seo internal linking case study

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6 Internal Linking Case Studies of Increased Visibility and Opportunity

Internal linking presents many challenges to enterprise sites. 

With hundreds of thousands of pages and deep levels of categorization, determining where to link, what anchor text to use, and how to deploy, track, and measure their impact is overwhelming at best. 

But the benefits of smart internal linking at scale are undeniable, and we've worked with many clients to achieve amazing results.

In this collection of case studies from our clients, we showcase the power of internal linking for enterprise brands and demonstrate how it can significantly impact a site's visibility, authority, and overall success.

Recommended Reading: The Ultimate Guide to Internal Link Analysis

6 Internal Linking Case Studies for Enterprise SEO

• +150K Annual Visits YoY with Link Optimizer Project Implementation
• Retail Enterprise Improves Category Page Ranking With Internal Linking

+24% in Organic Traffic for Ecommerce Brand With Increase in Deeper Internal Links

• +23% Traffic Increase With Fast and Accurate Internal Link Implementation for Top Sales Pages on Retail Site

Instantly Implemented Internal Links Lead to 100% Jump in Discovered Keywords for Marketplace 

Additional category page for internal linking creates opportunity to expand product line, +150k annual visits yoy with link optimizer.

A large retail ecommerce brand wanted to update and correct their internal links across their site, not only to create a better user experience, but they believed this was the key to driving more traffic.

With tens of thousands of site pages however, this proved to be a painstaking task for their team to take on alone.

The SEO team used Link Optimizer , seoClarity's AI-Powered internal linking technology to optimize their internal links across their large site. 

Link Optimizer is the first and only front-to-end internal linking solution, allowing brands to quickly and intelligently:

• Improve discoverability of valuable pages
• Analyze for matching content
• Write and deploy anchor text for links
• Measure the impact of changes from AI-generated links

Within just three weeks of the project being complete, the site saw a 9.5k weekly increase in organic traffic equating to a 150K increase annually to those pages with new internal links.

Retail Enterprise Improves Category Page Ranking in Days With Internal Linking

A retail enterprise merged two categories on their site: Collectibles and Home Décor into a single category: “Collectibles and Décor.” They also updated the anchor text in the top navigation from “Collectibles” to “Collectibles and Décor." 

Before this merger of categories, the brand ranked well for the term “collectibles” (ranking on the 2nd page). After the merger of these two pages, however, they noticed a significant decline in ranking for the term “collectibles,” dropping to the 7th page in the search results.

To improve the ranking for the term collectibles, the retail brand used the seoClarity platform to seamlessly: 

• Update anchor text in the top navigation back to the single category “collectibles.” 
• Update all contextual links across the site where the anchor text was “home décor" to “collectibles.”

Within a few days after making these changes, the brand saw a significant improvement in its rankings , bringing the term "collectibles" back to the 2nd page of search results.

This ecommerce brand had a site architecture with multiple levels of categories and subcategories. Unfortunately, deep subcategory pages existed several clicks from the home page. As a result, the organic traffic to these products began to decline.

They hypothesized that increasing links from their level one pages to their deeper pages would also increase their internal PageRank and improve relevancy signals, resulting in improved ranking and traffic.

As a test, four categories were chosen with similar metrics, determining traffic potential for each of the products on their level three and four pages. The categories were split into a control group and a test group, each containing two categories. Links were algorithmically determined and added to the pages of the test categories.

The test resulted in a 24% increase to organic traffic for the level two and three categories . The level four category pages also experienced a boost in traffic, which is expected to increase even more over time. 

+23% Traffic Increase With Fast and Accurate Internal Link Implementation for Top Sales Pages

A retail enterprise expanded product categories as new products required further differentiation within the site structure for items like dresses, shoes, and accessories.

As the website expanded to include more brand names, the site navigation grew and began to feature more trendy brands, resulting in less exposure for many of the past breadwinners.  

To offset the resulting decrease in traffic, the company wanted to test if internal linking would help rebuild exposure for the previously successful products in search engines. Their hypothesis stated that increasing internal linking to previous commodity-like items would allow them to retake the top spots in organic search.

Using seoClarity's site crawler , they identified all existing internal links to each product and category.

Then, using internal analytics, they identified products that once had consistently high sales. From this, they determined that these top products had extremely low link counts in relation to the new “featured” products that were often more niche. 

Together, the brand and seoClarity used the data to create a link plan that increased the internal link counts in a distributed fashion to these former top-selling items.

Given the timing of an upcoming holiday season, the company reviewed the plan and requested a full rollout without an initial test.

As it turned out, their hypothesis was correct. The average ranking for these products improved into top spots and traffic increased by 23% , making them top sellers once again. 

A large marketplace client has 3 levels of site hierarchy: State, City, and Listing.

While they were ranking well for individual listings, their city-level category pages were ranking poorly. The challenge was finding internal linking opportunities for different cities.

Since semantic analysis would not work in this case, seoClarity built a model that automatically identified and linked the nearest cities to a particular city page based on their distances.

These links were instantly implemented and showed users a list of nearby city locations. For example, visitors of the Chicago page would also see a block that displayed nearby cities close to Chicago as internal links.

This automated link deployment helped improve the crawling of the city-level pages and the client saw a 100% jump in the count of city-level keywords for which they w ere discovered.

This retail company expanded their category pages when they noticed that visitors were searching their website for certain products that didn't have a category association.

Based on the products searched on the site, seoClarity helped the team identify the search page that was driving traffic. They created a category, then added the category page in the top navigation along with the few relevant category pages for internal linking.

Once the new category page was created, Google replaced the search page within a few weeks with this new category page, creating an opportunity to expand their product line. 

Apply Internal Links at Scale With Link Optimizer

Effective internal linking opens the door to a variety of ranking opportunities and site optimizations to enhance overall performance (not to mention it's completely under your control, unlike external link building).

And yet, so many enterprises miss out on this huge SEO opportunity because they think internal linking at scale is too complicated and too time-consuming!

With ClarityAutomate™ Link Optimizer , now integrated with the capabilities of ChatGPT through Sia, the first-ever AI-powered SEO assistant, internal linking at scale is a snap. 

Link Optimizer automatically analyzes, creates, publishes, and tracks the performance of deep internal links to increase discoverability and expand ranking opportunities.

This approach leverages semantic analysis with site performance and bot crawl data and has the potential to outperform manual efforts of internal linking. 

And, unlike other automatic linking tools, Link Optimizer ensures SEOs are always in control and our unique algorithm is trained to keep recommendations fresh.

Feeling confident enough to automatically deploy internal links at scale? Sign-up for a demo of ClarityAutomate™ Link Optimizer and see how your ranking opportunities unfold.

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Internal Linking: What, Why, and How (2024)

It is completely true that backlinks play a significant role in your website’s great performance. But you must know how important internal linking is in reaching that goal as well.

In fact, 51% of SEOs say content writers should include two to three internal links in articles, while 36% say they should add three to five.

So don’t go anywhere to find an answer to this question, and learn with us how to build a winning internal linking strategy.

But wait, maybe we should start discussing what internal linking is anyway.

What are Internal Links?

Internal links are hyperlinks from your webpage that direct readers to another page of your website. Those links guide readers to find content on your website and help search engines navigate through your website.

We all know how important backlinks are in improving your SERP rankings and boosting visibility, but what about the huge role of internal linking in SEO?

A well-designed internal linking strategy is one of the key steps to improve your on-site SEO efforts.

Without it, you can’t successfully SEO-optimize your content and ensure it gets discovered. So, along with building a powerful backlink portfolio , you should definitely put your efforts into internal link building.

But let’s talk about the benefits of internal linking later and continue to define them in comparison to external links.

Internal linking vs. external linking

We already know internal links connect one webpage to another page. But external links refer to links from pages on your website to other domains.

The goals of these two link building techniques are different: external links give additional information from other websites and, as a result, build credibility and authority. Meanwhile, internal linking improves user experience, website navigation, and structure.

What is awesome about internal linking is that you fully control where to place the link or what anchor text to use.

When comparing internal vs external links, remember both strategies are equally important. So you need to dedicate your efforts to both to ensure your website’s success.

Now, let’s finally discuss the advantages of having an internal linking strategy that makes it so important.

Why do you need an internal linking strategy?

One of the important things you should keep in mind is that Google considers internal links, particularly link architecture , as one of the main factors for indexing by search engines.

So now let’s speak about other reasons you should really put effort into creating a strong internal linking strategy:

✓ Improves your site navigation and structure First of all, well-designed internal linking will help your audience and search engines navigate through your site more easily.

✓ Boosts user engagement You want your website, visitors to stay longer, right? So, you need to follow the best practices for internal linking. First, you can provide a positive user experience by helping them discover new information and resources that interest them.

You can increase engagement as well, as with the help of internal linking, readers should spend more time on your website to explore your new offers or products.

✓ Helps search engines to index your site With proper internal linking in place, you help Google and other search engines find your new content. On top of this, they understand the context of your pages and the connection of different pages.

✓ Makes content more authoritative Let’s say you have linkable assets that organically attract backlinks. Adding those links to your other blog posts improves their authority and overall credibility.

Although those benefits of internal linking improve on-site SEO strategy, the main goal of your internal link building should be to provide value to your readers.

Now, you may wonder what types of internal links are there that can benefit your website performance.

Different Types of Internal Links

You are sure you can’t go further without a well-thought-out internal linking strategy and want to learn more about them. If yes, then it’s time to discuss the main types of internal links that you may need to add to your website:

✓ Navigational links These are some of the most essential and popular internal link types because they make up your site’s main navigational structure. You place them on your main menu or sidebar. They cover product categories, services, or main content topics.

Let’s see this example from HubSpot, where the Software section guides readers to check its different marketing, sales of customer service internal pages.

Navigational links have their own types. First, there are footer links that appear on every page of your site but at the bottom of the page instead of the top. They help users quickly find the information they are looking for.

Contact Us, About Us , and FAQ are the most common examples of footer links.

✓ Contextual links

These are other types of internal linking that direct visitors to relevant content and help them find more information easily while reading. Typically, you need to use those links in blog posts and articles to provide additional and relevant information to your readers. Basically, contextual links help search engines understand how your pages relate to each other.

Internal Linking: 7 Practices to Follow for Success

What is interesting to note is that Google shares that one of the ways that this search engine discovers links is by following a link from a known page to a new one. So, it’s time to finally discuss internal linking best practices to ensure that Google understands your website’s structure.

Find your pillar pages and create topic clusters

Your blog is probably rich with pillar pages that are designed around broad topics and target high-volume keywords.

If yes, it’s time to create topic clusters, which are types of content about specific topics.

For example, if your pillar page was about “link building tips,” your clusters might include “ Link Building Outreach Tips,” “Content Creation Tips for Link Building,” or “Link building tactics you can avoid.” And it will be smart to internally link back to the pillar page to showcase topical relevance. This way, you can improve your site architecture as well.

Let’s give another example: SayNine’s blog has articles about both backlink and competitor backlink analysis. So, we can consider backlink analysis as a pillar page and competitor backlink analysis as a topic cluster. And it will be smart to internally link back to the pillar page to showcase topical relevance. This way, you can improve your site architecture as well.

