Internal Linking Guide: Actionable Tips, Strategies, and Tools

Internal links play a vital role in an effective SEO strategy. They are both quite straightforward and intricate, serving as pathways that guide users through your online content while providing valuable insights to search engine crawlers about your website’s structure.

These links are ubiquitous across the internet, likely utilized in your content even if you’re unaware. (Hint: there are a few embedded within this introduction.)

Understanding the mechanics of internal linking and recognizing their significance is essential for optimizing your content for SEO. In this piece, we will delve into the complexities of internal linking for SEO and examine suggested strategies to enhance their impact.

Internal Linking: What is It?

Internal links refer to links within a single domain that direct users from one page to another. They differ from external links which lead to pages on different websites. For every website with multiple pages, internal linking is crucial.

Consider your website’s homepage. Typically, the top navigation contains links to other internal pages such as About, Shop, and Contact. This internal linking framework is vital for SEO as it establishes site architecture and enhances link equity.

Connecting multiple web pages under one domain increases indexing opportunities for search engine crawlers, thereby improving your ranking potential.

Why is It Important?

Internal linking stands as one of the most effective tools in SEO.

Why is it so effective?

Because it produces results. Google’s machine-learning algorithm has evolved significantly since the inception of SEO, making it difficult to manipulate the system.

Despite the algorithm’s sophistication, there are straightforward adjustments that can yield immediate improvements in SEO without attempting to manipulate search engines.

Internal linking is one such adjustment. It’s not a tactic or a deceitful strategy, and it’s relatively simple to implement. Let’s explore some of its advantages.

1: Can Help Indexing Your Website

Google’s crawler traverses link pathways across the web to discover and index websites. A well-structured internal linking system on your website facilitates the Google crawler’s process of discovering newly published content.

Google’s bots routinely scour the internet for updated content. With a robust network of internal links interconnecting your content, the crawling process accelerates significantly. Consequently, your content gets indexed more swiftly, leading to potential improvements in SEO performance.

2: Improve Your Conversion

For ecommerce brands, establishing a well-structured internal linking system on your website enhances user navigation, ultimately guiding your target audience towards making a purchase.

Relevant connections, particularly originating from early-stage content, can lead your audience deeper into the sales funnel and encourage conversions. Links embedded within your homepage direct users towards your content marketing efforts.

Each of the internal blog’s post within this structure guides users towards gated content, a free trial, or product pages. In this manner, your website’s audience progresses from initial awareness to becoming qualified leads and eventual customers.

To construct such a link network, it’s essential to approach it from the perspective of the buyer’s journey. This involves analyzing content mapping in a similar manner.

Starting from creating appropriate content and optimizing it for relevant searches, the procedure extends to interlinking it strategically to guide your audience through their journey, catering to their pace and preferences.

3: Take Care of Your Website’s Architecture

Your website’s fundamental structure, known as its site taxonomy, dictates how your content is categorized within menus and navigation, guiding users from the homepage to deeper pages.

Taxonomies play a crucial role in helping both Google and users comprehend your site’s purpose and content. However, website architecture extends beyond mere structural taxonomy.

Through internal linking, you can introduce another dimension that we’ve previously discussed: a network of interconnected content and pages.

While your structural taxonomy typically organizes content by topics and subtopics, sometimes you need to link between different sections. It can be challenging within a linear taxonomy.

The 2nd layer of website architecture, represented by internal links, facilitates these cross-links, enhancing user experience by transforming disjointed pages into a cohesive online journey.

The Best Practices of Internal Linking

Now, let’s delve into the specifics. How do you go about implementing internal linking? What’s the most effective approach for maximizing the value of your links?

Firstly, there are two prerequisites:

Content on the website: Even if you have just one article, that’s sufficient to begin. It serves as your starting point. If you don’t have any written content but intend to create some, consider exploring our guide, “The Ultimate Guide to Writing Epic Content”.

Consistent creation of new content for the site: Establishing a regular publishing schedule is crucial for ensuring the effectiveness of internal linking.

With these prerequisites in place, let’s proceed.

1: Link To and From Content-Heavy Pages

The most effective internal links are those that establish connections between different articles, enhancing the site’s internal linking structure.

A well-structured site architecture typically includes sufficient links to the main pages like the homepage, About, and Contact pages. So, additional links to these pages are unnecessary.

Of course, if aiming to drive conversions through a squeeze page or sales page and the context is appropriate, linking to them is advisable.

Primarily, I suggest incorporating links within and between long-form articles. This approach naturally extends your internal linking network.

2: Three Things You Should Not Do with Internal Linking

Avoid attempting to precisely match the anchor text with the link target. This practice, referred to as “exact match anchor text,” has been linked to SEO penalties following the Penguin update.

Modern search engines are sensitive to the frequent use of exact match anchor text as it’s uncommon in regular content and appears unnatural.

Steer clear of using phrases like “click here” as they contribute no value. Anchor text should be relevant to the linked page in some manner. Also, refrain from linking more than one sentence.

A hyperlinked paragraph can be visually unappealing and result in a subpar user experience. Stick to using a few words or a phrase when employing anchor text to direct to an internal link.

3: Update Your Older Articles

Combining internal linking with another tactic—updating old content—can yield significant benefits. When you refresh old content, Google’s crawler revisits it, reindexes it, and potentially boosts its ranking in the SERPs. We advocate for regularly updating old articles.

Here’s a recommended process for revitalizing your old blog posts:

Introduce a new paragraph at the beginning detailing your updates.

Incorporate several new paragraphs throughout, including additional or revised information.

Remove or replace outdated statistics or information.

Integrate multiple new internal links to recently created content.

Place links where they naturally fit and add value.

It’s essential to recognize that internal linking isn’t solely about connecting new content to older content. It also involves revisiting older content and establishing internal links that connect to your newer work.

By doing this, you achieve two objectives:

Enhancing the value and ranking of old content through updates.

Establishing internal links between an established older page and a newer, less-established page on the site.

Bonus: Put Your Links into Relevant Places

Now that you have acquired extensive knowledge about internal linking, you are most likely contemplating where to place your internal links.

While it might be tempting to take the easy route and insert them hastily at the end of an article with a generic prompt like “For more great content, click here!”, please refrain from doing so. Or, at the very least, avoid relying solely on this approach.

Instead, seek out areas within the content where topics naturally intersect. These points of convergence serve as logical connections to incorporate internal links. For instance, you can embed links to define complex terms or elaborate on related topics.

Consider internal links as valuable reference points that enhance the reader’s experience.

An Ode to What You Shouldn’t Do!

Now that you’ve grasped the proper utilization of internal linking, let’s examine some practices to steer clear of. Excessive linking within your content can harm your ranking. Keep in mind that Google doesn’t crawl pages with over 150 links, including header, footer, and menu links.

Avoid overdoing it!

Keyword stuffing in anchor text is another internal linking pitfall. While once popular, this black hat tactic is now penalized by sophisticated search algorithms.

Similarly, using internal links in header text is ill-advised. Such links may be interpreted as spam by Google crawlers, negatively impacting your SEO.

Lastly, it’s essential to vet all internal links before publication. Broken links diminish link juice and signal to Google that your website may be of low quality.