, the user experience diminishes and readers will jump to another source, increasing that dreaded bounce rate. Fixing these broken links on your website will make sure that your content keeps working like you intended. Where to start, though? First, let’s talk about how to locate broken links.
How to Find Broken Internal Links
To identify broken links that may be causing crawl errors with Google and tanking your SEO ranking, you’ll need one of these excellent tools! And don’t worry, with the help of one of these tools, you won’t need to travel to each web page separately and check each link. Or, you can just get us to help you out!
This can save hours of time an effort, and a lot of confusion. We are always happy to help!
Here are a few wonderful tools for finding broken internal links!
Google Analytics
Good Analytics is a great source for mapping your SEO and overall user experience. It’s part of the Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) and is connected to a large suite of website managing tools.
With Google Analytics, you can search pages that are populating the 404 page error and it will provide you with every broken link on your site. This report of broken links can then convert to a spreadsheet for easy management!
You can also set-up regular emailed reports that will detail every broken link for that period. This way, you can make sure you fix those links right away before seeing a negative impact on your engagement or SEO.
Broken Link Checker
The Broken Link Checker plugin is a Google Chrome extension that will also give you a report of any dead links found on your site! You can get a report on a single web page or your whole site. In seconds, you can have a full report without having to download anything! Checking for broken links is extra easy with this extension.
InfluencerSEO Services
SEO is a complicated business and finding broken links is just one factor among dozens that affects the success of your website! InfluencerSEO offers SEO services that will always ensure your blog is well-optimized. This includes finding broken links and helping you to fix them!
Any missed SEO opportunity is a missed chance at success. InfluencerSEO will manage your SEO on a regular basis, so those broken links will never go unnoticed! Additionally, InfluencerSEO will identify other areas to further optimize and quickly get those fields working for you and your website.
SEO for bloggers is a confusing space. Let InfluencerSEO help! It’s the best option to check broken links and find any other SEO needs.
How to Fix Broken Internal Links
Now that you have your list of broken links, it’s time to fix them! This can be a bit of a tedious task due to the fact that there is not one, single solution. You’ll have to do some diagnostics to figure out exactly what is wrong with the link. Here are the most common errors to fix:
Check the Spelling
First up, check the spelling! Typos are super common with long URLs, so check each letter. If you do see that this is the problem, simply copy and paste the web address again for your hyperlink! So easy!
Think Back to Any Post Changes
If you’re unsure why the link isn’t working, think back to your blog management! Have you moved posts recently? Have you changed the URL or title? If that’s the case, your hyperlink will no longer work. Grab a fresh URL, so the website knows where to find your helpful post!
Redirect or Delete if the Content is Gone
If you’ve deleted content and that post no longer exists, you really have two options. Either get rid of the link altogether, or redirect the link to another relevant page. This is called a 301 redirect, and it will help you maintain good SEO!
Overall, when you identify a broken link, your options are to update it with a new link/correct link or remove the links entirely. Whichever option you go with is entirely up to you. Each link needs to travel to relevant content and get the user where they want to go! Taking time to fix the broken links will never be time wasted! Broken links can seriously tank your rankings and make you seem unreliable.
Identifying and fixing broken links is a necessary step to giving your readers a great experience and maintaining great SEO ranking.
Alright guys, it’s time to finally find and fix those broken links and make your website perform how it should! To speed up the process, be sure to use one of the tools we’ve referenced or check out our SEO services to handle all of this stressful and tedious work! We even offer a FREE SEO audit to help you get back on track and get rid of those pesky broken links.
Our SEO services take away all the boring parts and guess work of managing your website and leave you with all the best results. Our goal is to keep you optimized while you focus on what you do best, which is creating valuable content and engaging with your audience. Come on, let’s get started!
Jordan Becerra, founder and Lead SEO Strategist at InfluencerSEO, has spent almost 15 years in the creator internet space, the last nine building InfluencerSEO into the go-to SEO partner for content creators, with 500+ creators served from pre-launch to massive publication. She learned creator monetization and community building strategy from the inside working for Lauryn Bosstick of The Skinny Confidential prior to founding InfluencerSEO, so she understands both halves of the game: how search actually works AND how creators actually build a strong community online and make money. Her job now is to stay ahead of where search engine optimization is going, especially as AI rewrites the rules, and to make sure the creators she works with get there first.
Leave a Reply