Do you know the sitelink? These are links displayed below some others in Google’s search results. Their purpose is to facilitate the consultation of your site by Internet users. Selection of sitelinks, also known as “site links”, depends on Google’s analysis of your site to define shortcuts that can save Internet users time and quickly find the information they are looking for. .
Google doesn’t always display them: only if it thinks they’ll be useful to Internet users. Additionally, if your site is poorly structured and Google can’t find relevant links related to a user’s search, it won’t display them.
At the moment, the selection of site links is automatic, and Google hopes that one day, webmasters will be able to get their hands on this option. The pages that Google chooses for site links are often product pages, categories, a FAQ, contact page… The algorithm is often very relevant in its choices.
Since sitelinks often display strategic pages and the most useful information, your prospects find what they’re looking for and your site benefits.
Let’s see how to get Google to display sitelinks.
Why do you need a sitelink?
Sitelinks or site links are very useful both for your activity and for Internet users who wish to consult your site. Learn about the benefits of sitelinks.
1. Place Sitelinks for Better Click-Through Rates
If you want to improve your click-through rate (CTR) when your site appears in Google search results, take all necessary steps to place sitelinks.
Internet users can find the page that meets their expectations more quickly. If they are looking for a specific product or service, they will be able to find it by entering related keywords.
With good SEO, you are more likely to get clicks when your site appears in the top three search results. The click-through rate improves by 64% with sitelinks.
Create quick access for Internet users when you find that certain pages are more popular. The higher the click-through rate, the better your organic traffic. Thus, do not hesitate to invest in optimizing your site to receive site links.
2. Gain Internet Users’ Trust With Sitelinks
Since not all sites that appear in search results have sitelinks, people immediately pay attention to sites that do. Then your site will have a better chance of appearing in SERP’s (Search Engine Result Page).
Sites that benefit from sitelinks are well structured and with links that are tailored to an Internet user’s requests. The site should be well optimized with relevant content so that Google gives it more space.
Thanks to this privilege, you more easily gain the trust of Internet users. When your site gets a sitelink, its credibility in the eyes of users increases. Thanks to the quality of the links that appear, Internet users can reach the page that best meets their needs.
3. Sitelinks increase the popularity of your brand and your business
Google created sitelinks to highlight the most relevant web pages to improve users’ search experience. Google selects the most interesting pages by analyzing the content in relation to the structure of your virtual portal and the search performed.
It is therefore necessary to provide detailed information about your company, your activities, the services or products you provide.
Don’t forget to create a page to answer the most frequently asked questions. Having a blog also helps a lot if you want to enrich your content wisely.
4. Your site will be deeply explored thanks to SiteLinks
In general, Internet users do not see all the pages on your site. They will consult the home page, the presentation page of the products or services that interest them. But with sitelinks, they see other pages posing as the most interesting.
Thus sitelinks generate traffic to the most interesting web pages and the conversion rate will improve.
How to display sitelinks of your site in Google results?
It should be understood that it is Google that creates the site links. Search engines’ algorithms select links and define their presence. Anyway, there are a few ways you can increase the chances of a sitelink appearing for your website.
1. Be sure to reference your brand with a unique site name
Your brand, and your domain name, shouldn’t be too generic (unless of course you’re a world-renowned giant like Apple).
Also, if there are other sites offering the same products as yours, it will be very difficult for you to differentiate yourself with Google.
As well as avoid obscure names, your business name needs to be unique and easy to remember in order to stand out from the competition.
WARNING: If you think your domain is too generic, it is not advisable to change it! In fact, you will be forced to migrate your site, and risk losing many of your statuses (temporarily or more permanently). Instead, pay attention to the following points to increase the chances of sitelinks appearing.
Site links are only assigned to the first site in the search result: that’s why you absolutely must work on the context of your site.
Counseling your backlinks And make sure quotes posted online reflect relevant information for your business. Name, address, telephone contact, etc. Don’t hesitate to use other content marketing techniques to increase your visibility on the web. Create a blog and take care of your presence on social networks.
2. Optimize Your Site Structure
It’s a golden rule: a clear structure that is easily interpreted by robots is the basis of good natural context. With a good netlinking strategy, sites with a confusing structure have a lot of difficulty in establishing themselves. It makes sense: If robots can’t find or understand your content, how can a user? UX and the natural context are more connected than ever.
As for the structure of your site, keep it simple: a home page with the main categories associated with it. Manage how robots access your content (or not) to optimize your crawl budget, and show robots the pages that really matter.
3. Create a Sitemap
You don’t have one yet? A sitemap is a plan that you submit to a Google robot to help you navigate the various pages of your site. While this doesn’t guarantee that all of your pages will be indexed, it can help search engines find some deeper (but relevant) pages more easily.
whether it is one xml sitemap or a Sitemap in HTML format, it facilitates the investigation of Google’s robots. Thanks to the index of all web pages, it becomes easy to analyze your site, even if the different pages are not linked very well.
If your site structure is clear, you have many other interests in submitting a sitemap google search console,
4. Use Structured Data
Also called “rich snippets”, structured data has become a Holy Grail of sorts: it is data formatted into specific tags that are fully understood by robots. There are all kinds (rating/review, recipe, date of an event, etc.).
They greatly improve the understanding of your pages by robots who can then decide to provide you with a display of site links!
Structured data also helps you improve your position in the SERPs: thanks to comments or excerpts from events, your links will attract the attention of Internet users. They will also be interested in Google’s algorithms and increase their chances of getting sitelinks.
5. Keep track of internal links
Internal links are an essential part of SEO, and even more so for the presence of sitelinks. Yet sometimes they are overlooked. The more a page is linked to other pages on your site, the more important this page will be to Google, and also the temptation to display it as a site link.
If your pages frequently link to your “Contact” page or your “About” page, chances are high that they will appear in Google sitelinks. Actually, users are looking for simple content that answers their questions.
The presence of internal links that point to other pages or articles related to the subject being treated facilitates the search of the Google robot. It also improves the user experience.
6. Use Relevant Page Headings
The use of clear headers that respond to the request is recommended, especially for your “difficult” pages, where you address important information related to your activity (contact, delivery). Google understands this very well and may use them for your sitelinks.
By making sure each page has an effective title, you improve your SEO and help Google choose relevant links for its sitelinks.
Additionally, sitelinks make use of your page titles. The title of each page should be a brief description of the nature of the page.
To boost the presence of sitelinks in a nutshell
As of now, sitelinks are set automatically. On your part, you can work to improve the algorithm for sitelinks. Let’s remember the best practices that can help you get sitelinks in Google results:
- Use short, relevant and informative page titles and headings;
- facilitate navigation on your site, thanks to structured data;
- Take care of your internal links by highlighting the most interesting pages;
- The anchor text of links must be relative to the pages they point to;
- Check if you are not repeating yourself and make necessary corrections.
If you want to remove sitelinks from Google results, you can cancel this page or use noindex, This is a tag that tells search engines not to include the page in the search results displayed.
Our tricks to boost sitelink performance
Can’t reach the top positions in search engines? An SEO consultant can help you by setting up an audit of your site and implementing actions that will allow you to rank first on Google.
They will be able to create a personalized strategy adapted to your field of activity to improve your visibility. Post your project on Codeur.com to get quotes from the pros!