Prioritize relevancy and deliver value

Relevance is key to almost every aspect of SEO because search engines love and prioritize relevant content. Internal linking isn’t an exception. So, when using internal linking, it’s important to prioritize relevancy and try to naturally fit within the flow of the text.

Relevant keywords or phrases guide search engines to understand the connection between the linked pages. Moreover, when you use the right primary keywords in content, it’s more appreciated both by users and by search engines.

Don’t force anything and add internal links only when it’s relevant and ensure they provide users with any kind of value. Remember, strategic link placement helps visitors navigate your website more easily and makes it more accessible.

Ensure your anchor text is right and keyword-rich

Another key factor for a successful internal link strategy is relevant and optimized anchor text. It is a key signal for search engines about link insertion relevancy.

It goes without saying when doing internal linking, you shouldn’t use generic anchor texts such as “click here” or “read more,” in any case. They don’t add value to your internal link building and can even be a reason for a poor experience. Instead, try to optimize them as much as possible.

First, ensure that the descriptions accurately talk about the linked page’s content. Keep a balance between descriptive and concise anchor text, ensuring it flows naturally within the surrounding content.

Make anchor texts keyword-rich as well. Include your main keywords in your anchor text to improve the visibility of your internal links.

Let’s speak by example. We should refer again to the SayNine article that discusses competitor backlink analysis. So when we link to this article in our other blog posts, we have decided to use the anchor text competitor backlink analysis as it has good metrics.

But you should stay away from overusing keywords as it violates search engine guidelines.

Last but not least, don’t use the same anchor text for links, and try to ensure variety.

Prioritize High-Performing Pages In Your Internal Linking Strategy

Hopefully, you have high-value pages or high-performing content on your website. These are blog posts that bring huge organic traffic and attract many backlinks. So you can leverage internal linking to direct readers to these pages.

Basically, thanks to internal linking for SEO, you can use authority and great metrics of these pages to improve the visibility of other pages.

The rule to make link insertion as natural and relevant as possible works in this case.

Boost Your New Content

Most probably, you regularly create fresh content. If not, you need to come up with blog topic ideas and enrich your blog with new content.

You expect this content to perform better, so you should find internal linking opportunities for it. Many other things you can do is make fresh blog posts more authoritative and credible with the help of internal linking.

You can do a simple Google search on this formula site:www.website.com with your keyword/search term. This way, you find articles that are about to mention this page’s target keyword.

Let’s say you have a new article about content assets and want to find internal linking opportunities. By doing a Google search with the mentioned formula, we can see a few articles that we can internally link to a new article.

Another way to find new internal linking opportunities is using Ahrefs. Here are the steps you should follow.

Step 1. Enter your Ahrefs account.

Step 2. In the Site Explorer section, add the website’s domain (saynine.ai/)

Step 3. Click on the “Opportunities” part from the Overview section.

Step 4. In the Links part click “Internal link opportunities” and see the suggestions.

In this case, we see that our article “Duplicate Meta Descriptions: How Bad Are They?” talks about keyword stuffing as well. Our blog has an article about keyword staffing as well, so this opens new internal linking opportunities for us.

Lastly, you may also wonder what is the right number for adding internal links to your new article. The answer is to try to include at least two or three internal links.

Regularly Analyze Your Internal Linking

There is always room for improvement. The same goes for the process of creating successful internal linking for SEO. You need to regularly audit your internal linking.

First, check for broken links because neither Google nor readers appreciate those kinds of experiences. So find and replace them with live ones.

In the next stage, monitor engagement metrics to find out whether your internal linking structure is effective and your link guides users to content that’s relevant and interesting to them.

Examine the anchor text to ensure they are optimized enough. Noticing any kind of problem, like keyword stuffing or unnaturality, fix them quickly.

After that, make sure the number of internal links is reasonable. During this process, you should definitely find and fix orphan pages that have no links.

Thanks to an internal linking audit, you can find areas for improvement and basically create better website performance.

In the end, we should mention that there isn’t any “beef” between backlink tactics and internal linking strategy. In fact, you need to work on both aspects regularly and at the same time for great results.

Combining the internal linking best practices with effective backlink techniques, you can՛t have a successful and high-performing website.

When it comes to internal linking, we hope our tips will guide you in building winning internal link building strategies.

Good luck in reaching that goal.

Until then, stay tuned for more fresh and helpful content.

FAQ about internal linking for SEO

Can too many internal links hurt seo.

Too many links can make your page seem spammy and cluttered, which can overwhelm your users. Overdoing links also makes it harder for search engines to understand your site structure and index your site.

How many internal links per 1,000 words?

There’s no fixed rule, but try to use 2-5 internal links per 1000 words of content.

Are backlinks the same as internal links?

An internal link is a page from one of your pages to another one of your pages. A backlink is a link from somebody else’s page coming into your page.

How to fix broken internal links?

There are three ways to fix broken internal links: you can redirect, update or remove the link.

How to find internal linking opportunities?

To find internal li opportunities, start manually by checking your website thoroughly. Also, use keyword tools to find phrases you can link within your content to other relevant pages on your site.

Build backlinks with us and boost your SEO!

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Practical Guide to SEO Internal Linking: Learn How to Create an Interlinking Strategy with 3 Common Scenarios

If you want to start leveraging internal links to boost your website's rankings, don't miss this post:.

In SEO, there are many elements we can’t control: changes that Google makes to its…

In SEO, there are many elements we can’t control: changes that Google makes to its algorithm, the appearance of new competitors in the SERPs, the impact of a new backlink on our ranking,…

Luckily, there are other things that depend more or less directly on us .

And one of those is the management of our internal links .

I have to admit that I am a staunch advocate of interlinking. I think it’s one of the SEO techniques with which you can get results more quickly .

The problem is that it usually doesn’t get the attention it deserves.

When internal linking is explained, it is often done in a rather superficial or overly theoretical way and, almost always, just as another part of On-Page SEO.

I sincerely believe that internal linking should have its own section within any SEO training.

That’s why today we will talk about interlinking, but we’ll leave the more theoretical part, which you probably already know, in the background and dive right into practical actions , so you can apply them to your web projects.

I’ll show you 3 internal linking strategies that we SEOs use at a professional level, each aimed at a different type of site:

• A service or product website with a blog.
• An ecommerce site.
• A sales landing page.

Does your project fit into any of these categories? Then keep reading, because what I’m going to tell you will be very useful for you.

The Importance of Internal Links for Web Positioning

It won’t surprise you if I tell you that links are essential for search engines to exist and perform their function. Their crawlers go through the Web, hopping from one link to another to discover new domains.

And when they arrive at a website, they continue inspecting the hyperlinks they find within it, until they can no longer continue or decide that they have stayed long enough inside (does the concept of Crawl Budget ring a bell?).

A good interlinking strategy allows us to take advantage of the visits that search engine crawlers make to our website . Thanks to our internal links, we can guide them on the path to follow and help them understand what they will find.

• We improve the crawling and indexing of the website.
• We make the most of the crawl budget or the time search engine robots spend on our site.
• We indicate which are the main pages of our site.
• We transfer authority from one URL to another.
• We provide information about the content of the linked pages through the anchor text and the content surrounding the link.

However, if you only have Google in mind when designing your internal links, you run the risk of visitors not finding what they want and leaving your site.

That’s why proper interlinking is not only useful for search engines to navigate our website, but it also allows us to offer our visitors a good user experience and help them find the information they need.

• We improve navigation throughout the website.
• We provide access to other related content they might be interested in.
• We guide the user to the most relevant parts of the site.
• We reduce the bounce rate.

As you can see, internal links provide significant advantages to your web project from an SEO perspective.

But it’s not enough to just create links within your website. If you want your interlinking to work, every internal link should meet specific criteria and objectives . In other words, it needs to follow a strategy.

And that’s precisely what I want to show you in the following sections. Three internal linking strategies for three very common types of websites that, if you want, you can start applying today and see how your SEO positioning improves.

Internal Linking Strategy for a Product or Service Website with a Blog

If you have a website to offer your services or to sell a specific product, it’s very likely that you’ve decided to add a blog section.

A blog is a very powerful tool to help your website rank on Google and thus gain new visits. But you need to know how to leverage this traffic and the visibility of the articles to give a general boost to your entire website.

Here are some recommendations to do it through internal linking.

Group Content into Clusters

Today, Google wants the top experts in a field to occupy the first positions in the SERPs. That’s why topical authority (or Topical Authority ) has become a crucial factor when it comes to ranking.

With this in mind, if you have a blog, my recommendation is that you define which topics are most relevant to your business and create several articles for each one.

Then, link all the posts related to the same topic , usually from the more specific content (or long tail) to the more general, forming a cluster that will signal to Google that you have in-depth knowledge of each topic.

Finally, to analyze the clusters you’ve created, you can use a tool like DinoRANK, which visually shows you all the internal links on your site and lets you check if they follow a proper structure or if you have any URLs left to link.

Link Transactional URLs from More Informative Content

Whenever it makes sense, try to link to your more transactional pages from the blog content. The goal is twofold: to give more authority to the relevant pages and to guide the user to the URLs that have a higher conversion potential .

Take a look at the following example from the DonDominio blog:

You might be surprised that it doesn’t use an exact anchor. It doesn’t matter; the text surrounding the link already provides Google with enough information about its content, and this way, it catches the reader’s attention much more effectively.

Taking Advantage of URLs with More Traffic or Greater Authority

It often happens that the pages with the most organic traffic are not the most important to us from a business perspective.

But if we identify which URLs receive the most visits, we can try to redirect the user to other pages that are more relevant to our sales strategy.

Similarly, we can also analyze which pages on our site receive the most external links. In Google’s eyes, these will be the URLs with the highest authority on the web.

Internal linking will allow us to distribute this authority among other URLs on our site that we want to rank, thereby spreading what is known as link juice (or the allocation of PageRank).

And to see which pages on your site receive the most PageRank through internal links, there’s nothing better than a graphical tool like DinoRANK that provides you with an overview of your site’s status.

Linking to Related Articles

The related articles section within each post is a commonly used mechanism to internally link pages within your website.

And it works, but only if you do it right.

It’s not very useful to offer the user two or three random articles via an internal linking plugin in WordPress. Or just showing them the latest entries on your blog.

Most likely, the user will not show any interest in these posts and will end up closing your page.

If you want the user to keep browsing your website, you must offer them content related to what they just read .

Notice that these articles likely belong to the same thematic cluster. By linking them together, we are not only providing the user with useful content but also strengthening the authority of the cluster itself.

Internal Linking Strategy for an Ecommerce

When we have an online store, we must be especially careful with internal linking.

In this type of websites, the number of URLs can be enormous , and if we don’t do things right, we risk the site becoming a real mess, both for the user and for Google.

Next, we will look at the main points to consider in the SEO interlinking of an ecommerce.

Define an Appropriate Architecture

In ecommerce websites, it’s very important that products are perfectly categorized , so that the user can easily navigate through the site and search engines have no trouble indexing it.

