What Are Sitelinks? How Google Displays Website Sitelinks

Have you ever searched for a keyword on Google and noticed that some websites show small links beneath the main title? Those links are called sitelinks, shortcuts that take users to important pages such as products, the blog or contact, in a single click. Besides making the experience smoother, sitelinks also help raise your website's click-through rate on Google. So what is a sitelink, can you "create" one yourself, and how do you get Google to show them for your website? Let's look at it together with MONA Media right now.

What is a sitelink?

Sitelinks are small links to other important pages on the same website, shown right below the main search result on Google, helping users reach the content they need faster. Sitelinks were first introduced in 2005 and in 2006 Google officially announced the feature. 

Today, sitelinks are one of the most common search features. Queries that contain a brand name usually show sitelinks, along with many other queries, typically informational queries.

The number of sitelinks shown differs by query type:

• Brand queries: When people search for keywords related to a brand name, Google usually shows about 6 sitelinks.
• General queries or ad-related queries: For more general keywords, the results page usually shows only about 4 sitelinks.

What benefits do sitelinks bring to a website?

Now that you know what a sitelink is, you are probably curious about the real value these links bring to a website. Besides making your website stand out in search results, sitelinks bring many practical benefits to a business, including:

• More visibility and brand recall: When website sitelinks appear, the whole listing takes up more space on the search results page. The more links there are, the better the website's chance to compete. This dense presence makes the website name more familiar to users and gradually fixes it in customers' minds.
• Shows the website's credibility and quality: Google shows sitelinks only for websites with a good structure that users rate highly through real behavior. Having many sitelinks shows that your website runs well, has useful content and steady traffic, which builds more trust with customers when they are choosing.
• Better user experience and click-through rate (CTR): Sitelinks help visitors find the content they need quickly, without digging deep into the website. This saves search time and makes them more likely to click, which improves the website's CTR.
• Supports optimization SEO for the long term: Even though you cannot create Google's natural sitelinks yourself, building a clear website structure, sensible internal links and valuable content raises the chance that Google recognizes and shows sitelinks. Sitelinks also help extend the time users stay on the page, an important factor in improving SEO rankings.
• More chances for varied conversions: If the website has many different products or services, sitelinks are a great way to send users to the content they care about, which increases conversions or brings in more potential customers.

Common types of sitelinks today

Since launching, sitelinks have gone through many changes in how they are displayed and updated. Below are the four types of sitelinks you will commonly see today. Website sitelinks can appear in different forms, from simple text sitelinks to sitelinks that include a dedicated search box. Understanding them helps you optimize your website effectively, an important step in the journey of learn how to do SEO online for professional services.

Paid sitelinks

Paid sitelinks, also called sitelink ads, usually appear in running Google adscampaigns. You can add sitelink extensions yourself to make better use of ad space and improve campaign performance. 

The biggest difference between paid sitelinks and the other types is that you have full control over the URL and the text shown in the ad, while other sitelinks are generated automatically by Google based on algorithms and user behavior.

Organic sitelinks

Organic sitelinks usually appear for brand-name keywords or specific phrases and can show up to 6 links to other pages on the website. With organic sitelinks, Google decides how to display them based on the website's structure and credibility. Google only shows organic sitelinks for results in the top positions.

Organic one-line sitelinks

Organic one-line sitelinks appear for many types of queries and usually include 4 links. These links lead to other pages on the website or jump straight to a specific section of a page through a fragment (#) link.

Organic sitelink search box

The organic sitelink search box lets users search directly and quickly reach results from an app or website. This type of sitelink appears only for keywords related to a brand name and is added automatically by Google.

To raise your chances of getting a Google sitelink search box, add suitable structured data and optimize your homepage for internal search. But this only helps and does not guarantee that it 100% will appear in search results.

How to get Google to show sitelinks for your website

Many webmasters ask how to create sitelinks and how to make them more likely to show for their websites. In reality, Google generates sitelinks automatically based on a website's credibility and structure, so you cannot request them on demand. The only approach is to optimize your website against the criteria Google favors. Meeting these factors well raises the chance that sitelinks appear prominently in search results.

Criteria for Google to show website sitelinks

As mentioned, Google does not show sitelinks for every website. It decides based on specific criteria. Here are the key conditions your website needs to meet if you want Google to assign sitelinks:

• The website name should be unique: A distinctive, unique name helps your website show up when people search, instead of blending in with brands that have similar names.
• A clear website structure: A website built on a model such as Silo or Topic Cluster helps Google identify which pages are important and route content more clearly.
• Quality content: The website needs SEO-ready content that is updated regularly, original and genuinely useful to readers.
• Key pages must be indexed: Google only considers pages that have been indexed, so make sure your main content is fully indexed.
• Optimize structured data: Adding structured data helps Google understand the website's content faster, which improves the chance of sitelinks being shown.
• The website needs to build credibility: A website with quality backlinks, valuable content, a good domain and high traffic is always rated higher by Google when it reviews sitelinks.
• Page loading speed and user experience: A website that loads fast, has a friendly interface and is easy to use keeps users longer, and Google favors it more when showing sitelinks.
• Leave no technical SEO errors unresolved: Errors such as 404s, a wrong sitemap or titles that are not SEO-ready all affect Google's ability to show sitelinks for your website.
• An effective internal link system: Internal links should lead users to important pages and create a smooth path through the whole website.

