Why Internal Links are Important

Want visitors to stay on your site longer? Want visitors to find your site's best features? When you use links to other pages within your Wetpaint site, it's easier for visitors to navigate around your wiki and find more pages.

By contrast, if you put lots of links to other sites, you are making it easier for them to leave. You can link to other sites, but use your links sparingly so that people stay on your site.

You want readers to start on your homepage--then delve deeper into the site. To do this, create lots of links throughout your site.

Example of Lots of Internal Links:

Wetpaint Linking Terminology

There's a lot of different ways to refer to links. Here's how we refer to them:

External Links	Links off your site to another site (example: "don't be afraid to build an external links page listing other good sites) Or, when referring to other sites, links back to your site off their site (example: "try to obtain external links")
Internal Links	Links within your site from page to page (example: "add internal links on your homepage to other pages on your site")
Inbound and outbound links are links that are only on your site.
Inbound Links (a type of internal link)	This measures how many pages on your site link in to the specific page you are looking at. It's a measure of how many internal links the page has received.
Outbound Links (a type of internal link)	This measures how many pages a specific page on your site links out to. It's a measure of how many links are on that specific page. In the photo example above, the links are outbound links because they are going to a different page on the same site.

Add Links to Photos

People naturally want to click on photos and other images. Whenever possible, add a link from photos to relevant pages within your site.

Linking Tips:

• When linking, refrain from using words like "click here" or "see more" in the link. Use text that specifically explains what you are linking to. For example, if you are linking to a page called "Mathew Fox," use "Mathew Fox" instead of something like "check this out." Users quickly scan pages looking for words or topics to pop out at them, plus search engines treat the text in the link as an indicator of what the page is about. Notice in the example above how easy it is to scan the page by looking at the links.

• Add links to relevant subpages within large blocks of text. Not only does it help break up long passages, but it tells readers that there is more information to explore.
  
  

• Remember to link to at least one other page at the bottom of your page so that users don't have to scroll all the way up the page to the navigation. You can link to your homepage or other related pages.
  

When Should I Link to Other Sites?

Links to outside sources are sometimes appropriate and very useful to visitors. However, it is best to reserve most external links for a properly designated "Links" page. However, exchanging links is actually beneficial to your site if done properly. Read about it on the link building page.

Super-Linking Short-cut

There is a short-cut to adding a lot of links on your site by the touch of a button. See Suggest Links.