Internal linking for SEO is like a clock tower.
Many marvel at the grandeur of the clock’s face (backlinks). Yet, the internal gears (internal links) work tirelessly behind the scenes for a smooth flow. And that’s why it’s crucial to know how to do internal linking for SEO.
Internal links between pages on your site provide a better UX and help search engines understand your site architecture.
Now, every site owner longs to rank higher in Google. Crushing internal linking for SEO is one way to get there.
So, buckle up and learn the best practices to help improve your site’s internal linking strategy.
Let’s dive in.
Internal links are hyperlinks that send readers from one page on your website to another one on the same website. Essentially, they link different pages of your website to ensure that your visitors don’t leave your site.
You can either place internal links as bare links or embed them on suitable anchors. The latter is the preferred approach.
There are three primary types of internal links, each serving a distinct function. Understanding them is crucial, especially when using internal linking for SEO to improve site structure and user navigation.
These are menu items you place at the top or side of your webpage. They work as a roadmap for users that lets them navigate to different internal pages or sections within your site easily.
These are links you embed within the content of your web pages. They should be relevant to the texts on the page and provide more resources or information on the topic.
Even more, contextual links guide your users to related content. Plus, they help search engines understand the relevance and context of specific keywords within your content.
These are placed at the bottom or footer section of your webpage. They’re not as obvious as navigational links. However, footer links help provide supplementary navigation options and ensure users can access other essential pages.
Here are 11 best practices that will help you improve your internal linking for SEO, boost your UX, and more. You can combine these strategies with tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to speed things up.
One of the first steps in optimizing internal linking for SEO is to plan your site structure. This is how your content is organized and linked.
So, establish categories and a proper hierarchy. This helps your users and search engines navigate your site easily.
The best way to do this is to use a pyramid structure. You can use it to create a top-down internal linking structure that looks like this:
You can also add breadcrumbs to this structure. This makes it even easier to scroll through your site. Plus, it helps visitors pinpoint exactly where they are on your website. And, they can trace their steps back to your homepage.
Image via Yoast
A key internal linking for SEO strategy is creating pillar pages that can serve as hubs for your website content and internal linking. These are essentially cornerstone pages that provide value with in-depth content on broader topics.
Typically, these pages tend to be pretty comprehensive in terms of content and its length.
To create pillar pages:
For example, laser engraving machines would be a strategic pillar page on Alibaba. After all, the keyword ‘laser engraving machine’ receives over 22k monthly searches.
When you first create pillar pages, you won’t have much to add in terms of internal links. But this page essentially serves as a hub from which you can add internal links to various other pages and vice-versa.
With your pillar pages ready, developing supportive topic clusters — supplementary subtopics — is the next internal linking for SEO strategy.
In the case of “laser engraving machines,” clusters might include “laser engraving machine brands,” “what is laser engraving?” or “applications of laser engraving.”
These topic clusters should link back to the main pillar page to indicate topical relevance. Similarly, the pillar page should link to them as well.
This way, the pillar page becomes the authoritative hub. The numerous internal links will also help you rank it higher, even with its competitive keywords.
Here’s how you can create topic clusters:
1. Launch keyword generator on Ahrefs.
Image via Ahrefs
2. Enter your primary search term and Ahrefs will list numerous content cluster ideas.
Image via Ahrefs
Once you’ve found these topics, you can start creating content on them. Make sure you add internal links to your pillar page in these posts. Also, go back to our pillar pages and link to the cluster posts.
This can help you build a strong internal link structure. It also helps search engine crawling and reinforces your site's topical authority.
Anchor text is essentially the clickable text on which the internal link is embedded. You have to be strategic about your anchor text as it can tell visitors and search engines about the content of the page that’s been linked.
In the past, internal links were often added on generic anchor text like “click here,” “read more,” or “download here.”
But these don't offer useful context.
Readers want insight into what information they'll find after clicking the link.
Take a look at this anchor text, for instance. It describes that the link leads to content related to video making.
Image via Attrock
This anchor text provides little breadcrumbs enticing click-throughs from visitors.