How do you optimize a website to improve the chance of sitelinks?

To raise the chance of sitelinks appearing in search engines, keep the following ways to optimize your website in mind.

The website name must be truly unique

Your domain should be easy to remember, clear and reflect your brand name or your field. Also avoid overlapping with other domains to limit confusion in search results. When a domain meets these conditions, Google can easily recognize it and link the website to the brand, which raises the chance of sitelinks appearing when users search the brand name.

Optimize so the brand keyword ranks first in search results

As noted above, Google shows sitelinks only if the brand keyword ranks first on the results page. So you need to fully optimize both SEO Onpage and Offpage. For a new brand, reaching the top spot takes a lot of time and effort. But if you are already in first place and still have no sitelinks, review the following:

• Supports file robot.txt does not block Google from accessing the index it needs.
• The homepage title should contain the brand name.
• On the homepage, the brand name must appear as text and sit inside the H1 tag.
• The homepage should provide complete information about the business.

Add structured data to the website

Structured data is information added to a website to help Googlebot better understand its content and topic. You can use dedicated plugins to add metadata or set up schema. Adding this data does not guarantee that Google will assign sitelinks, but it is one of the ways that noticeably raises the chance of links appearing.

Build a logical, clear website layout

The website needs a logical hierarchy, with the main pages easy to reach from the navigation menu.

For example, from the homepage, both users and Google should be able to easily reach pages such as "About", "Services", "Products" or "Contact".

Key pages should also have clear, readable URLs that describe the page content, which helps Google index them and improves the chance of sitelinks.

Add a table of contents to articles

Usually, sitelinks appear for the homepage or main pages such as terms of use, but in some cases Google also shows sitelinks for individual posts on a website.

So you should set up a table of contents with links to each section of the post. This not only raises the chance of sitelinks appearing for individual posts, but also helps build brand recognition.

A table of contents also gives readers a better reading experience. They can quickly grasp the main points of the post or easily jump to the content they care about most.

Use the sidebar to drive traffic to important pages

The sidebar plays a fairly important role in website optimization. It rounds out the website's layout and content, and is also a useful tool for giving users extra valuable information.

When you use the sidebar to guide users to important pages, those pages are also more likely to get sitelinks. This approach helps a business increase the number of Google sitelinks naturally and effectively.

Create a sitemap for the website

Sitemap XML is an extremely useful tool for outlining all the pages of a website. With a sitemap, Google can crawl and index your website more completely.

After creating an XML sitemap, submit the file to Google Search Console. This helps Google quickly understand the website's structure, which raises the chance that important pages are shown as sitelinks in search results.

Register with Google Search Console

One essential step to optimize sitelink display is making sure the website is registered with Google Search Console. This tool helps you track the website's search performance and see which pages have a chance of being assigned sitelinks by Google.

Google Search Console also helps you detect and fix problems that affect how your website appears in search engines.

Build a quality internal link system

Internal links are a very important factor in on-page SEO. If you want your website to have quality sitelinks, prioritize building links to your most important pages.

Google has confirmed that how pages link to each other directly affects how it judges each page's importance. From this, Google identifies the standout pages to include in sitelinks, which improves the visibility and ranking of the whole website.

Optimize page titles for SEO

Besides other technical factors, pay attention to page titles. A title should contain the keyword you are targeting for SEO and be closely related to the page content.

Google often uses the page title itself to create sitelinks, so you need to optimize titles carefully. If you need help, you can use a tool like Yoast SEO to review and adjust before publishing new content.

Strengthen brand recognition on social media

Google rates brands highly when they have wide reach on social media and attract the attention of the online community. So use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to raise your brand's presence.

Sharing website content on these channels also adds to your brand's credibility in Google's eyes, which widens the chance for your website to be assigned sitelinks in search results.

Sitelinks are an important part of an overall SEO strategy that many people overlook. Even though you cannot ask Google to show sitelinks on demand, understanding how they work and steadily improving your website's quality raises the chance of these attractive links appearing. On the path to building an online brand, sitelinks are not only a sign that you are on the right track, they also add to your website's credibility and conversion rate. 

Are you ready to break through in online sales and take the top spots on Google? MONA is here to work with you. Call us for professional advice and a detailed SEO quote as well as possible.