what's your strategy for improving inner pages ranking?

[nerik]

I was wondering...

I often use to follow the same strategy for improve ranking of an "home page" and an "inner page"...

BUT...maybe i'm wrong!!!

About ON-PAGE: yes, i optimize title tag, description tag, headings, good content body text with good key-density and so on...but now what ?!? I've realized that many times don't pay attention to website inner backlinks (e.g. links from home to inner SEO-optimized pages)...or other stuff...

About OFF-PAGE: there are several backlinks sources (e.g. Directories) where you can't put bl to inner pages...only to domain pages...

Well...i'm asking you all!!!

What's your best strategy when you have to rank inner pages ?
Which are the main differences for you about ranking an inner page instead of a domain page ?
Have you a particoular backlinking strategy for inner pages ?

Maybe sounds like stu*id questions...i hope they aren't!!!

[yukon]

Originally Posted by nerik

Well...i'm asking you all!!!

What's your best strategy when you have to rank inner pages ?
Which are the main differences for you about ranking an inner page instead of a domain page ?
Have you a particoular backlinking strategy for inner pages ?

Maybe sounds like stu*id questions...i hope they aren't!!!

I'll answer all the questions with this.

When I want to rank an internal page in Google SERPs, & after the page I want to rank already has on-page seo, I simply build more pages to help support that page.

I have a habit of building new pages in pairs (publishing 2 pages at the same time). Both internal pages have one job, to support another existing targeted keyword internal page.

The 2 new pages have one-way internal links with keyword anchor-text pointing back to the older page.

[david87]

As we do ON page for home page,we should do implement all on page work to inner pages too.We should place different meta tags details for all inner pages.Try to do link building for inner pages as well.If you ll implement that all work on inner pages which you implement on homepage,then you ll get good rank for inner pages also.
Thanks!

[Kurt]

There's a concept in SEO called "Deep linking ratio" and it's the ratio of the number of links that point to your inner pages as compared to links to your homepage.

If you have a smaller site, say 50 pages or less, aim for about 60-75% of all your links to point to your home page.

Ad the number of pages increases, aim for a higher percentage of your total links aimed at inner pages. If you have a site with about 500 pages, try having about 30% of the links point to your homepage and 70% to inner pages.

These numbers aren't exact, but just a general guideline to the principle of Deep Link Ratio.

Now take this info and combine it with Yukon's advice. Point most of your inner page links to your money pages. Build other pages on your site that focus links at these money pages and give these "support" pages just a few extrenal links, just enough so Google can see a few links from other sites.

Yukon brings up a point that isn't mentioned enough, and that's the fact that we can control a lot of our own link benefits simply by make more pages and thinking about where the links of those pages point.

IMO, a good "support" page should only link to the homepage and a few relevant money pages. Get every other link off the support pages.

[mandark]

What I do is focus on the homepage first, only building backlinks to inner pages occasionally and when it is convenient. Once the homepage is where I want it, I start focusing more on inner pages. Of course I also do on-page SEO for all pages.

[nerik]

Thank you all guys! All of your comments are precious...

A straight question: have you got a preferred backlinks source in particoular for internal pages ? (Squidoo? blog comments ? what else ?)

[jonnyhardbaked]

you can use the same source that you use in optimizing your homepage to your inner pages.

[mandark]

Yep, nothing special for inner pages - blog comments mostly for me.

[usta]

for inner page ranking I always use inner links on signatures as seen below It also has positive effect on homepage.

[junilerick]

Originally Posted by yukon

I'll answer all the questions with this.

When I want to rank an internal page in Google SERPs, & after the page I want to rank already has on-page seo, I simply build more pages to help support that page.

I have a habit of building new pages in pairs (publishing 2 pages at the same time). Both internal pages have one job, to support another existing targeted keyword internal page.

The 2 new pages have one-way internal links with keyword anchor-text pointing back to the older page.

Does that mean that you would limit how many links go from your older pages to the newer "support pages" or do you mean that they aren't linked to at all?

I think this is a strategy that was also encourage in the 100K Adsense Blueprint where it says that after your initial pages are setup, you continue writing new posts so link to and "support" your older pages.

[mekap04]

For inner pages, I do just about the same thing for when I build backlinks to the main domain although you can't really do directory, rss submissions, or those methods that require use of only homepage link. So far, blog commenting, forum posting, and articles on web 2.0 sites is working good for me even though I'm still experimenting with ranking inner pages.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by junilerick

Does that mean that you would limit how many links go from your older pages to the newer "support pages" or do you mean that they aren't linked to at all?

I think this is a strategy that was also encourage in the 100K Adsense Blueprint where it says that after your initial pages are setup, you continue writing new posts so link to and "support" your older pages.

Here is the basic flow I use.

This doesn't mean I don't use those support pages for helping other related keywords (I'll link If it's relevant).

To answer your question, yes, I do limit outbound links to other internal pages. I try to keep the links very targeted. Example, If I'm linking from a page, both pages have to include the keyword in the page title, otherwise I'll just create more support pages If needed.

Hope that makes sense.