What is the difference between internal links and inbound links?

For people unfamiliar with both internal links and inbound links, the differences between the two might be unclear.

Simply put, internal links (also known as interlinking), are links on your website that link to other pages on the same website, while inbound links are backlinks appearing on other websites that link back to yours.

An effective inbound marketing campaign will utilize both of these for search engine optimization (SEO), helping the website rank through internal and external methods.

Consider the Importance of Interlinking

Internal links are helpful because existing pages can act as a bridge for new pages to get higher rankings in Google. Linking to other indexed and high-quality, high-ranking pages on your website from new content can help boost that fresh content. Further, if your new content is as polished and well-optimized as those older pages, linking to them could also help refresh them. Interlinking can ultimately be a great strategy for improving your website, optimizing them to rank as high as possible.

Why Inbound Linking is Needed Too

While interlinking is easy enough and can help multiple pages rank higher, you need to make sure that you can support those efforts with inbound linking. Inbound linking involves getting backlinks on other websites that direct others to your website, and there are two effective methods for accomplishing this.

The first method is to look for industry-relevant blogs and online magazines that publish guest posts, and submit your own post if possible. Oftentimes this will consist of pitching an idea that works with the publication, then writing the post, and including a link to your website within the text without sounding promotional. Depending on the traffic that publication gets, you could see a significant boost in rankings coupled with some high-quality leads who come through.

The second method is to look around for websites with bad links related to your industry, including broken links and links to websites or businesses that have changed names. You can notify webmasters of these issues through friendly emails detailing them, which could result in them offering to put a link to your website in any bad link's place.

Keeping a balance of both internal linking and inbound linking can give your website what it needs to stay above competitors, in addition to other SEO practices.