Broken links are irritating to customers and insufficient links are a wasted opportunity, yet getting these things right or at least making them a lot better is not difficult, which is why we've produced this simple guide.

Why do we have internal links?

Links around the site of your online shop serve many purposes, including to improve the customer experience and usability, to improve the search engine rankings of different pages of the site, even to make your management of information easier.

Links to follow a customer's train of thought...

One reason to employ links is simply to help users navigate around your site. The web offers so much more flexibility than the traditional book where one page comes after the other in fixed sequence. Links allow your customers to access relevant information when they are ready for it. For instance, some people will be interested in "care instructions" or "special discount offer" as their first thought, others will only want to know about these when they get closer to a purchasing decision. So this information should be easily accessible from both places.

Links to make site maintenance easier...

The ability to link to a piece of information from many places around the site means that you only need to hold the core information once (or at least in fewer places). This makes site maintenance much easier when that information needs to be reviewed or amended.

Links to help with search engine rankings...

The more relevant links to a page, the more likely it will be to get higher page rankings from search engines. Once you know that links contribute to search engine rankings, it becomes obvious that when directing site visitors to a category page of an online shop, "See our winter scarves" is much better than "See our winter scarves here".

Links to drive site visitors towards purchase...

A useful thing to remember is that visitors to online shops have a very short attention span. So if they see an image of a product they like on a static content page or in a banner, there is a good chance of them buying it if they find it easily. If they don't find it easily, they are at least as likely to leave the site in frustration as they are to buy an alternative.

That is why you need to make sure that clicking on a product image or a text link next to the image takes users directly to the product detail or "buy" page for that item, or to a category list containing the product. A particular bug-bear of ours is images of discontinued products around your site - human nature being what it is, nothing will be as appealing as the item that can't be bought any more!

What about links outside my site?

External links can be useful to you when you need to provide information to customers that is best offered elsewhere, like details of a show where you will be exhibiting your product.

Don't send your visitors away...

Do make sure that links outside your site open in another browser window, otherwise it is like sending customers out of your shop and into the one down the road. Although they may have intended to come back later, it is quite likely that they simply won't bother.

Links to stockists of my product...

The relationship with stockists is a tricky topic for manufacturers of products. The manufacturer needs the retailer to continue to buy, although direct sales generate more revenue.

Our attitude here is simply summarised as "any sale is a good sale" and "why shouldn't the customer choose where to buy?" That is why we argue for product owners to have good links to stockist websites. Some people will leave your site and buy from the stockist, which means that your product is still sold and you have helped your retailer. The reverse argument also applies, that people searching the internet for your stockist may find you and buy direct. Win-win either way.

Link building with other sites...

Apart from the examples above, links outside your site are not particularly good for you, but links in from other sites are extremely useful, so you may have to provide a quid pro quo.

Link building into your site is a huge and potentially time-consuming topic, but well worth finding out more about when you get a chance. Sources of links to think about include relevant directories, blogs, social media, even online PR and job adverts.

What about a Links page?

If you simply must have a "Links" page to point to websites of your friends and favourite charities, then please tuck it away in your footer menu and don't waste valuable selling space above the fold.

So what can I do?

In summary, take some time to look at your site as a user might and make sure that information is easily available at all relevant points and that old images are promptly replaced by those illustrating new products.

Mend broken links

Broken links are irritating to site visitors and usually lead them to an ugly  "404 Page Not Found" error, at which point they may just leave your site altogether.

Google Webmaster Tools (if you use Google Analytics, you will find the webmaster tools close by) will identify broken links for you. We strongly advise that you go and fix them.

Review your site

Another good discipline is simply to take a quiet hour or two to review your whole site, clicking on lots of links as you go. Unless you employ a very active site editor, it is likely that this process will lead not only to fixing problems, but also to some great ideas that you can implement too.

I might need a hand with some of these things. Can we talk directly?

Certainly. You can contact us by phone or email and we'll be happy to have a conversation and produce a proposal if that would be useful.