Building textual content is important, but by itself, it’s not going to give you the boost in keyword ranking you desire.

Organizing your content in content silos is a powerful SEO technique, and combined with proper internal linking can be all that your site needs to rank for your primary keywords.

Links are important both internal and external. Internal links should use keyword-rich anchor text that point to your internal pages within the website. External links are the one-way inbound links from other web properties that point to your webpages.

Although, I can’t overemphasize the importance of lots and lots of content, that has hyperlinks embedded within the content that contain the keyword which you want to rank. Keyword-rich content is important. Don’t get hung up on keyword density. Just make sure you use a few primary keywords on the webpage. SEO Copywriting along with internal linking can be the secret sauce that is needed to boost your position in the Search Engines to a top spot.

Now come the links. The internal links should be directed to a “target URL.” The target url is the webpage you want to appear in the search results. The idea is to increase the internal link percent. In short, the internal link percent is the percentage of pages on the domain that link to the Target URL. Pick the page you want to rank, and start internal linking to that webpage using the chosen keyword. If it makes sense for usability, take advantage of the sidebar and footer for internal linking.

Fill your target url with keyword-rich content. It is okay to link away from your site. Make use of keywords in anchor text, and make sure the outbound links are to “authoritative” sites within your topical neighborhood.

Create content silos that are tightly knitted together by keyword-rich internal linking. Ideally, ecommerce sites should use internal linking to knit together pages within a department, category, sub-category, sub-sub category, and product pages.

Bottomline, the internal linking affects keyword ranking, and contributes to strong content silos. Combined with a properly structured inbound-link campaign are extremely powerful SEO tactics.

Shimon Sandler is the President of Search Interactions, a digital agency that specializes in SEO and Social Media Marketing which is based in East Rutherford, NJ.  Shimon is considered a thought leader in the field of SEO, and has been writing for the industry since 2004.

By Shimon Sandler