Welcome to another insightful week with The SEOs Diners Club newsletter. Leveraging over a decade of SEO expertise, I aim to distill the week's most critical developments into a concise read that will take less than seven minutes. Let's dive into the insights that matter.

Unlock the Power of Internal Links: Your Essential SEO Guide

This detailed guide reveals the transformative effects of a well-structured internal link strategy on your website’s SEO.

Why Internal Links Matter for SEO?

Internal links are crucial for several reasons:

• Search Engine Crawling: They guide search engines through your site, helping them index more pages and understand site structure.

• User Experience: Well-placed links improve navigation, encouraging visitors to explore further and stay longer.

• Link Equity Distribution: Effective internal linking spreads the ranking power (link equity) throughout your site, bolstering the SEO strength of individual pages.

Mastering Internal Link Analysis with Tools Like Screaming Frog

Internal link analysis involves several key activities:

• Detecting Broken Links: Ensures all internal links are functional, reducing user frustration and SEO issues.

• Streamlining Redirect Chains: Reduces multiple redirects to enhance load time and user experience.

• Identifying Orphan Pages: Integrates isolated pages into the site structure, aiding their indexation and visibility.

• Optimizing Keywords in Links: Ensures keywords are used effectively within links to improve relevance and ranking.

• Evaluating Link Text: This check ensures that the anchor text of links is descriptive and relevant, aiding both SEO and user understanding.

Comprehensive Steps for Conducting an Internal Link Audit

To conduct a thorough internal link audit, follow these steps:

1. Tool Assistance: Employ SEO tools like Screaming Frog SEO Spider to automate the analysis and find issues efficiently.

2. Manual Review: For smaller websites, manually check the links for the above issues, which can often uncover nuanced problems overlooked by automated tools.

3. Professional Consultation: Hiring an SEO expert can provide deeper insights and more strategic guidance for complex sites or if you're unsure of your findings.

This article explains very well how you can do internal link analysis using Screaming Frog:

How Web Hosting Transitions Impact SEO

Are you switching web hosting providers? According to Google’s Gary Illyes, here’s how to do it without harming your SEO.

Changing your web hosting provider doesn't have to impact your SEO if managed correctly negatively:

• Ensure minimal downtime by scheduling the move during off-peak hours.

• Use 301 redirects to guide search engines and users to new page locations.

• Update critical files like your robots.txt and sitemaps to reflect new server configurations.

Navigating Google’s Indexing API with Care

The Indexing API is powerful but should be used with caution, according to John Mueller and Gary Illyes:

• Supported Content: It primarily supports specific types of content, like job postings; using it for other types might not be practical or reliable.

• Risk of Discontinuation: There’s a risk that Google might stop supporting the API for specific content types, which could disrupt your SEO efforts.

The SEO Implications of Hyphenated Domains

Google announced that domains containing hyphens do not directly affect SEO. But it can create some disadvantages.

While hyphenated domains don’t directly harm SEO, they can influence user perception and brand recognition:

• Memorability and Pronunciation: Hyphenated names may be more complicated to remember or pronounce, potentially affecting brand recall.

• Spam Associations: Such domains can sometimes be associated with spammy practices, although this is not a rule.

Important Google Update: Ending Support for Video Carousel Schema

On April 18, 2024, Google announced it would stop supporting Video Carousel structured data and associated rich results.

This change means:

• No More Carousel Display: Google will stop displaying video carousels for sites using unsupported structured data.

• Focus on Supported Schemas: Website owners should adjust their SEO strategy to focus on other types of supported schema markup to maintain visibility.

We Discussed International SEO and Trade at the SEO Vibes Istanbul Event

Last Thursday, I moderated a panel titled The Importance of SEO in International Trade at WhitePress's SEO Vibes event.

At the SEO Vibes 2024 Istanbul event organized by WhitePress Turkey, we talked about SEO in international trade with experts in the field.

I want to thank dear Emrah Pamuk from Digital Exchange, Murat Şahin from Turkish Airlines, Cemil Ataman from DeFacto, and Sedat Şahin from WORLDEF for their clear and inspiring answers to my questions. I would also like to thank the WhitePress Turkey team for this beautiful organization and invitation.

We quickly adapted to the remote working culture with the pandemic, but physical events and face-to-face communication have a special place. I had the opportunity to meet and mingle with valuable names. I hope we will have the chance to meet again at another event as soon as possible.

Recommended Tools & Services

• WhitePress: WhitePress is a content marketing platform that enables accessible article publishing across 90,571 websites in 30 languages, offering native copywriting and automated global publication services.

• Cannibalization Explorer Looker Studio Report is a tool for identifying keyword cannibalization and providing insights into how keywords perform across different pages.

• SurferSEO is a tool that helps you create and optimize content for SEO. It analyzes the top-ranking pages for your target keywords and gives you suggestions on how to improve your content. Surfer AI also has a feature that can generate ready-to-rank articles in minutes.

• Copilot Pro: Copilot Pro is available for $20/month for cloud-based GenAI models and $27/month with Microsoft 365. It is integrated with Microsoft 365 applications and provides access to GPT-4 Turbo and advanced AI rendering tools.

• AlsoAsked is a helpful tool that can boost your visibility in the “People Also Ask” section of Google's search engine results pages.

• Semrush Map Rank Tracker is a game-changing tool for local businesses looking to dominate their niche and attract more customers. I've been using the free version for a while now, and I'm impressed with its ease and effectiveness.

• ContentShake AI is an intelligent writing tool that combines AI with real-life competitor insights. It guides you from ideation to publishing directly to the blog, generates SEO-friendly articles, and helps you optimize them for organic traffic and engagement.

• Microsoft Clarity has recently introduced a feature called Copilot, which incorporates Generative AI through Large Language Models (LLMs) into the analytics tool. This integration aims to make data more accessible and understandable for users by leveraging the same technology created by OpenAI, which powers the new Bing or ChatGPT.

• InLinks is an SEO tool that uses a knowledge graph to optimize content for search engines. It automates internal linking and schema markup, simplifying SEO processes and content strategies.

Subscribe to my newsletter to stay informed about the latest in SEO and digital marketing. Next week, I'll continue to share the newest insights, tactics, and strategies for navigating the ever-evolving digital marketing landscape.

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Best,

Mert