Thus, a SILO-type web architecture is ideal for this type of websites, organizing the content into 3 or 4 levels of depth at most, so that all URLs are within 2 or 3 clicks from the Home.

Internal links will be responsible for establishing this hierarchy of products, subcategories, and main categories, where only pages that are part of the same SILO will be linked to each other.

Menu and Footer Design

Two elements that are part of the navigation within any website are the menu and the footer. It’s always important to take care of them, but in the case of an ecommerce, it’s even more critical.

A disorganized and chaotic menu can cause user rejection and mistrust. If they can’t easily find what they’re looking for, they might leave for another site.

That’s why we must study which categories and subcategories are worth including in the menu , prioritizing the most important ones for the business and keeping in mind that we might not be able to link to everything, as an excessive number of items could harm the user experience.

Here is an example of what they do on the Decathlon website.

However, in the footer, we can be a bit more flexible and use it to link to the most important sections we want to rank, add other categories that couldn’t be linked in the menu, or include a link to a sitemap that helps with site indexing.

Internal links on the Home page

The Home page is usually the URL with the most authority on most websites, as it typically receives the most external links.

We should take advantage of this authority and redirect it to the parts that are most important to us.

Therefore, it is often a good strategy to link from the Home to the main categories and those products that, for one reason or another, we want to highlight, such as best-selling items, items on sale, or the latest arrivals.

Internal linking in categories

The goal of a category page in an ecommerce site is to display all the products associated with that category , as well as the subcategories under it.

To reinforce the SILO structure, it is also advisable to link to the higher-level elements in the hierarchy in addition to the internal links to these elements.

This can be easily achieved with breadcrumbs, which also help users know where they are within the site.

Additionally, it can be helpful to include links to other related categories , always within the same SILO or cluster.

Finally, a word of caution. Most eCommerce sites have a series of filters on pages that display product listings.

Depending on the technology you use, these filters may contain internal links to other pages that are more specific subcategories, which you might not want to index. Take a look at the following image.

In these cases, it’s important to carefully study which filters you want to include on each page and which ones you don’t, so that the internal links always maintain a coherent website structure.

Interlinking on Product Pages

Just as with categories, on product pages we should link back to the higher-level categories to reinforce the website’s hierarchy. Again, we can use breadcrumb navigation for this purpose.

Additionally, to improve user retention, we can include links to other related products that the user might be interested in. This way, we offer other options that might catch their interest and invite them to keep exploring our website.

How to Boost a Sales Landing Page with Internal Links

The last case I want to show you is that of a sales landing page created to offer a product or service for a limited time . This is the typical case of a launch that only lasts a few weeks.

The landing page would be the final step in the sales funnel and would serve to convince the user to make the purchase .

In this situation, some of the techniques to apply are similar to those we saw in the example of a website with a blog, but with one particularity: we need results in a very short term .

We can’t wait weeks or months for Google to rank us. It’s essential to drive as much traffic as possible to our landing page as soon as possible.

Sure, here’s the translation with the necessary adaptations for a U.S. audience:

That’s why, even though we can try to create very long-tail blog articles that can quickly rank on Google, it’s more common to capture the user’s attention through social media posts or a newsletter where we promote the high-quality content we’ve published on the blog.

Once the user arrives at our blog , we guide them towards the sales landing page through internal linking.

Look, for example, at how we do it on this very site with the DinoRANK master program.

As you can see, it’s an internal linking strategy much more focused on the user than on Google. We’re not so much trying to boost the authority of the destination page as we are trying to capture the user’s interest so they navigate to it.

Then, if what we offer on our landing page is interesting to them and we’ve presented it well with good copy, we might end up gaining a new customer.

Final Thoughts on SEO Interlinking Strategies

In this article, we’ve seen three professional internal linking strategies that you can easily implement in your web projects.

You really don’t need to be an SEO expert to execute them. They just require some analysis and a lot of common sense.

On the other hand, the benefits are huge : not only will you make navigation through your site much more useful for the user, but you’ll also notice a significant improvement in your web positioning. I’m convinced of it.

So from here on out, it’s in your hands. Choose the strategy that best fits your project, put it into practice, and if you feel like it, let us know how it went in the comments. We’d love to hear about your experience!

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Internal Linking for SEO: Examples and Best Practices

Internal linking is a key SEO tactic for publishers. In this post I’ll look at what it is, why it’s important, and provide some key tips for an effective internal linking strategy.

Internal linking is a key SEO tactic for publishers. In this post I’ll look at what it is, why it’s important, and some key tips for effective linking.

I recently wrote about the ways in which SEO and content marketing can work together , and I see internal linking as one of the most important ways.

What is Internal Linking?

Web practitioners from various disciplines may have different terms for this, but I think this is a term that’s well understood in the SEO ‘community’ and beyond.

Broadly speaking, internal linking refers to any links from one page on a domain which lead to another page on that same domain.

This can refer to the main site navigation , like the links you see above this article to our sections on SEO, PPC etc. It also refers to links within articles to related content, such as this link to an article on duplicate content .

For the purpose of this post, I’m mainly going to confine myself to the latter – the editorial links within articles.

This is not to denigrate the importance of the broader site architecture, but more because links within articles are more of a day to day SEO tactic, and they are generally controlled by the site’s writers and editors rather than a tech team.

Why is Internal Linking Important?

One major reason, according to Starcom’s Jason McGovern is that it’s one of the few methods site owners can use to tell Google (and visitors) that a particular page of content is important.

Also, as Jason points out:

From a strategic perspective, it helps site owners bridge the ‘authority gap’ between their most linkworthy content and their most profitable content. Resources Analytics The 2023 B2B Superpowers Index Analytics Data Analytics in Marketing Digital Marketing The Third-Party Data Deprecation Playbook Digital Marketing Utilizing Email To Stop Fraud-eCommerce Client Fraud Case Study

So, for example, we can use a link from a popular, evergreen, post which attracts regular traffic to promote the latest ClickZ Live event, or a piece of paid content we’d like to raise awareness of.

There are other reasons:

• It provides your audience with further reading options . For example, if you are writing about a new product or service from Twitter, and we’ve written a great post on Twitter in the past, link to it. It provides context for the reader and promotes older content.
• It helps to improve your ranking for certain keywords.  For example, if we want a page to rank for ‘search marketing statistics’ and we have a page containing these, then we can point people the page using the relevant anchor text. This sends a clear signal to Google that this page is relevant to search users typing in that phrase.
• It can help you to promote events and other paid services. If we’re talking about link-buildng and we have a great speaker on covering that topic at an upcoming event, that’s an opportunity to promote them.
• It helps Google to crawl the site. Internal links in articles, as well as in category and tag pages, help Google to index pages more efficiently.

SEO Consultant Mags Sikora has more to add to this point:

Large websites, like travel sites for example, produce a huge amount of content and the differences between landing pages sometimes are very subtle. For example, luxury hotels in New York vs. 5-star hotels in NY. “Luxury” related terms would be used on both pages. Of course, 5-star hotels are luxury hotels, but not every luxury hotel gained 5-star ranking. Without correct interlinking, this could confuse Google, especially if there are no external links pointing to those pages.

How Significant a Ranking Factor is Internal Linking?

I’ve always viewed internal linking as an important tactic from a publishing perspective, and have been able to help my target pages rank thanks to the effective use of this tactic.

How much does it help with Google though? I asked the experts how much of a factor it is:

Jason McGovern Associate Director, SEO at Starcom MediaVest Group:

Internal linking is easily one of the most important and most overlooked factors in hitting your rankings goals. I think it tends to be overlooked as an SEO tactic because many SEOs simply believe it’s not an issue anymore because sites today have such complex navigation menus. That said, even today I have been able to drive significant results for clients purely on the back of optimizing internal navigation structures.

Mags Sikora:

Based on my experience, I strongly believe interlinking related factors have strong weight within Google algorithm. I work with startups and have an opportunity to run varied tests on completely new websites. I saw websites start rankings for keywords used in the anchor text of internal links without any external links pointing to those websites. Of course, I am not talking about highly searchable terms but it really shows it is an important part of SEO.

Example: How Mail Online Failed to Use Internal Linking

This example is from last year, and relates to content around the FIFA World Cup. There is worldwide interest in this event and lots of search volume, even in the US 😉

Therefore, ranking for this term becomes very important for publishers, as it offers the chance to attract a lot of traffic before and during the event.

May publishers created site sections dedicated to the event, such as this from The Guardian . Mail Online had a similar page, as did many other publishers.

In the case of The Guardian, all world cup related content ‘lived’ in this section, and internal links were used to point to this landing page.

The result was a very steady, and high ranking for The Guardian’s World Cup page. As the chart shows, this landing page ranked in the top ten for the four months before the start of the tournament.

This meant that The Guardian was in a strong position to attract some of the traffic which spiked in the run up to the event,  simply by having a joined up  internal linking  strategy.

By contrast, Mail Online, the most popular English language news site (thanks to a ton of clickbait) failed to link consistently to its World Cup page.

Essentially, it failed to tell Google (and its users) that this page was important. The result was that all of the articles Mail Online published about the World Cup were essentially competing with its own World Cup landing page.

In the chart below, the pink line indicates the landing page, and the yellow lines are the various articles related to the event.

As we can see, the landing page didn’t reach higher than page four of Google for this term in the run up to the even t, while individual article pages, though they made more of an impression, couldn’t make it to page one.

I’m aware there are other factors at play here but, if we assume that both sites have similar authority, then the internal linking here is making the difference.

Essentially, The Guardian has given a clear indication to Google of the pages it wants to rank for the term, while Mail Online has failed to give Google any indication, hence the volatility of its rankings.

How to Use Internal Linking More Effectively

I asked the SEOs mentioned here for their tips on effective internal linking:

Jason McGovern

• Look at Moz’s ‘Top Pages’ report for your site and ask yourself, how many of those pages link to your most ‘SEO-valuable’ content.
• If you’re using WordPress there are plugins available that will automatically turn keywords in page text to keyword relevant links pointing to some of your most important content.
• It’s a little complicated, but you can use filters and pivot tables in Excel on data exported from SEMRush to find the pages with the most rankings between 5 and 15. Once you’ve identified those pages, comb your site to find 5-15 new links from existing site content to those pages (depending on the size of the site).
• When it comes to internal linking and SEO, the six most important words are ‘Screaming Frog, Screaming Frog, Screaming Frog’. Take advantage of the tool’s ‘Inlinks’ and ‘Level’ fields to identify pages that need some help from internal linking and which pages are getting more attention than they are worth.
• Before inserting a link, I always ask myself: what is the probability that a user will click on this link?  The higher the probability, the more juice this link will pass and the most value this link will from SEO point of view.
• Things like position of the link on a page (within a first few sentences of a blog post/ above the fold), its font and the colour; and of course anchor text itself (the length and keywords used) and most importantly the context it is used and its relevancy to the content it is mentioned on and linking to- all of that influences the click hence link juice it passes.
• On the homepage, I always recommend adding links to most important pages.  Those could be product pages or main categories, depending on SEO strategy of a particulate website.
• I also try to vary anchor text pointing to a specific page across the site but keep it very closely related to the topic of the landing page. For large websites, HTML sitemaps are very important part of interlinking strategy–they not only help users to find right pages but also help distribute the link juice efficiently within the site.

