A firm principle in SEO is to always be linking.
However, what if you can’t get links to your most important pages?
Connect to them with a link chain!
First, SEO concepts to keep in mind are:
- Relevant anchor text & context ensure the link passes equity. (Spammy use of targeted keywords in anchor text are likely to be ignored though.)
- Pages with higher authority, or with more & better links themselves, have greater influence.
- Fewer links, on the page being linked from, has each link pass more value.
- Body links are more valuable than navigational (header or footer) links.
- Links without the nofollow attribute are more valuable, but it’s unlikely that nofollow links don’t matter at all, especially from reputable sites.
- Links seen earlier in the content, likely “above the fold,” could be weighted more.
- Visible links may have more weight, for example, which aren’t hidden behind an accordion. (With mobile-first indexing, this probably matters far less today or has depreciated.)
- Text is better than clickable image links, even with relevant filenames & alt text.
- It’s possible the first link encountered, if multiple links to the same page are present, may be evaluated alone. (I feel this is unlikely today.)
- External links (outside your own site) have more weight than internal links, but this certainly doesn’t mean links within your own website should be ignored!
In practice, your partners may be willing to link to a blog instead of your category pages, which otherwise wouldn’t add value for their visitors.
No matter… just internally link from the blog to a relevant key page. It won’t be as impactful as directly, but it will still help.
Imagine a key page as the hub of a wheel, with spokes from other pages connecting to your most important content.
Always be linking, and if you can’t get links directly to your key pages, just create a link chain!