Many SEO marketers focus on gaining as many external links for themselves or their clients as possible. It is true that this is very valuable to gaining search engine positioning. However, there are two other forms of linking that can be just as valuable!
Internal linking can be almost as important as external linking to search engine marketing, but it is often overlooked! Internal linking, or deeplinking, is the process of linking to other pages within your site that provide more information on a subject discussed within the article. The siloing theory championed by Bruce Clay indicates that interlinking all relevant copy together creates a strong case for being an expert in that area. The more information you can provide a searcher, the more likely they will be happy with their search experience and not go back to google or yahoo unsatisfied. This is also beneficial for generating traffic from the all important long tail keywords! As you might suspect, deep linking to relevant copy is key.
Furthermore, linking out to other ‘experts’ in the industry is an important SEO practice, as well. Search engines want to give users content that is relevant and linking to other pages within your site that are relevant to that content serves as more evidence that your site is knowledgeable about that particular content. Obviously, linking to outside sources is also relevant. This does not mean that dell should link to apple, but it does mean that dell should link to pcmag.com as they are the expert for good computers. Highlighting an article that shows the benefits of a particular dell computer is not just good SEO… it’s good marketing! The algorithmic theory is that an expert should and will network with fellow experts.
Note: This post was inspired by a discussion with Greg Bogdan on the Search Engine Land Linkedin forum last night and I thought I might expound on my thoughts for my readers here. Feel free to join the discussion on linked in 
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