Inter-Linking Articles Strategy – What You Need to Know

Webmasters have so much information available to them on the Internet about how to increase traffic to their web sites, but how do you keep visitors on the site when they get there? If you happen to use the articles format in order to provide interesting content for your readers, have you considered what they do when they finish reading one of your articles?

Actions the reader will take, will include: navigating to another part of the web site (if you are lucky and have a well designed site); typing another web site address into their browser; and, closing down their browser and doing something else – perhaps resuming their work after a lunch break.  If you are a webmaster, the first of these would obviously be your preferred outcome.  But a reader who randomly navigates through your pages at speed, is not the ideal.  How do you not only keep a reader on your site, but also keep them engaged with your articles and possibly the products you are offering, while they finish the second half of their lunchtime sandwich?

The answer is very simple really, but many webmasters do not use the strategy I am about to outline, when they place articles on their sites – the inter-linking strategy.  What is it?  It is simply the practice of linking one article on your web site to another related article and clearly signaling the link to your reader.  People who write articles in different steps or parts use it already e.g. at the end of “Tips on How to Save Money – Part 1” they will have a link to “Tips on How to Save Money – Part 2”.  But there is no reason why we should not all be taking advantage of this simple but very effective strategy. 

For example, you may have written a general article about dental floss (ok so you have a really tough job on your hands of keeping your reader onboard!).  In order to ensure that your reader does not leave your site after reading the article, you could include at the end of it a once sentence paragraph that says “If you have ever wondered how they get the mint flavour into dental floss, click here for an article which explains all”.  This is a much more powerful strategy than just having a long list of “other related articles” at the bottom of the page, which the reader may not even be able to see because they have not scrolled down far enough.  Another benefit of this strategy is that with some clever and imaginative wording in that last one sentence paragraph, you can steer your reader towards a particular page, again possibly with information about a product that you wish to sell.  As with all strategies, there is lots of room for experimentation to see what works best.  As well as playing with words to come up with a sentence that will ignite your reader’s interest, you can try different formats for the text itself.  For example, if the last paragraph looks just like the rest of the article, it will almost certainly be read and taken in by the reader.

Implementing this inter-linking strategy may take a little more time and thought, if you have previously only carpet-bombed your site with as many articles as possible.  However, it is definitely another valuable tool for the webmaster’s toolbox, or weapon for his armory, depending on how fanatical you are about keeping visitors on your site as long as possible!