Jamie White , Head of Technical SEO, Search Laboratory:

• Ensure that whenever you build a new piece of content, such as on your blog, that you are including links to relevant and important landing pages. This will ensure that any links you build to your content will also have a secondary benefit on the pages you’ve internally linked to.
• Links within content typically pass greater value because they are surrounded by contextual words which can have another benefit in terms of ranking for these related phrases.
• Add internal links in moderation. Every link you include in a page will receive a portion of the link authority of that page, so the more links you include, the less value each will receive.

In addition to these tips I’d like to add a couple of my own:

• Ensure that internal links appear to be natural, not manufactured. Links should occur as part the natural flow of an article and shouldn’t look out of place to the reader.
• Make sure links add value. SEO is a factor of course, but links should also add value to the reader, perhaps pointing to an in-depth look at a topic which was only briefly mentioned in an article, or pointing users at some relevant statistics.

What’s your take on internal linking? Do you have any useful tips to add to the list? Let me know below… 

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Internal linking case study: typeform ranked #2 for "form builder".

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‍ Internal linking helped Typeform shift one of its core landing pages from "not ranking" to "position 2".

Keyword: "Form Builder"

Why is that impressive? They keyword is high-intent and has a traffic potential of over 175K monthly.

They had to beat companies like Mailchimp, Zapier, and SurveyMonkey.

Here's the 5-step process:

1. Choose your top value pages

Some pages contain keywords that:

- Bring lots of traffic

- Are proven to convert

Traffic x conversion = customer growth.

List these pages and prioritize them.

It's important to add more internal links for the pages you value most.

2. Add navigation internal links

Before the Typeform team started internal linking actively, their form builder page was only in the footer & menu.

This alone did not help the page rank.

However, including your top pages there is important, it:

- Passes PageRank

- Ensures Google regularly crawls those pages

The biggest impact? Next slide.

3. Add contextual internal links

Contextual links are what moved the needle for Typeform.

To maximize contextual linking for this high-value page, they:

- Went through all their pages

- Found relevant anchor text

- Placed links there

The growth team even bribed customer success to access their Help Centre WordPress.

Make sure you add anchor text variations.

Your anchor text should not ALWAYS be "form builder".

Vary it slightly, make it more real so Google doesn't notice what you're doing.

Google understands the text where you placed your links. So, the more relevant (and natural) the better.

4. Build linking into your launch process

You don't want to keep going back through your library and adding links.

- Launch a new page/post

- Add 10 internal links immediately

This will help rank your content significantly faster.

Your process will ensure you don't forget.

5. Make a link party

Internal linking proved so effective for Typeform that they organized link parties:

- Every Tuesday morning

- Whole team

- Go crazy on internal linking

“One time we brought some tacos into the office and just had fun. Internal linking is boring, but it works.” —Jake Stainer, Ex-Head of Growth at Typeform

This example came from my podcast interview with the former Head of Growth at Typeform.

He joined Typeform at €1M ARR.

While there, he:

• Built their first-ever SEO strategy
• Grew the channel to $3M yearly lifetime value revenue
• Oversaw growth from $1M ARR to $13M ARR

Check out the Typeform SEO case study here in this post (it's £8 to access all my case studies—or listen free on the podcast).

Internal linking FAQs

If you're new to internal linking, here's some quick background.

What is internal linking?

Internal links are links that connect pages within your website.

They play an important role in both user navigation and search engine optimization. Users use internal links to easily find the content they are looking for, while search engines use them to discover and index the pages on your website.

There are different types of internal links, including those found on your homepage, menu, post feed, and within the content itself. The latter, known as contextual links, serve to direct users to related and relevant content, as well as signal to search engines the relevance and value of different pages on your site. The more internal links a page receives, the higher its perceived importance by search engines. Therefore, effective internal linking is crucial for optimizing your website for search engines.

What are the 3 types of internal links?

• Image links: Found underneath or behind images.
• Contextual links: Found within a paragraph of content (these are your most powerful links—if they look natural)
• Navigational links: Found in your menu and footer. These indicate the most important and relevant pages of your website.

An Example of Internal Linking in HTML

In HTML, internal links look like this: <a href="https://www.example.com/about-us">About Us</a>

In this example, the "a" tag is used to create a hyperlink. The "href" attribute specifies the destination URL of the link, which in this case is a page on the same website example.com/about-us . The text between the opening and closing "a" tags ("About Us") is the clickable text that the user will see and can click on to be taken to the "

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Internal Linking for SEO: Tips and Best Practices

Effective internal linking is crucial for SEO success. Discover the potential of your website’s visibility and user experience with our comprehensive guide on internal linking for SEO.

Explore the specifics of internal linking for SEO success and learn practical techniques to improve navigation, optimize the structure of your website, and raise search engine ranks.

Related Article: SEO Basics: A Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started

What are Internal Links?

Internal links connect different pages within the same website, facilitating navigation and establishing a web of interconnected content. Understanding their dynamics is key to optimizing your site for search engines.

Internal Links vs. External Links

Distinguish between internal and external links to grasp how each contributes to your site’s SEO. Internal links enhance your site’s structure and user experience, while external links connect your content to external websites, influencing authority and relevance.

Why are Internal Links Important?

Internal links are crucial for SEO as they enhance website structure, distribute page authority, and guide users to valuable content.

They contribute to search engine visibility by establishing a hierarchy of pages, improving crawlability, and fostering a seamless user experience.

Strategic internal linking strengthens a site’s overall relevance and authority, positively impacting rankings.

How to Set Up an Internal Linking Strategy?

1. determine the ideal structure for your site.

Establishing a logical and user-friendly site structure is the first step to a successful internal linking strategy. Align your content in a way that reflects your site’s hierarchy and enhances navigation. Top SEO companies can provide expert insights to fine-tune your site structure.

2. Decide What Your Most Important Content Is

Identify and prioritize your cornerstone content . These key pages should receive the most internal links to maximize their visibility and impact on search engine rankings.

3. Add Contextual Links

Integrate internal links seamlessly within your content to provide additional context and guide users to relevant information. Contextual links enhance user engagement and contribute to a more interconnected site.

4. Link Hierarchical Pages

Create a hierarchical link structure to emphasize the importance of certain pages over others. This helps search engines understand the organizational hierarchy of your site.

5. Consider Adding a Related Post Section

Encourage users to explore more of your content by incorporating a related post section. This not only improves user experience but also strengthens internal linking by connecting similar topics.

6. Try Adding Navigational Links

Include navigational links, such as menus and breadcrumbs, to assist users in finding their way around your site. Clear navigation enhances both user experience and search engine crawlability.

7. Add Links to Your Taxonomies

Linking to taxonomies, such as categories and tags, helps organize content and provides an additional layer of internal linking. This improves the overall structure and accessibility of your site.

8. Add Links to Your Most Recent Posts

Keep your content fresh in the eyes of both users and search engines by internally linking to your most recent posts. This practice encourages exploration of new material and ensures continuous engagement.

9. Consider Adding Links to Popular Posts

Boost the visibility of your best-performing content by strategically linking to popular posts. This not only enhances user experience but also reinforces the relevance and authority of your top-performing pages.

Final Thoughts on Internal Linking for SEO

Creating a strong internal linking strategy is essential for SEO success. By implementing these best practices, you’ll not only improve your site’s search engine visibility but also enhance user navigation and engagement. Understanding internal linking for SEO is essential to the ever-changing field of successful SEO tactics.

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The Ultimate Guide to Internal Linking for SEO

What are internal links, internal links vs external links, why are internal links important for seo, not all links are equal: 7 types of internal links (and how they pass seo value), 15 internal linking strategies (and best practices) you can leverage today.

• Now It's Your Turn

But internal links are equally (if not more) powerful when used correctly.

Best of all they’re really easy to influence when you know how to.

In today’s post, you are going to learn everything there is to know about internal linking.

I’m covering:

• What are internal links (in plain English)
• Internal vs External links
• The importance of internal links
• 7 internal link types and how they pass SEO value
• 13 internal linking strategies you can use to grow your rankings and conversions

And much more!

Let’s get started.

Internal links are hyperlinks that link between web pages on the same website.

Both users and search engines use internal links to navigate between pages – and in turn, discover new content on a site. Aside from aiding discoverability, internal links pass SEO value and context through link anchor text and surrounding content.

Internal links can be found in a website’s navigation, breadcrumbs, and the main body copy on a page.

The difference between internal and external links is that internal links point to web pages on the same website, whereas external links link out to pages on other websites.

Notice I use the word website not domain. This is important.

Most definitions describe internal links as hyperlinks between pages on the same domain – but that’s not true. Let me explain:

On this website I have two domains:

• seosherpa.com (root domain)
• partners.seosherpa.com (subdomain)

When I link from a page on seosherpa.com to a page on partners.seosherpa.com I am linking internally, not externally – despite my linking between two domains.

On the other hand, a link between two subdomains on blogger.com would be considered an external link – as those blog domains would (likely) have two different owners.

Put another way, if you can add a hyperlink between two pages, and the pages live on the same root domain, then those links are considered internal links.

Every website uses both internal and external links.

Internal links help search engines discover, index, and understand all of the pages on your website.

Not just that…

They also provide search engines with context about a webpage, its’ relationship to other pages, and how important the page is compared to others on your website.

If you know how you can use internal links to your advantage and improve your site’s rankings in SERPs.

In a moment I’ll show you precisely how to use internal links to improve your SEO.

But first, let’s break down in detail why internal links matter:

(1). Search Engines Use Internal Links to Crawl Your Website

Google and other search engines crawl links between web pages to discover new content.

Therefore, if a URL doesn’t have links pointing to it – or isn’t referenced in a sitemap – Google won’t find it. We call URLs without links pointing to them “orphan pages.”

It goes without saying, if Google cannot find a URL because it’s orphaned – the page won’t rank.

On the other hand, the more links a page has, the more likely Google will discover it – and know it’s important.

(2). Internal Links Pass Authority (AKA PageRank)

A page with a lot of links will be deemed more meaningful than a page with fewer links pointing to it.

That’s especially true when pages are linked from a website’s main navigation.

When you link to a page from your main nav you are telling Google “Hey, this page is important. I want users to find it.”

And in turn, more PageRank passes to it – and your rankings improve.

(3). Internal Links Give Search Engines Context

The content in which an internal link is placed tells Google a lot about the page being linked to.

For example, here’s an internal link to a page on my site:

The anchor text and surrounding content help users AND Google know the page I’m linking to is about “Image SEO.”

With that in mind, an internal link within a sentence, paragraph, and subheading that’s on-topic, will have much more weight than one that’s not.

(4). Internal Links Improve UX and Dwell Time

Internal links help users find related content, and that’s GREAT for user experience.

They’re helpful for dwell time too.

