What are deep links and how can they help your SEO strategy?

Deep linking vs. traditional linking

Link building is an integral part of any search engine optimization campaign. A link from another website to yours helps boost your rankings in search engine results pages. The reason for this is that it indicates the relevancy of one site to another, a process which the Google algorithm factors into the equation when calculating rankings.

A deep link is a link that links to specific content on a website or mobile application. The goal is to make resources available from other websites and mobile applications easily reachable as well as when creating push notifications or marketing e-mails.

Warning: A site’s backlink profile is a metric that plays a significant role in its ranking. One dimension of this profile is how many deep links pointing to the site’s home page there are. Links to the home page in excess may be considered abusive.

Application

Deep linking is the process of linking a page to another one or post on the same site, like advanced internal linking. A properly executed deep link should show up as just one click in a browser, so visitors don’t have to navigate away from the website to access content. Because you are taking someone off of your site, it’s not always good practice.

Function

The purpose of deep links is to help a user quickly complete a task, without having to manually navigate to it. If someone clicks on an ad, there is no need to send users to the homepage to see them. They would click the link if they wanted a specific action, not if they wanted to be taken to the home screen and then travel to the destination.

Impact on user experience

Traditional linking is beneficial to the user experience, but deep linking provides a superior user experience. This is because traditional linking requires that users navigate through several pages before reaching their destination whereas deep linking only requires one click.

How to create deep linking?

To create a deep link, first find the URL of the page you want to create a deep link to. Next, replace http:// in the URL with https://. Finally, add #anchortext and write what should be displayed in that anchor text if a user clicks on it. When a user clicks on the anchor text, they will be redirected to the specific web page.

If you are working on WordPress it is much easier to do. Click Settings > Permalinks. For a new site, you’ll need to follow some extra steps. If you’re using a CMS like Drupal or Joomla, you’ll need to add an HREF link in the HTML editor.

Best practices when creating them

Create one main link page that will house all of the direct links to other pages in the website. Ensure that there is enough content on each page that people who click on it will stay long enough to view it. Keyword, anchor text, and keyword density should be used properly.

To optimize for search engines, it’s important to have a variety of relevant, high-quality content in front of searchers. Creating these pages is a time-consuming process that requires more than just one person to complete. At times, you might find yourself with empty pages that need filling out or affiliate sites that need content created on the fly to maximize revenue.

Tools

There are several tools for making deep links that work in different ways. Here are a few of the best. Bitly – this tool allows you to shorten long web addresses with short URLs that people can remember. You’ll need an account but the company offers free usage for up to 500 links per month.

URL Profiler – this is another popular link management tool that helps you build quality backlinks by finding relevant pages within sites you might want to post on and then giving detailed data about those pages, including social metrics, content type, language, PageRank and Alexa Rank.

Screaming Frog – a program which helps you manage website pages by crawling through a site’s links, to determine which are broken or need updating. The tool also allows you to check for sitemap and robots.txt files, as well as HTML errors, duplicate content, HTTP status codes and more.

When not to use deep links?

Deep links may not be the best choice for every website. While building a blog or portfolio site, for example, it may not make sense to include a deep link that redirects visitors to another page on the same site. There is no reason to click if you already know where you want to go.

How can you use deep links to benefit your marketing?

Links on a website that use keywords in the URL make it easier for search engines to index the content of the page. Deep linking is when a link goes straight to a specific piece of content on a website instead of using more traditional pathways like category pages or homepages. If you want to benefit from building links, then creating unique, high-quality content for deep links will give you an edge over competitors who don’t care about this practice. Using deep links to send potential clients to key pages on your site is an effective marketing technique.

Marketing automation with mobile deep linking

Mobile deep linking is an advanced form of website marketing automation which is still relatively new. When you take a look at the subject from a business perspective, it makes sense to invest in mobile marketing solutions because traffic from mobile devices has surpassed desktop traffic.

As of now, most people refer to deep links as ways to automate mobile marketing. In an advanced form, they can collect data about the user and lead him to personalized content. A mobile deep link is used to refer to specific screens in mobile applications, push notifications, or marketing e-mails.

The idea behind deep linking is using your mobile phone’s internet connection to instantly load a specific app or web page within the app without requiring you to find it. The significance of this for marketers is that once someone downloads an advertised application, they have a much higher chance of making an in-app purchase or upgrading their membership.

To sum up

Although deep linking to another website may not seem like a big deal, the repercussions of doing so can have far-reaching effects. To avoid future errors, use a link shortener instead of using an external link or create a different page for the link that redirects to the other website. Make sure you’re aware of what links you’re building in the first place and plan ahead before posting content online. You never know when you might need it.