Here are some internal linking for SEO best practices for creating anchor texts:
Not all pages are made equal.
Some are high rollers that can make or break your business. They bring in most of your website traffic.
Now, here’s the game plan.
Identify several important pages with high authority and internally link from them. It’ll help you pass value from them to other pages and indicate their importance.
It's like a vote of confidence, saying, “This page is the real deal!”
Use tools like Google Search Console, Semrush, and Ahrefs to determine high-value internal pages. From the list of your website’s pages, look for ones that are driving maximum traffic to your site. These are the ones that you should be targeting.
Linking from high-value pages passes link authority to the rest, boosting their ranking in the SERPs.
Internal link-building tools are like your website’s personal assistant.
They crawl your site, flagging opportunities to enhance your internal linking game. Use SEO audit tools like Google Search Console, SEOPress, and LinkStorm to help you build internal links by:
Using these tools makes your life easy and ensures that you don’t end up with broken links or orphan pages (ones without any internal links pointing to them).
For instance, with LinkStorm, you’ll get a report like this one indicating the source page, anchor text suggestions, and target page.
Images via LinkStorm
You can check this LinkStorm review for more insights into this internal link-building tool.
Your website visitors won’t wait long before bouncing. And that’s why it's crucial to position internal links early in your content.
Placing them higher in your content increases the chances of visitors clicking on them instead of bouncing away. It also signals relevancy to the search engines.
The reason is simple.
Visible internal links give readers something intriguing to click on right away. This pulls them into your site instead of bouncing away.
See how NatGeo placed a link early in this post.
Image via NatGeo
That said, don’t go overboard with adding internal links in the first few paragraphs. Instead, judiciously spread them out across the entire post.
Nofollow links have a special attribute (rel=”nofollow”) that stops search engines from passing SEO value or indexing the page.
Nofollow attribute is useful for linking low-value pages like login portals, affiliate links, user-generated content, and sponsored or paid links. They’re especially useful if you don’t want them to be indexed by search engines.
This way, their ranking also doesn't dilute overall site strength.
That said, you must use nofollow only for limited pages. Don’t overuse them, else you might end up diluting your SEO efforts.
To find nofollow internal links on your website, use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Majestic. You can create nofollow links by using the rel=nofollow attribute while creating internal links.
You can use the website audit option in Semrush to check link warnings for your website. The nofollows are under the warning tab of the internal link audit report.
Image via Semrush
How many internal links is too many? Well, according to Google's John Mueller, there's no magic number, but it's crucial to maintain a recognizable structure when crawling the website.
In simple terms, you should use an adequate number of internal links on every page. But don’t overload them.
Putting too many of them on a page might force search engines to consider the page as spam. It may also reduce your crawl budget, which doesn’t augur well for your SEO.
Fortunately, internal link counters like Duplichecker can analyze a web page, and count the links. Here’s a report showing the total number of internal links.
Image via Duplichecker
Keep your page's link count reasonably low to ensure that it doesn’t impact your SEO.
Link juice is the SEO power passed between multiple web pages through internal and external links.
Here’s the internal linking and link juice distribution blueprint:
You can check the page authority of your site’s pages and accordingly decide your internal linking strategy to pass on link juice to other pages.
That said, make sure that you only add relevant internal links. Don’t add irrelevant ones for the sake of passing on link juice.
One smart internal linking for SEO tactic is to rejuvenate outdated evergreen content with new contextual links.
It helps this content remain useful over time. The best type of content for this would be evergreen tutorials and guides.
Over time, search engine crawlers may deprioritize older pages lacking fresh signals of value.
But you can counter this by:
This strengthens the internal linking structure between old and new content. It also passes link juice and authority signals from established pages to newer ones needing credibility boosts.
Moreover, it tightens the interconnectedness of your site's overall internal link structure.
True: Understanding the best practices for internal linking in SEO is crucial. But there are some common missteps to avoid. Let’s take a quick look at them.