Dwell time is an indicator of searcher satisfaction:

It’s measured by the amount of time a Google searcher spends on a webpage before returning to the SERPs.

In modern-day SEO, dwell time is considered an important ranking signal.

You can influence dwell time by linking to other pages – thus keeping users on-site for longer.

Just like backlinks – some internal links are more valuable than others.

The most significant measure of internal link value is the likelihood a user will click a link based on the features related to it:

• Anchor text

And other factors.

This is known as the Reasonable Surfer Model and is one of Google’s patents.

Next, I’ll dissect the different types of internal links from most to least valuable.

Body Content Links

Body content links (AKA “contextual links”) are your in-content links pointing to related topics and articles.

As you already know, the more context surrounding a link, the more useful it is to Google.

Body content links by nature are wrapped by lots of valuable information such as headers, paragraph copy, and images. This gives Google a lot of meaning by which to understand each page you are linking to.

Another important attribute of body copy links is that they are intentionally placed.

Unlike navigation links which are built into the framework of your website, body copy links are manually inserted, whether to cite a source or provide more information. 

Given the intentionality of links like these – it makes sense that they pass more SEO value than other link types.

Breadcrumb Links

Not every website has breadcrumb links – nor does every website need them.

If like ours, your website has a flat structure with few categories and subcategories, then you can do away with breadcrumbs.

On the other hand, if your site has multiple sections (like an e-commerce website) then implementing breadcrumb links will aid user experience – and rankings.

From a user standpoint, breadcrumbs offer an easy way for users to know where they are on your site and jump back to any point in your site’s hierarchy.

From a search engine standpoint, breadcrumbs aid crawling and inform bots how your content is organized.

What’s cool is that once breadcrumbs are built into your site they’ll appear on any new page you create and pass along link juice automatically.

Main Navigation Links

Main navigation links are the links that appear in your primary navigation.

Good main-nav links will help users find your website’s popular and important content.

This could be your main products, services, about, or contact page.

Since navigational links appear in the main header they communicate a lot about your site’s hierarchy and site structure, but they provide far less context than body copy links.

Sidebar Links

Sidebar links are most commonly seen on blogs.

When used strategically they can improve user experience, aid crawl-ability, and send link juice to pages hidden deep in your site.

A good use case is to handpick blog posts you want to rank, then place them in a best-of list.

I recommend using descriptive anchor links containing your target keywords.

That’s exactly what I’ve done on the SEO Sherpa blog and it’s given these posts a ranking lift.

Footer Links

Footer links are an important aid to navigation.

They help users who scroll down to the base of a page discover other important pages.

Since they sit at the very bottom of your web pages, they are low down the pecking order in terms of their PageRank passing ability.

But still, it’s important you use them, especially for linking to your contact, privacy, disclaimers, and the about us page.

Just like we’ve done for our client Yas Island .

Bookmark Links

Whereas our other internal link types link to other pages on the same website…

Bookmark links – also known as “anchor links” – link to other sections of the same webpage.

You may have noticed I use Bookmark links in some of my blog posts.

I’ll typically use them at the very top of a post to help users jump to a specific section.

Anchor links are useful for easy navigation around a long-form blog post.

And can even help win site links in SERPs.

They don’t however pass any PageRank, because a page cannot pass juice to itself.

Next/Prev Links

Most blogs and e-commerce websites use “Next/Prev” links.

They’re used to indicate the page is one in a series.

While Google abandoned pagination markup quite some time ago, the use of “Next/Prev” links is still necessary for SEO.

Using this link type when your content is spread across multiple pages will aid the discoverability of deeper content.

I recommend setting your blog to show at least the 15 latest posts to ensure link equity flows more effectively through your blog.

Pro-tip – in your blog settings, set your blog feed to 15+ posts per page. This minimizes the pagination sequence and ensures your top post receives a good amount of PageRank.

(1). Add Internal Links Wherever It Helps Your Readers

If you reference one of your products on a page or post, point an internal link to it.

If you reference a topic and have written a blog post on that thing, point an internal link to it.

Basically, if it helps your audience, point an internal link to it.

Whenever I write new content I look for opportunities to reference my old content.

Here is an example from a recent blog post:

I mention various on-page SEO concepts and have linked to blog posts I’ve written on those topics.

Great for the reader since they can click to learn more, should they want to.

Great for me as it channels ranking signals through to my post and pages.

(2). Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text

When it comes to building backlinks, use keyword-rich anchor text cautiously.

For internal links, different rules apply.

You can use the same anchor text across multiple internal links with little chance of a slap from Google.

Infact, Google recommends using keywords that describe the page you are linking to:

Take this link from a post on my blog:

It’s crystal clear what to expect from the post being linked to.

Still, it’s a missed opportunity if all you do is use the same anchor text over and over.

That’s why I like to mix up my internal links and use a variety of different anchors.

This provides Google with even more information about the page being linked to and helps boost my rankings for long-tail keywords.

(3). Drop Internal Links High Up On Your Page

There are 2 reasons why you want to place internal links at the top of your page:

First, links displayed prominently on your site are more likely to get clicks.

Google sees links with more click-through potential as important.

This means links higher on a page have more ranking influence.

Second, internal links high up on your page can reduce your bounce rate and increase your dwell time.

As I pointed out earlier, when Google sees people spending a long time on your site they conclude “users are loving this result, let’s push it up the rankings.”

When you put internal links at the very top of your page,  it gives readers something to click on right away

And that will improve your time on site (e.g. Dwell time).

(4). Use Do-Follow Links

When linking internally between pages on your website, use regular followed links.

This ensures the flow of PageRank between your pages:

Hint – It’s PageRank that gives your URLs a ranking boost.

This might sound obvious, but I see a lot of website owners using no-follow internal links.

While in theory, you can use no-follow links to restrict PageRank flow to certain pages (and therefore increase PageRank to others) this is the wrong use case.

When you use no-follow links internally, you are saying “I don’t endorse my own content.”

And, that’s not a message you want to give to Google.

(5). Power Up Your Inner Pages with Links From Your Homepage

Your homepage is your website’s most authoritative page, period.

It probably has the most backlinks – and is linked internally from every other page on your website.

For instance, the SEO Sherpa homepage has a URL Rating of 45, the next best page is UR 35.

I can use my homepage’s authority to power up inner pages on the site. And that’s exactly what I’ve done using a “read more” block:

It links strategically to blog posts I want to rank.

(6). Use “site:” Search to Find Internal Link Opportunities

When it comes to internal linking, there’s one (often missed) opportunity that trumps them all:

Linking from your old content to your new content.

As I’m sure you know:

Brand new content needs links to drive up page authority and increase rankings.

Well, your bank of already published content, can be a goldmine of linking possibilities.

But how do you know which page to link from?

Start by searching in Google with the following search operator :

“site:yourdomain.com “keyphrase related to page”

Let’s say I’m looking for internal link opportunities for THIS post, here’s what I’d enter into Google:

As you see above, Google finds all indexed mentions of that phrase on my site.

All I do next is comb through these pages and insert links (where it makes sense).

This process can be repeated for related phrases too:

• seosherpa.com “internal links”
• seosherpa.com “internal hyperlinks”

And, by doing so I’ll find many relevant places from which to add internal links – and a variety of anchor text options too.

This brings me to my next point.

(7). Don’t Use The Same Anchor Text For Two Different Pages

Let’s say you have two pages on your site.

One page is about keto diet plans and the second is about low-carb diet plans.

You wouldn’t want to link to both pages using the exact same anchor text.

Doing so would bewilder the living daylights out of Google.

To avoid confusing Google as to which page should rank for a certain topic, use unique, descriptive anchor text for each page:

This makes it clear what each page is about.

(8). Optimize for First Link Priority

Often you’ll find yourself linking to the same destination twice from the very same page.

Doing so is totally okay.

Infact, it’s super common, especially if you have many links in your navigation.

And, also link frequently within the content of your page.

The only tricky piece is anchor text.

Which does Google observe?

The first anchor on the page.

Because of that your navigation link anchor text is really important.

Not only does your navigation result in a ton of links it overrides internal links on a page.

Whether your first link is in your navigation or the content of your page, make sure to optimize it for your target keywords.

(9). Never Automate Internal Linking

There’s a host of tools out there that can automate your internal linking.

The trouble with you using tools and plugins is you’re turning your internal linking over to AI.

This is problematic for two reasons:

• It’s not strategic – The art of internal linking for SEO is knowing which pages need link juice and how to link to those pages from valuable user-centric places. No plugin can do this as well as you or I, period.
• Over-optimization – I’ve seen tools that have added a thousand exact match anchors to a page seconds after loading the plugin. Automation like that is spammy and leads to ranking catastrophes.

Steer clear of automation, and instead add your internal links manually.

(10). Harness Your Power Pages

If you really want to make the most of your internal linking, you can’t go about it haphazardly.

You need to identify and link to your website’s most important pages.

But not just that.

You need to do it from pages that can actually influence rankings.

Here’s how to go about it:

In Ahrefs, open up the “Top Pages by Incoming Links” report to find the most authoritative pages on your site.

(Links from these power pages have the ability to pass the most link juice)

Once you’ve identified relevant power pages:

Simply link from those pages to the pages that you most want to rank.

For instance:

Ahrefs tells me the most authoritative post on my site is this one about SEO experiments.

I can use the authority of this post to drive link equity to the post you are reading right now.

A quick “CTRL F” search helps me find a relevant passage to link from.

Next, I simply login into my WordPress backend and add the link.

Which is exactly what I did.

(11). Don’t Overdo It (The Rule of 100)

Up to a certain point, the more internal links you add the better.

As I’ve already pointed out, internal links help users and search engines find related content – and pass PageRank through your website.

However, past about 100 links, Google says it could “choose not to follow those links.”

This means the content you are linking to might not get indexed.

Plus, your PageRank would get diluted so much (due to you linking to so many pages), that those links would have little – if any – value.

So as a general rule of thumb, keep the number of links you have per page below 100.

And with that, your internal links will pass along the value.

(12). Use Topic Clusters and Pillar Pages

Imagine topic clusters like buckets of content pages that collectively cover a broad concept.

Each topic cluster has one pillar page and many supporting cluster pages.

Each of these pages is interlinked:

Using topic clusters as part of an internal linking strategy is helpful because they form hubs of relevant content.

When Google crawls these hubs, immediately it’ll know what they’re about.

But to be honest, I don’t think much about topic clusters.

Simply by creating in-depth content and cross-linking my other posts I’m taking care of this concept automatically.

(13). Link From Traffic Champs to Conversion Champs

There are pages on your site that drive a lot of traffic.

There are pages on your site that drive a lot of conversions.

Linking from the former to the latter is where the magic happens.

Insert a few strategically placed links on your highest trafficked pages pointing to your highest converting pages and you can significantly boost signs ups.

Here’s how to do it:

View the ‘Landing pages’ report in Google Analytics (arranged by sessions highest to lowest) to find your traffic champions:

Then, reorder the list for ‘Goal Conversion Rate’ (highest to lowest) to find your conversion champions.

Finally login to your CMS and add links from your top traffic champs to your top conversion champs.

