What Are Sitelinks And How Can I Get Them?

‘We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user.” – Google Search Console Help

There is a thumb rule when it comes to Google– ‘You need to be useful for the Google user’. If you are able to convince that to the Google Algorithm, you have won the battle. And this process is SEO i.e. you optimize your website to rank at the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Sitelink too is a search feature – which if achieved, can get many benefits to your business. Wondering What are sitelinks exactly, and how you can get them? Let’s take a look. 

What Are Sitelinks?

When you search on Google, a list of results is seen on SERPs i.e. Google search listings. Of these listings every Search snippet has a title, URL, description, and sitelink. Sitelinks mostly appears as list below the URL. Thus, sitelinks appear on your Search snippet as a couple of links to various pages on your website. They are actually hyperlinks which link to important subpages of your website so that users can easily navigate your site. Mostly the topmost Google search listings (especially for a brand name) get sitelinks. As an exception, sometimes, individual posts to get sitelinks; wherein the links point to various sections within the post itself.

When it comes to Google Search Snippets, Sitelinks – if they appear, and how they appear – is all decided by Google Algorithm. So, does this mean you can do absolutely nothing about it? Then is there no answer for How to create sitelinks? Well, here’s the catch – sitelinks may be automated, but there are some ways, some steps, some actions that you can take so as to improve your chances of getting sitelinks. The steps are coming right along.

How To Create Sitelinks:

• Be a unique brand name: Remember, we said that sitelinks especially appear for search results for brand names? This means, you need to rank for your brand name. This is made easy if you have a unique brand name – one which is not common – so that you don’t have too much of a competition for ranking. This means Google bots will not be exactly sure that yours is the website the searcher is looking for. Thus, simply having a too generic name can affect you getting sitelinks.

• Be the first ranking: Ranking first is SEO goal for any website. However, sitelinks mostly appear for the first ranking web pages. Thus, if you rank first for searches, especially of your brand name, there will be higher possibility of you getting sitelinks. This also means, that people need to search for your website in the first place. This means you need a decent traffic flow to your website in the first place.

• Keep your site structure simple: Make sure that your website structure is very simple and easy to understand. Sitelinks provide links to a number of your webpages; and hence Google bots should easily understand where each webpage is and how to reach there. This ease will help Google in adding your sitelinks. The site structure should not be too deep and it should enable reaching any webpage from your homepage not in more than 3 clicks. Also keep your menu really simple and in sync with your website structure as the sitelinks are mostly created based on your menu.

• Add a XML sitemap and Structured Data: To make your site structure easy to understand, create a XML sitemap for your website making use of the Google Search Console. Also, add in structured data which describes your website in a language that the search engines understand.

• Optimize your links for sitelinks: You need to add in relevant links from your homepage. Thus, all the key pages of your website should be accessible from your homepage in a single click. The anchor text for the links should be optimized – they should be informative, but at the same time compact, and try to avoid any repetition. Also, make use of internal links to assist Google in choosing your sitelinks. Those webpages which get high internal links have chances of being chosen by Google.

• Optimize the metadata for key pages: The key pages to which the anchor texts from your home page leads to should all be optimized. Thus, they need to be given proper relevant titles and meta descriptions. This optimization can be done using the meta tags, and is also a healthy SEO practice.

• Add table of content for long-form post: If you have any long-form posts, do add in a table of contents along with links to sections within the page i.e. in-page links. Again the anchor text for these links should be optimized and be in text form and not in the form of images.

These are a few ways following which you will have higher opportunities for getting sitelinks from Google. Do notice that most of these practices are also recommended as healthy SEO practices. Also, you need to make sure that you undertake proper technical and on-page SEO measures. Hiring a well experienced SEO Company can easily make this happen along with providing SEO services. And if you have a WordPress website, the SEO plugins can help you get the job done. Optimizing for sitelinks along with SEO is always a good option.