One of the best practices in SEO that you should always maintain is to ensure that no broken links exist on your website. Broken links can negatively impact your website’s search engine rankings and user experience.
What Are Broken Links?
Broken links are links on a website that no longer work. This can be due to many reasons, such as a website being deleted, moved, or renamed. A broken link will direct users to a “Page Not Found” page when they click on it.
Why Are Broken Links Bad for SEO?
Some of the negative impacts of broken links on the SEO of your eLearning business include the following:
- Reduced Website Traffic: One of the main reasons broken links can negatively impact the SEO of your eLearning business is that they can result in a decrease in website traffic. This is because when users click on a broken link, they are taken to an error page instead of the desired page. As a result, they are likely to leave your website and may not return.
- Lower Search Engine Ranking: Broken links can also lead to a lower search engine ranking for your website. This is because search engines use several factors, including website traffic and the number of broken links, to determine the ranking of a website. A website with many broken links is likely to have a lower ranking than a website with few or no broken links.
- Damage to Your Website’s Reputation: Broken links can also damage your website’s reputation because they make it appear unprofessional and unreliable. As a result, users may be less likely to visit your website and may even choose to visit your competitors instead.
How to Fix Broken Links?
Doing the best practices for SEO is one of the practical things you can do to mitigate this type of problem. You can also use online tools such as the Check My Links Chrome extension, which will help you find and fix broken links on your website.
Another thing you can do is prevent having broken links in the first place. After all, broken links can be caused by various things, such as website redesigns, changes in website hosting, or incorrect links in your website’s content.
However, by following the best practices for SEO, you can help ensure that your website is as stable as possible and that your links are less likely to break. To help prevent broken links, you can:
- Regularly check your website for broken links using online tools or plugins
- Use 301 redirects to redirect broken links to working links automatically
- Use the correct anchor text when linking to other websites
- Verify that your website’s links are working properly before publishing new content
- Manually find and fix broken links using a text editor
- Use a redirect plugin to redirect broken links to working links
Final Thoughts
Broken links can significantly impact the SEO of your eLearning business. They can cause your website to rank lower in search engine results pages and cause people to lose trust in your website. Therefore, it is important to fix broken links as soon as possible. You can use several tools and techniques to do this, and the best approach will depend on the size and complexity of your website.
Local SEO Pro provides SEO best practices that would ensure your website doesn’t have broken links that could impact your eLearning business. Sign up on our platform today!