Use a compelling call to action to maximize conversions.

If ever you find yourself at a proverbial dead-end.

And cannot find a seamless way to include your link into existing content.

You can merely add a related post link at the end of a paragraph pointing to the page you want to promote.

Just like Karl did above.

Now It’s Your Turn

I hope you enjoyed this ultimate guide to internal links.

Now I’d like to hear from you. Which internal linking strategy from today’s guide are you going to use first?

Will you leverage your site’s power pages? Or are you going to optimize for first link priority?

Let me know by leaving a quick comment below.

I’d LOVE to hear from you.

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Internal Linking For SEO: 10 Tips And Best Practices

Internal links are hyperlinks that connect one page of your website to another page within the same website.

These links play a pivotal role in guiding users through your website and helping search engines discover new pages.

Moreover, internal links have become a significant ranking factor, influencing how search engines perceive the importance and relevance of your web pages.

By strategically placing internal links within your website, you can ensure that search engine bots can easily find and index your content.

This, in turn, increases the visibility of your pages in search engine results. In this article, we’ll discuss how you can do just that. 

We will go over techniques for strategically placing internal links, optimizing anchor text, and creating a well-structured internal linking system.

By implementing these practices, you can ensure that search engines effectively crawl and index your website while enhancing the overall user experience.

What you will learn

• Creating a well-structured internal linking strategy improves search engine rankings, organic traffic, and user experience.
• Search engines rely on internal links to discover new pages and understand your site architecture.
• Strategically placing internal links throughout your website helps prioritize important web pages and content.
• Internal links should be integrated naturally within your content.
• Balancing usability and SEO optimization is essential when implementing internal linking strategies.
• Best practices to create a strong internal linking structure and interconnected website that both users and search engines will appreciate.

What are internal links in SEO?

Internal links are hyperlinks that point to different pages within the same domain.

These links have a significant impact on search engine rankings.

While the exact weight and algorithms used by search engines are not publicly disclosed, internal linking is considered an important on-page SEO factor.

Internal links are different from external links that point to pages on other domains. 

Even though , on a live page, internal and external links look the same to the reader - a hyperlinked piece of text.

So until the reader clicks on it, they won’t know whether it is an internal or an external link.

And frankly, the reader won’t care much about it.

They care about being able to find content that is relevant to what they are interested‌ in. 

Here's how an internal link looks like on a live page.

In this sentence, “content goals” is an internal link that directs the user to another article on our website that shows them how to build content marketing goals. 

As you can see from this, internal links help users to navigate between related content on a website. But their usage and importance extend well beyond that. 

Yet, internal linking is often an underrated SEO strategy.

Why are internal links important in SEO?

Internal links play an important part in SEO because they help search engines and users discover your web pages and easily navigate your site.

Specifically, here’s how internal links help with your SEO efforts:

Help search engines ‌crawl and index your site

Internal links serve as pathways that guide search engine crawlers from one page to another within a website. So if you want users to find your content, you need to first make sure that search engines are able to crawl your pages. 

According to Google, text-based internal links are your safest bet for having your site’s content crawled. 

When search engine crawlers encounter internal links on a page, they follow those links to find new pages to index.

This is the second step to having your content discovered in search.

Indexing allows search engines to understand the content of a page, which they can then serve to users on relevant search queries. 

Improve your site’s navigation

A well-designed link architecture will help your audience and search engines navigate through your site more easily. 

Internal links can help users discover new information and resources that are relevant to them.

This exploration also increases the time users spend on your site.

In turn, they will be exposed to a wider range of your offerings‌, which can lead to higher engagement and conversions. 

This also will provide users with a better page experience. And Google rewards content that provides a good page experience. 

Pass on link authority

Internal linking can positively impact your search engine rankings by distributing authority from one page to another within your website. This is known as link equity distribution.

It essentially refers to distributing the authority or “link juice” from high authority pages to newer or less visible ones.

Essentially, if you have a page on your site that is performing well i.e. it has good search engine ranking and is receiving many backlinks, you can then add internal links of this page to other pages on your site.

The other pages will benefits from its link authority. This is one way you can use internal links to boost the authority and ranking of other pages.

Boost your SERP ranking

All of the above will ultimately lead to your content ranking higher on search engine results.

SEO manager Nicola Hughes, ran a small experiment that demonstrates the power of creating internal links . By adding multiple internal links to an old post, she saw a 53% increase in SERP impressions and an increase in average position of 2.9.

All in just four months. 

10 internal linking best practices for SEO

Think of your internal linking strategy as fuel for your content's success. Content marketers often make the mistake of only focussing on content but contextual links pointing to relevant pages can improve your website's search performance.

We'll discuss how to make the most of your internal linking building efforts and supercharge your SEO strategy. Here are 10 internal linking tips for your website's SEO.

Link to relevant content

Relevance plays a key role is SEO - it’s one of the main ranking factors. Search engines aim to show users content that is relevant to them.

And there are a few signals that engines use to assess the relevance of a page, one of them being internal links. 

By linking to related and complementary content, you signal to search engines that your website offers a comprehensive and interconnected resource on a specific topic.

In other words, you position yourself as an expert in the field. This is known as building topical authority through topic clusters. 

There are different types of topics clusters you can create on your site, from content libraries and directories to the hub and spoke model and databases.

The gist of it is that you group together internal pages or articles that revolve around a specific topic. By interlinking these pages, you create a web of related content. 

Here’s an example of how this can look like visually: 

Let's take the example of a cluster on the topic "best camping site."

Using Surfer Keyword Research , we can see that the main keyword for the pillar page is "Place for camping near me."

Under it is a snippet of relevant supporting pages to link to, from the pillar page.

This is how we created a topic cluster around our money/pillar page on AI SEO .

All our cluster pages link to the pillar page or vice versa. This strengthens the overall keyword association and helps search engines recognize the depth and breadth of our expertise on the topic. 

So it’s important that you link related pages within your site to create these keyword clusters.

To identify relevant content within your website to link to, you can type the following on Google.

site: domain.com "keyword" - to find pages using a specific keyword. 

However, this throws up any page with the keyword.

Instead, head to Surfer Audit to identify pages for a better internal linking silo. Enter the target URL and the Internal links report will show you relevant pages on your site to link from.

Here's a snippet for example.

This URL audit displays a list of pages from the same website that include the keyword we’re interested in.

This way we can find pages that are relevant to the topic.

Use links that add value

One important tip to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t add internal links just for the sake of it. Only use internal links that add value to the user.

SEO guru, Steve Toth makes a great case for this in his article “ Links, au natural ”.

Use links that fit naturally with the context of the sentence and are valuable to people that are interested in the subject.

For example,

These types of links add value to the user and invite them to explore more as they are related to what they were initially interested in. 

Meanwhile, this is what a non-value adding link can look like:

If someone is looking for sandwich ideas, they probably don’t care about the knife.

The link in this case looks forced and it doesn’t serve to enhance the user experience.

While you can link to this product page from the same article, Steve recommends you take the time to write a few sentences. 

Think about the context of your internal links and incorporate them in a way that can add value to the user. 

 Use descriptive anchor text

The way to encourage clicks on your internal links is to give the user an indication of what lies beyond the link. This is where the art of mastering ‌anchor texts comes in.

Google recommends you use descriptive anchor text so that users and search engines can understand what the context of the page you’re linking to is. 

Avoid linking to phrases such as “click here” or “read more”.

These aren't optimal anchor text examples. 

Meanwhile, this is a good example of what a descriptive anchor text looks like:

But keep in mind that while your anchor text should be descriptive, it still has to be concise.

Check out this other example provided by Google to understand how that looks like. 

So it’s important you strike the right balance between writing descriptive, yet concise internal link anchor text. 

Use a variety of different anchor texts

When you are linking to a pillar page from different pages, it’s important to vary anchor text and not always link to the same phrase.

This will not only help search engines understand the context of a page’s content, but it will also sound more natural.

You can do this by using synonyms and variations of your keyword.

For example, when linking to our article on “competitor keyword analysis”, we use different variations of that, such as “anaylze competitors' websites.”

This variation works best within the context of the specific page as it blends seamlessly with the rest of the content. 

Add important links at the top

It’s common practice that your most important content should be placed at the top of your pages. That’s because that’s where they will be most visible.

When visitors land on your page, they usually scan the content from top to bottom.

By placing the most important links at the top, you make it easier for them to find and access key information or navigate to essential pages quickly.

Moreover, search engines also consider the hierarchy of links in your content.

The hierarchy refers to the arrangement of elements based on their importance, with more significant elements given greater prominence.

This is one way to signal to Google which of your pages are important.

Search Engine Land ran an experiment to prove this case. In the homepage of an ecommerce site they added links to subcategories of products.

You can see that in the picture below. 

So what happened when adding a few links in a visible content area at the top of the page?

The website improved in rankings across 165 terms and had 56 more top 100 terms.

This goes to show that some simple changes in internal linking structure can have a great impact on SEO.

So give your links more visibility by adding them at the top of pages.

Meanwhile, keep in mind that too many links dilute link equity.

So don’t overstuff these key website placements with less important links. Instead, you can add the less important internal links in the footer or sidebar section. 

Link from high authority pages to lower authority pages

As we mention at the beginning of this article, one of the benefits of internal links is that they pass on link equity.

So if you have a high authority page on your site that is attracting lots of backlinks and is ranking high on SERP, you can leverage its authority to boost the visibility of other related pages.

You can do so by including internal links within that page that direct users and search engine crawlers to the other pages that you consider important. 

Nevertheless, keep in mind to only link to relevant pages and not fall into link stuffing when applying this tip.

Link from your homepage

The homepage is usually the most important page of a website. So if a user lands on your homepage, internal links can help you guide them to other important pages on your site.

You shouldn’t solely rely on your navigation menu for that.

Google recommends that your most important pages should be clickable from your homepage - it’s not common for search bots to crawl pulldown menus.

This also makes it easier for the user to explore those pages, which they may not have known existed. It’s also a great way for you to show all your offerings and increase the chances of converting users to customers.

Authority Hacker's homepage is a good example of this. You can access all their important blog pages directly from their homepage.

Keep your links sounding natural

Anchor text is a great place to add relevant keywords to your page. However, you shouldn’t overdo this at the expense of sounding spammy.

Remember that keyword stuffing is in violation of Google’s spam policies. So that willl actually hurt your SEO efforts.

Instead, try to write in a natural manner and only include internal links and keywords when it’s relevant. 

Also, don’t add too many links next to each other - that does not make for a natural reading experience.

Google recommends you space out the links with context. 

Avoid link stuffing

Similar to keyword stuffing, link stuffing is also seen as spammy.

John Mueller of Google directly addressed this issue during one of the Google SEO office-hours .

“Does that mean that having a lot of internal links on a page could do more harm than good?”, Mueller replied:

“We do use the internal links to better understand the structure of a page. (...)  If all the pages are linked to all the other pages on the website then there’s no real structure there. It’s like one giant mass of pages for this website and they’re all interlinked and we can’t figure out which one is the most important one. We can’t figure out which ones of these are related to each other. (...) That makes it harder for search engines to understand the context of the individual pages within your website.”