Linking to unrelated pages affects the flow of content and confuses both users and search engines. So, every internal link should fit naturally with the surrounding content and lead to a relevant, helpful page.
For example, you don’t want to link from a blog on social media strategy to a product page about shipping tools — it feels forced. Instead, link to related posts like “how to build a content calendar.” The anchor text and destination should match user intent and support the topic.
Websites grow and change. And broken links and orphan pages can pile up when you ignore internal links during site updates.
So, make internal link audits part of your quarterly routine. Check for broken URLs, outdated anchors, and underlinked pages. And use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to speed up this process.
SEO is important, but user experience should come first. So, don’t cram 20 internal links into one paragraph or use vague anchor text like “click here.”
Your internal links should guide visitors naturally and help them discover valuable, related content. So, prioritize clarity, simplicity, and usefulness. This clean linking structure helps improve navigation, time on site, and overall engagement.
You might now be wondering why you should use internal links on your website in the first place. Well, here’s why they’re critical for your SEO success:
Search engines use bots or crawlers to find and index content. Internal links guide these bots through your website's structure.
For instance, let’s say your new blog post links to an old service page. As a result of the internal linking for SEO, Google is more likely to crawl and re-index that page. Even deep or low-traffic pages remain visible to search engines.
When you link from a high-authority page to another internal page, you pass along what’s called link equity or “SEO juice.” For instance, you can link a homepage to a product page to boost the product page’s ranking.
Proper distribution of page authority boosts the ranking of important pages in search results. This is especially important when they don't have many backlinks.
Internal links guide visitors to related, helpful content, keeping them engaged on your site longer.
Effective internal linking for SEO not only reduces bounce rates but also encourages users to explore your site for more content.
You can use keyword-rich anchor text in internal links to reinforce a page’s relevance for specific topics. Search engines use these anchor texts to understand the context and relevance of linked content.
Internal linking for SEO helps define your site’s architecture. It identifies which of your pages are most important and helps establish a logical hierarchy for both users and bots.
This structure improves navigation. Plus, it helps search engines understand the relationship between content on your site.
By guiding users to related products, services, or CTA pages, internal linking for SEO helps increase the chances of conversions.
For instance, you can link a blog post on “Workplace Productivity” to your time management software demo page. This way, you create a smoother path from building brand awareness to action, ultimately boosting sales or signups.
As the name implies, internal linking for SEO enhances your site’s internal SEO, making you less reliant on external links for ranking. It enables your site to establish authority from within, particularly if you have a new or niche website.
Internal linking for SEO supports content clusters around specific topics. And this helps you build topical authority.
For example, you can link a pillar page on “Content Marketing” to supporting blogs, such as “Content Strategy,” “Content Audits,” and “Content Calendar Tools.”
This indicates to search engines that you have comprehensive content, thereby enhancing your overall SEO visibility.
Q1. What are some common mistakes in internal linking for SEO?
A. Some common mistakes include:
Q2. What’s the difference between dofollow and nofollow links?
A. Dofollow links pass SEO authority and signals to linked pages. These are links search engine crawlers can follow On the other hand, nofollow links (rel=”nofollow”) tell search engines NOT to crawl them.
Q3. What are the common types of internal links?
A. Some common types of internal links include:
Q4. Should I prioritize UX or SEO when placing internal links?
A. Both. The best internal linking for SEO strategy balances SEO and UX needs by providing your users with a seamless and enjoyable experience while optimizing for search engines. Find the sweet spot where the two intersect.
Q5. How often should I update my internal links?
A. Regularly. Update internal links as your content evolves to ensure they remain relevant and provide the most current information.
There you go.
You've now unlocked the secrets to a successful internal linking strategy that ticks all the right boxes in terms of SEO and UX. Implementing these actionable tips will help you master the art of internal linking for SEO.
Above all, make sure you place a solid emphasis on relevance. You don’t want to be adding irrelevant links for the sake of internal linking. It’s the only way you can succeed at it.
Need help with your internal linking for SEO? Our link-building services can help. Contact us to discover more about our offerings.
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