Search Engine Optimization: Chapter 2

Listen to the Local Bass Pros

Welcome back to the SEO series! In the last segment, I introduced you to search engine optimization and the importance of it for your business. Let’s take a closer look at the value that can be gained by incorporating external and internal links throughout your website.

On one of the many evenings that my brothers and I decided to pack up the car to go fishing at our favorite spot, we realized we weren’t having as much luck as usual. We had a few bites, but each fish ended up escaping us. There was an older gentleman fishing on the other end of the beach, and we noticed he was experiencing much more action on his line, catching bass after bass. After my brothers and I had no luck, and the sun began to fully set, we decided to start packing up to head home. Before I walked up to the car, I asked the other angler if he was using a specific type of lure that led him to catch so many bass. He said that he was using an Arbogast Jointed Jitterbug lure, and that he’d had the most luck using them in a cove down a path at the other end of the lake. He also mentioned that they sell these lures at the local bait shop, and that my brothers and I should check it out. I appreciated his advice and made going to the bait shop a priority before our next fishing trip to this cove.

When I arrived at Bob’s Bait and Tackle shop a few days later, I mentioned to the employee that I had received a recommendation from another angler about a specific lure to use when bass fishing. He confirmed what the man had said and mentioned that these lures were his best sellers. Now that I had received the same advice from two different people, I knew that this information was reliable. This relates to SEO in the way valuable external links are gained for your website.

External Links

The day after we purchased the new lures, we decided to test them out at the new fishing spot recommended by the other fisherman. The walk was no longer than 45 minutes, and once we arrived close to dusk, we tied the lures to our lines in no time. Within seconds of casting, my brother Jamey had a bite and reeled in a largemouth bass that was over a foot long. Soon after, Justin caught his first bass of the night. Between the three of us that evening, we caught a total of 14 bass, a new record for us. If it hadn’t been for the recommendations from the fisherman and the bait shop employee, we could’ve kept experiencing bad luck over and over again. This proves the power that a third-party reference link can hold when it comes to building and implementing external links throughout your site. Your visitors will perceive that your site is reliable, which will boost the overall rapport of your business. Click here to learn more about external links!

Internal Links

My brothers and I decided to go back to the same fishing spot a week later since we had such great luck the first time. We were very eager to venture back to this area and use our new lures, so we decided to leave in the afternoon rather than closer to sunset like usual. It was extremely humid, as it was mid-July at this point, but we loaded up my car and headed over to the lake. As we walked and talked along the path, all while listening to our favorite country music, we started joking about who we thought was going to catch the most bass. Eventually, we arrived at the cove and began to settle in and unpack our things. I started looking through our tackle box for the new lures, but to my surprise I could not find them. I asked both of my brothers if they happened to grab them, but they had figured they were already packed away in the tackle box. At that point I realized that I had left them in the garage when I was organizing the tackle box just a few days before. This led to all of us feeling quite frustrated, and we had to use our old lures that hadn’t provided us with much luck previously. This frustration is what many visitors tend to feel when there are broken or missing internal links throughout your site. Want to learn more about internal links? Click here!

What Causes Broken Links and How Can You Fix Them?

There are a number of reasons behind why there are broken links on your site, and it’s important to identify what the broken element is. One of the reasons could be that the URL was entered incorrectly when you created the link and needs to be updated. Extra spaces or typos are small mistakes and easy to fix but can have large impacts on your website’s SEO if not taken care of. Another cause for a broken link is that the page you are linking to was deleted and no longer exists. If this is the case, it’s important to update the link and link to a different page that does exist, or remove the link entirely if it does not connect to content you currently have on your website.

An additional reason a link may be broken is that content on a page or a page itself was moved to a different location of your website without updating the link to it. This is where adding redirects comes in handy. By redirecting the link, this will ensure that users are brought to the right page without damaging your SEO. As you can see, the three methods to fix broken links are to redirect, update, or remove the links. It’s important to manually and continually check on the internal links on your site to make sure they are working and lead people where they need to go. In this way, you are creating an excellent experience for your visitors and your SEO efforts will truly pay off!

Seija’s Life Lesson: Listen to the experienced anglers to get the right bait and then don’t forget to bring it!