He then added:

“Yes, if you dilute the value of your site structure by having so many internal links that we don’t see a structure anymore, then that does make it harder for us to understand what you think is important for your website. (...)" 

According to Mueller, internal links give you some control over how you want your pages to be shown in search results. 

“If you tell search engines pretty clearly and directly, well this is my primary page, and from there you link to different categories and the categories link to different products, then it’s a lot easier for us to understand that if someone is looking for this category of product, this is that page that we should be showing in the search results.

Whereas if everything is cross-linked then it’s like, well, any of these pages could be relevant. And then maybe we’ll send the user to some random product instead of to your category page when you’re actually looking for a category of products.”

You can watch his full answer on YouTube.  

So how many internal links should you add to one page?

Mueller did not give a recommendation on the exact number of internal links you should add to a page. There is no magic.

But you can rely on common sense to determine what a reasonable number of internal links per page should be. Do that by thinking about adding links that are relevant, provide value, and enhance the user experience. 

More links is not always better.

You can also use a tool like ScreamingFrog to visualize your internal link structure and make sure that it does not resemble “one giant mass”. 

Update existing links

Lastly, it’s recommended that you periodically do an internal link audit to make sure that all your links are valid.

In the world of content marketing, it’s common to make changes to your website’s content. For instance, you may decide to combine multiple low-performing posts into one long form article.

In some cases, you may find that a page has been permanently removed or that its URL has been changed significantly. 

Broken internal links that lead to 404 error messages negatively impact your SEO score.

In this case, consider implementing redirects to guide users who access outdated links to the most relevant and up-to-date content.

A 301 redirect will also help you preserve the link equity of the old page and pass it to the new page. 

John Mueller of Google has also recommended fixing internal links on a Reddit comment. 

Key takeaways

• Internal links serve as pathways for search engine crawlers, allowing them to discover new pages and understand the hierarchy of your website.
• Internal links also serve to guide users through your website, improving navigation and user experience.
• Nevertheless, you should avoid excessive internal linking, as it can appear spammy and confusing to both users and search engines. Focus on quality rather than quantity, prioritizing meaningful and relevant links.
• Internal linking should be a continuous effort, regularly reviewing and updating links as your website evolves.
• Understanding and implementing internal linking strategy best practices can significantly impact your website's performance and online visibility.

Internal linking is a valuable tool that should not be overlooked in your website optimization efforts.

By leveraging the power of internal linking, you can improve your website's visibility in search engine results, and ultimately drive more targeted traffic to your most important pages.

As you implement internal linking best practices, remember to maintain a balance between usability and SEO optimization.

Focus on creating a natural and intuitive navigation experience for users while ensuring that search engines can effectively crawl and index your website's pages.

https://surferseo.com/blog/seo-internal-linking/

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What is internal linking in SEO? Here’s everything you need to know

• Published: September 5th

When you think about search engine optimisation , the first thing that probably springs to mind is keywords. However, comprehensive SEO goes beyond that. Internal linking not only helps your visitors discover more webpages within your website, but it’s also a vital part of any well-thought-out marketing plan.

So, what is internal linking? Most importantly, how do you implement an internal linking strategy? This blog will cover the following:

What is internal linking?

Why is internal linking important for seo.

• What are the different type of internal links
• How to build an internal linking strategy

First things first, we need to break down what internal linking is. Simply put, it’s any link from one page on your website to another within the same website. These links enable visitors, as well as search engines, to find related content. For example, if your blog post is about coffee, you might want to link to another post on fair trade coffee or the difference between a flat white and a cappuccino.

Internal links are fundamentally important as they establish a hierarchy of content within your website’s architecture. They help users (and search engines) understand the relationship between different webpages and discover new content. Therefore, a good internal linking strategy not only guarantees better SEO results but also drives organic traffic within your site and encourages users to stay on the site longer. Internal Links vs. external Links: What is the difference?

We’ve briefly explored what internal links are, but how do they differ from external links? While internal links connect to pages within the same domain, external links point to a page on a different website. External links are used to reference external sources, credit original research or content, and provide additional information about a specific topic.

The most obvious benefit of internal linking is that it enhances your user experience by making it as seamless as possible for visitors to hop from one webpage to another and find what they’re looking for (and more) along the way.

By doing this, you’ll also boost link equity (or “link juice” in SEO jargon), which is the value passed from one page to another through hyperlinks. So, if there’s a piece of content within your website that’s particularly popular, adding hyperlinks can aid other pages that might not be driving as much traffic.

All this helps search engine crawlers take note of your webpages. Internal links act as pathways that guide these crawlers through your website, helping them discover your content, index pages, and rank them. Having a great internal linking setup ensures no important content is overlooked, so you can rest assured that all the work you’ve poured into your website is being recognized by Google and other search engines.

What are the different types of internal links?

Navigational links These refer to links usually found in the main menu, sidebar, and footer. They help users easily find important pages like your homepage or product page. Navigational links are not only beneficial for SEO but also improve a user’s experience on your site and make it more accessible overall.

Contextual links As the name suggests, these links provide additional information or context about a particular topic, so they’re usually embedded within your content in the form of anchor text. They encourage readers to delve deeper into an issue or theme they might not have been familiar with. As a bonus, they’re also valuable for SEO as they provide additional context to search engines on how different content is interrelated.

Footer links You’ll find footer links at the bottom of a webpage. They enable your visitors to quickly find other pages within the site, such as terms of service, privacy policies, site map, and contact us. While not as easy to spot as navigational links, they contribute to the website’s overall structure and ensure that all important pages are easily accessible.

Sidebar links Sidebar links are simply backlinks located within a website’s sidebar and can help users navigate to subsections within an article or blog post, important pages like the privacy policy, related posts, products, and so on.

Breadcrumbs Breadcrumbs are a trail of text links that show visitors the path they took to reach the page they’re currently on. In this way, they enhance user navigation and assist search engine crawlers in understanding your site structure. For instance, a breadcrumb trail on an e-commerce site selling coffee might look like this: Home > Coffee > Beans & Ground Coffee > Ground Coffee > Single Origin.

How to build your own internal linking strategy

Here are our 5 tips for creating a credible internal linking strategy:

Start with a site audit

A robust internal linking (and SEO) strategy requires you to have a deep understanding of your website. You should, therefore, start with a site audit, as this will help you identify existing internal links, analyse your site structure, discover broken links , and find pages that need improvement. You can use our free Website Grader Tool to check your webpages, or, alternatively, SEMRush or Ahrefs also offer site audit functions.

Determine your site’s ideal structure and link hierarchical pages

Before you start blindly adding internal links, it’s crucial to have a site structure with a defined content hierarchy. Picture your website as a pyramid. At the very top is your homepage, followed by categories, subcategories, cornerstone content (the most important articles or content on your site), and less important content. Your internal linking strategy should prioritise cornerstone pages, linking to them frequently to establish their authority.

For example, if you have an “Ultimate Guide to Coffee” as a cornerstone piece (the parent page), other related articles (child pages), such as “Flat White vs. Cappuccino,” “Different Types of Coffee Beans,” and “Espresso vs. Americano,” should link to the main article. For maximum effect, the main article should also link to these related pages, while these sibling pages can also be linked to each other.

Use descriptive anchor text

Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. A good internal linking strategy involves using descriptive anchor text that gives users and search engine crawlers an idea of what the linked page is about. Eliminate generic phrases like “learn more,” “click here,” and “buy now” from your internal linking vocabulary. Instead, use specific keywords that relate to the content of the destination page.

Link to relevant content

You may be tempted to add a bunch of internal links to your page. However, you need to make sure that the content you’re pointing to is genuinely relevant to your piece. Focus on quality versus quantity to ensure that each internal link serves a clear purpose. Otherwise, you can do more harm than good!

Add a related post section, and leverage breadcrumbs and sidebars

Adding a related posts section can be a great way to drive traffic to less-loved webpages and content from already-engaged visitors. You can boost traffic and accessibility to popular pages and articles by adding them to your breadcrumbs, sidebars, and other navigational elements.

Wrapping Up

Internal linking is far from a one-time task. You should ensure internal links are being incorporated whenever you add new content to your site or edit existing pages.

Regular maintenance is key to ensuring your internal linking strategy remains effective and actually contributes to, and even supercharges, your overarching SEO master plan.

If you’re in the process of reviewing your SEO strategy then contact us today to see how our award-winning SEO team could help.

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23 Million Internal Links – SEO Case Study

Rethinking Internal Linking Best Practices

Update : New data suggests that some sites with high anchor text diversity may suffer in Google’s algorithm. Read the study.

Most SEOs understand that links are an official Google ranking factor .

It’s also generally understood that  external links  (links from other websites) are typically more powerful than  internal links  (links from your website.)

But let’s not underestimate the power of internal links. Whenever I discuss the issue with colleagues at one of our trusted SEO partners , internal linking is one of the first levers pulled when clients need results fast (the others often being title tags and schema markup.)

Indeed, they can be very effective when used correctly, as our data suggest.

For this study, we looked at  23 million internal links  across 1,800 websites, representing approximately 520,000 individual URLs. We then compared these to data from Google Search Console to determine search clicks for each URL.

A few caveats about the numbers:

• Twenty-three million sounds like a lot of links, but it’s only a small portion of the trillions of links across the internet! A much larger study would provide greater accuracy.
• This is mostly a  correlation study . Remember that correlation isn’t causation (though it can be a very strong hint!)
• We recommend you consider any conclusions drawn from these numbers  directionally useful  but not necessarily scientific truth.

First, some ground rules. What do we mean by an internal link? Internal links are hyperlinks that connect pages on the same website.  Internal links are an important factor for on-page SEO that can help improve your site’s user experience, search engine rankings, and organic traffic.

Internal Links Associated With More Google Traffic

As you might suspect, pages with more incoming internal links tend to get more traffic.

For example, in our dataset, URLs with 0-4 internal links only saw two clicks on average from Google Search, while URLs with 40-44 internal links saw four times that many.

But then a strange thing happens.

After a URL receives about 45-50 internal links, the effect reverses. Google traffic begins to  decline  as the number of internal links rises.

What’s going on?

Diving into the numbers, the most obvious explanations seems to be explained by the existence of  navigational/sitewide links  vs.  unique links  in the body text. When a page has 50, 100, or 400+ internal links pointing at it, there’s a good chance these URLs are linked in the navigation from every page on the site.

With sitewide links, the dataset often shows URLs with less traffic.

Does this mean navigation links are less effective than other types of links?  Not necessarily.

As the number of links per URL increased, our dataset grew very spikey. Observationally, large, high-traffic sites tended to do very well with navigational links. At the same time, small-to-medium sites seemed to have less success.

But then why are more links associated with more traffic, at least up to a certain point?

Perhaps looking at anchor text provides more insight…

Anchor Text Variations Correlated With Search Traffic

When talking about anchor text, we’re talking about the words that make up the clickable part of the link. The following are possible different types of anchor text (all pointing to this page.)

