Here’s another one of my SEO 101 tips: always link to your real home page. You already know that links to your web pages are very important, but you may be overlooking something. Too often, the links for the home page aren’t in place. You want the search engines to know that your home page is the core foundation of your website. That is why the process of getting your internal linking correct is vital for you to implement.
When I refer to your “real home page” on your web site, I am referring to something like this:
https://www.billhartzer.com/
The URL for your home page, the “real home page” is to your domain name–and not to any other “version” of your home page. I realize that the home page is actually a file on your web site: like index.html or index.php or maybe it is default.html or default.asp or maybe even index.asp. But those files are NOT what you should be linking to internally on your web site. You would NOT want to link internally on your web site to any URLs that look like this:
https://www.billhartzer.com/
https://www.billhartzer.com/index.html
https://www.billhartzer.com/index.php
https://www.billhartzer.com/default.html
https://www.billhartzer.com/default.asp
https://www.billhartzer.com/index.asp
If you are linking to one of those URLs, most likely you are also linking to your real home page as well, which would be a duplicate copy–not something that you would want to do. Take some time to review your site and make sure that you are only linking to your “real home page”, the page that everyone else (other web sites) are most likely linking to, as well.
This simple but powerful change can really influence your overall rankings in the search engines. Don’t spend your time and energy on any other strategies until you try this one. By changing the set up for links to your home page of the website, you will be able to see a great increase in your traffic. That often means an increase in your conversion rates too.
So How Do you Fix This?
Like I mentioned above, take a look at other web sites that link to your own site, and you will notice that they are linking to your home page. That is because that is the life line that they are after and it works for them. With that in mind, it makes absolutely perfect sense for your own web pages to link back to that home page as well.
This set up also makes sure that consumers get a consistent direction when they go to any pages of your website. You want consumers to easily be redirected to your home page. If you do so, then you can realize your full potential through SEO efforts. This may seem just too simple to really be effective, but try it and see for yourself the change it brings for your web site traffic.