Relinking is one of the most important tools for optimizing your website, which is of great importance for online stores. Effective relinking of your online store can help improve your site's search engine rankings, increase organic traffic, and, of course, increase sales.

In this article, we will explain how to create relinks for your online store, what types of relinking exist, and how to choose the best scheme for your site.

What is relinking and why is it needed?

Relinking (or internal link optimization) is the process of creating internal links between different pages of your site. It plays an important role in the structure of your site and allows search engines to index and understand its content more effectively. Relinking helps distribute weight (PageRank) between pages, improves user navigation, and helps manage site architecture.

Relinking is necessary for an online store for several reasons:

Improves SEO Internal links help search engines determine which pages on your site are most important and relevant to specific user queries. This can improve your search engine rankings.
Increases organic traffic. Well-designed relinking for an online store can increase the visibility of its content in search results, which leads to increased organic traffic.
Improves user navigation. Properly linking a site makes it easier and more convenient for users to navigate it. This helps to keep users on the site and increases the likelihood of conversion.

Rules for internal linking

Before you start creating links, you need to consider a few rules that will help make them effective and safe:

Links should look natural. Avoid using the same text for all links, as this can be considered search engine manipulation.
Links should be relevant to the content of the page. For example, if you link to a page with women's shoes, the link text should be related to that topic.
Regularly check the links on your site to avoid broken (non-working) links that can negatively affect the user experience and ranking of your site.
Create a logical site structure to make navigation and finding information easier for users and search engines.

Types of Relinking for Online Stores

Now that we have established the basic rules, let's look at the different types of relinking that can be useful for online stores.

Links in "breadcrumbs"

"Breadcrumbs" is a navigation element that shows the user their current location on the site in relation to its overall structure. This is especially important for online stores with a large number of categories and products. Breadcrumb links help users easily navigate back to the previous level and find the product they are interested in.

Example: If a user is on the page “Smartphones > Apple > iPhone 13,” the breadcrumbs might look like this: “Home > Category Smartphones > Brand Apple > Model iPhone 13.” Each of these breadcrumb links is an internal link, allowing users to easily navigate to previous category levels or return to the home page.

Internal linking for an online store primarily includes a navigation menu. This is an area that is often located at the top of the page and contains links to the main sections of your online store. The navigation menu can contain sections such as "Product Catalog", "Promotions", "Delivery and Payment", "About Us" and others.

Links in the navigation menu are usually repeated on all pages of the site and make it easier for users to access different parts of the site. At the same time, you should make sure that the text of the links is informative and accurately reflects the content of the section so that users can easily understand where they are going.

Links in product categories

Product categories are a central part of the structure of your online store. Links within product categories allow users to navigate between different product groups and explore your product range. This can be especially useful for stores with a wide range of products.

Example: If you have a category called "Laptops," you can create links to subcategories like "Business Laptops," "Gaming Laptops," "Ultrabooks," etc. Similarly, you can link to similar subcategories on these pages. They will help users quickly find the products they are interested in.

Links to Filters and Filter Crossovers

Filters are tools that allow visitors to select products based on various parameters, such as color, size, brand, price, etc. A filter crossover is a combination of multiple filters that forms a unique product page. For example, "Levi's Women's Blue Jeans."

Links to Filters and Filter Crossovers help visitors find the right product faster and increase the chances of a purchase. They also create additional pages for indexing by search engines and expand the semantic core of the site.

Relinking product cards

Product cards are the main pages of an online store that present information about the product, its characteristics, price, reviews, and a "buy" button. Properly linking product card pages allows visitors to easily navigate between products of the same category or brand, compare them, and choose the appropriate option. Relinking product cards also helps search engines index and rank product pages for relevant queries.

For example, if a user is viewing a page with a mobile phone, the product card can include links to accessories for this phone, its analogs, and other related products. This helps increase the average time on the site and reduce bounces, as users can continue to view other products that may interest them.

Brand pages

If your online store offers products from different brands, creating brand pages with internal links to related products can be an effective linking strategy. Users who are passionate about a particular brand can go to the brand page, where they will find all the products from that brand.

Linking in articles

If you have a blog or a section with useful articles, use them to create internal links to related products or categories. For example, if you publish an article on how to choose the best smartphone, you can add links to the smartphone pages from your range. This can help increase sales and keep users on the site by providing them with additional information about the products.

How to choose a linking scheme

Choosing the right internal linking scheme for your online store plays an important role in optimizing your site and increasing its SEO performance. Here are some key steps and considerations that will help you determine the best scheme for your store:

First of all, you need to understand the structure of your online store. What product categories and subcategories do you have? What products are the most popular? Which pages have the highest conversions? This analysis will help you determine which pages are worth linking to each other.
Study how your competitors implement internal linking. Pay attention to popular practices and opportunities for improvement. This can give you ideas and inspiration for your scheme.
Choose key pages that you want to promote and optimize. These can be pages with the most popular or profitable products, as well as pages with important informational materials.
Your linking solutions should also meet the needs of users. Make navigation on your site easy and intuitive. Make sure that users can easily find the products and information that interest them.

There are several types of schemes that can be used depending on the goals and features of the online store. Here are some schemes for linking site pages:

Cyclic scheme. This is when each page of the site links to the next one in order, and the last one to the first. This scheme is suitable for small sites with homogeneous content, for example, landing pages or catalogs.
Hierarchical scheme. This is when the pages of the site are distributed by levels, and links go from the top level to the bottom and back. This scheme is suitable for large sites with diverse content, for example, online stores with many categories and subcategories of products.
Network scheme. This is when the pages of the site are connected by topic or other characteristics, and not by levels. This scheme is suitable for sites with a non-linear structure, for example, blogs or news portals.

Instead of conclusions

Relinking is an effective tool for promoting an online store that helps improve user experience, increase customer conversion and loyalty, and also increase the relevance of the site for search engines. Proper internal linking involves studying competitors and the hierarchy of your own site, selecting a thoughtful scheme, and following all the rules.