Link pruning is an overlooked SEO tactic for better keyword rankings!
Most in digital marketing are familiar with content pruning, in which you mostly remove & redirect blogs with little organic value.
However, just like how every unnecessary page dilutes link equity across your site, every unnecessary link essentially does the same.
PageRank makes it clear that each link on a page further spreads equity. Yet the outdated process of page sculpting, by applying nofollow attributes to links, just wastes it today.
Here are 2 valid ways to leverage this insight:
- Analyze your header & footer on both desktop & mobile versions. Does every link need to be there? Can you make some pages accessible more deeply that have less value to users (and search engines)?
- Go to your most popular (backlinked) pages, as determined by say Ahrefs, SEMrush or Google Search Console. On these pages, limit internal links to only pages that are relevant and have earned rankings.
On a separate but important note, is the anchor text for all these links descriptive with keywords?
You can set priorities for this task by only focusing on pages that have earned a lot of backlinks. Then, annotate your changes to monitor improvements in rankings. You’ll likely be surprised by how much it helps!