• Internal Link Study
• https://zyppy.com/seo/internal-links/study/
• showing the power of links

Pages can have only a few anchor text variations pointing at them, or sometimes many. Popular pages on the internet typically have a wide variety of anchor text variations from external links.

But is there any association between anchor text variety and traffic with internal links?

The relationship between anchor text variety of internal links and Google search clicks was  so strong  that we ran the data three times. Even after eliminating nearly all the outliers (close to 50% of all URLs), the numbers kept increasing.

The numbers kept increasing, but the data became less reliable after a certain point. While it’s common to see pages with one, five, or even ten anchor text variations pointed at them, only a tiny percentage of URLs have 25 or more anchor text variations from internal links.

Regardless, URLs with a larger number of anchor text variations from internal links are highly correlated with more Google search traffic.

Speculating, this may help explain why pages with more internal links see more search traffic, but only to a point. One theory may be the raw number of links may be less important than the uniqueness of the links.

Put another way, a sitewide link might appear on every page of your site (and in theory, it may pass a good amount of PageRank), but it can only ever have one anchor text associated with it. Even if that link appears on 500 different pages, in some ways, it might be considered a single editorial link.

Again, sitewide/navigation links seem to do better on large, popular sites, but the relationship between anchor text variation and traffic seems to hold across all sites, regardless of size or popularity.

Interestingly, Authority Hacker  published an analysis  of anchor text variety and Google search rankings. That study was very different from this one regarding data and methodology but with strikingly similar results. It seems anchor text variety is important for external and internal links both.

Naked URL Anchors and Google Traffic

Next, we wanted to look at specific types of anchor text links in our dataset.

One such type of link is when the anchor is simply a URL, sometimes known as a “Naked URL” anchor, like this:  https://zyppy.com

Google’s SEO advises against using URLs as anchors,  telling webmasters to avoid  “Using the page’s URL as the anchor text in most cases.”

But does using URL anchors hurt your search traffic?

In our dataset, the answer was no harm at all.

Pages with URL anchors from internal links saw almost 50% more traffic than pages without URL anchors.

Speculating again, perhaps this has more to do with anchor text variety than any usability or other Google ranking consideration. Many SEOs are known to use naked URLs as part of their overall linking strategy.

To be fair, while you may see URL anchors everywhere, they actually aren’t that common. In our dataset, they represented less than 1% of all links.

Empty Anchor Texts and Google Search

Google also tells us to use descriptive words in our anchor text.

Despite this, links often contain no anchor text whatsoever. Image links—which use the alt attribute as anchor text—are particularly bad at this.

In our dataset, over 6% of all links contained no anchor text, but was it associated with fewer clicks? Here’s the answer.

Statistically, the existence of empty anchor text from internal made no difference whatsoever.

This could be because—as previously mentioned—empty anchors are most often associated with image links, and image links are often accompanied by regular text links, which presumably have anchors!

Exact Match Anchors and Google Search Traffic

All good SEOs advise using keywords in your anchor text, but there’s a lot of debate about using exact match anchors as part of your internal linking strategy.

Exact match anchors mean your anchor text “exactly” matches a top or desirable search phrase for the page in question, e.g., “ best SEO blog ” is an example of an accurate exact match anchor.

For this analysis, we looked at pages with at least “one” exact match anchor from an internal link. The relationship was surprisingly strong.

Pages with at least one exact match anchor had at least five times more traffic than pages without.

This relationship held up no matter how many ways we sliced the data, how many outliers were limited, or how deep we looked into the dataset.

But remember, correlation isn’t causation. This might be explained if pages with exact match anchors are more clearly optimized to target specific terms.

Regardless, the evidence suggests that using at least some exact match anchors in your internal linking strategy may not be a bad idea.

How to Optimize Your Internal Links

While we can’t pretend to present a complete internal linking strategy based on this study, the data does hint at some possible best practices and optimizations.

• More internal links are associated with higher traffic, but only to a point.
• Sitewide/navigation links seem to have a powerful effect, mostly on larger, high-authority sites. The effectiveness is less clear on small, lower-authority sites.
• Anchor text variety is highly correlated with higher search traffic.
• Naked URL anchors don’t seem to hurt and, in fact, are associated with more traffic.
• At least some exact match anchors are associated with significantly higher traffic.

SEO Tools for Optimizing Internal Links

You can optimize internal links without using a fancy SEO tool, but we find they can help identify opportunities at scale, especially when dealing with a number of pages.

The best internal linking tools can evaluate a page’s relevance to specific topics and find gaps in your current linking strategy.

Here are the tools we recommend the most:

• Internals by Positional
• LinkWhisper

Whatever tool you use, make sure it keeps a record of anchor text as well as the number of links. And be sure to vary your anchor text accordingly!

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Internal linking case study: can links to nearby location pages help?

Start here: how our SEO split tests work

If you aren't familiar with the fundamentals of how we run controlled SEO experiments that form the basis of all our case studies , then you might find it useful to start by reading the explanation at the end of this article before digesting the details of the case study below. If you'd like to get a new case study by email every two weeks, just enter your email address here .

This week’s #SPQuiz on Twitter asked our followers what they thought would happen when we added links to nearby locations on a website with a large number of location pages:

This one was a landslide! Internal linking is clearly believed to be an important contributor to SEO performance, as the vast majority of our followers thought this test would have a positive impact.

And they were right! Read on for the details, but this test showed a 7% improvement to the pages we added internal links to.

The Case Study

Many websites have a large number of location pages. For example, a real estate website with property listings organized by location; a job site that lets you search by location; a site for a company with a large number of physical locations - the list goes on.

These pages can often spiral in number in order to capture the demand for people searching for services in their location, which can cause various challenges for SEO. A large number of pages can cause issues with crawl budget and indexation, and these pages can struggle to receive sufficient internal link equity to perform well in search. A well-designed internal linking structure can benefit all of these aspects.

The particular website this test relates to has around 8,000 ‘regional’ pages across the USA, each of which lists the nearby physical company locations in that geographic area. Before the test began, some of these pages received internal links via breadcrumbs from the individual location pages, and some other sporadic links around the site, but there was no systematic internal linking in place.

To improve the internal linking, and therefore the distribution of link equity around these pages (and hopefully the pages’ organic search performance), we decided to test adding links from each regional page to the six nearest neighbouring regional pages. We wanted to run a controlled test, so instead of linking to all 8,000 pages, we first split them into two groups (control and variant), and only linked to the six closest pages within the variant group.

For example, on the Denver, Colorado page, we added the following links to other nearby cities:

Each of the pages we linked to was in the variant group. No new links were added that pointed to control pages. All location pages (control and variant) linked out to variant pages. This meant that, on average, each variant page was receiving twelve additional internal links.

The below chart shows the impact of this test on organic traffic for the linked-to pages, compared to the control pages which didn’t receive any links:

This corresponded to a 7% uplift in organic traffic.

It’s reassuring to know that SEO basics still work! These pages were starved of link equity, and adding internal links helped deliver equity, and therefore a boost in organic traffic. As a result, we amended the link blocks to point to all location pages, not just the variant group.

How our SEO split tests work

The most important thing to know is that our case studies are based on controlled experiments with control and variant pages:

• By detecting changes in performance of the variant pages compared to the control, we know that the measured effect was not caused by seasonality, sitewide changes, Google algorithm updates, competitor changes, or any other external impact.
• The statistical analysis compares the actual outcome to a forecast, and comes with a confidence interval so we know how certain we are the effect is real.
• We measure the impact on organic traffic in order to capture changes to rankings and/or changes to clickthrough rate ( more here ).

Read more about how SEO A/B testing works or get a demo of the SearchPilot platform .

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82% of Internal Linking Opportunities Missed – Case Study

• February 8, 2022
• SEO Case Studies

Internal linking, defined as using a hyperlink from one web page to another within the same domain URL, is known to be one of the most underused SEO tactics. A vital SEO staple, Internal linking creates a great user experience and reinforces the topic authority associated with each page. It helps search engines such as Google with the comprehension of your web content, so why aren’t people using it?

We know that good internal linking structures bring many benefits to a website:

• it helps Google and search engines discover your new pages
• it enhances navigation and user experience
• and globally, it can significantly boost your organic traffic

But how badly is internal linking really underused?

Fortunately, at InLinks, we have a large database of websites for which we have already optimized internal linking. This allows us to study the number of existing links a website has compared to the number of internal linking opportunities missed, which InLinks then found and implemented. What we found was…

Most sites fail at internal linking

For this reason, we examined a total of 5,112 websites across the globe, to determine how many hard-coded links were already built, and how many internal links our tool managed to create.

In our analysis, we found that 82% of all internal links opportunities were missed .

How the study was conducted

For this study, we looked at 5,112 projects from different industries across the globe. Most of them are in English.

As you may already know, InLinks is able to detect internal linking opportunities to a page once it has been associated with a target entity. Because of this, we limited our study to account projects having a minimum of 1 target page defined.

This led us to study the internal links of 60,259 target pages and compute the amount of existing, hard-coded links to these pages, as well as the number of internal links generated by InLinks.

• Amount of existing internal links: 94,472 ,
• Amount of internal links generated by InLinks: 433,626

This leads to a total of 528,098 links after internal link optimization and therefore 82% of all internal links were missing before optimization.

Please note that InLinks doesn’t take into account internal links in the menu or sidebar. It only looks at internal links embedded in text paragraphs, as these are the links that carry the most SEO weight for search engines.

How are the internal links determined and generated by InLinks?

To determine the internal links a website is missing, InLinks uses the following process:

• An internal semantic analyzer is used to retrieve all named entities in a project’s pages
• The owner of the project then associates their important pages to one or several target entities
• there is no existing internal links to a target page detected in the page text (to avoid duplicating links)
• the length of the paragraph where the entity has been detected is long enough (typically > 10 words)
• there is no potential conflict with existing, hard-coded links in the page
• context or silo-related rules are met.

This approach may suffer from some limitations. The main one is if a target entity has not been properly detected on a page (this may happen as our entity detection algorithm is context-based).

But this approach will only reduce the number of internal links generated, which means that the 82% ratio of missed opportunities is a minimum value.

Some more stats

Not all of these 5,112 websites are equal when looking at their internal linking profile. Some of them already had a strong internal link structure, some others totally failed, so we looked more precisely on this “internal linking profile”

First insight: only 3,100 websites had at least one internal link to a target page! This means that 2,102 websites had no internal links at all to their target pages.

41% of the sites studied did not have a single internal link to their target pages !

(again, we’re not talking about internal links in menus or sidebars)

Second insight: only 5% of all websites reach an internal linking score of 80%

This means that for these websites, InLinks only detected 20% (or less) of missing opportunities

Why are there so many missed internal linking opportunities ?

There are good reasons which explain why internal linking is underused. The main one is complexity. Too often, we can so easily forget previous content or get confused on what a page’s topic authority might actually be. It pays to be precise in SEO, so trying to optimize for one topic or keyword per page is something that will definitely help your internal linking strategy, and avoid cannibalization.

If you write and publish a new blog post, you definitely need to internally link to your important pages (the one driving revenues or traffic), but probably also to the “secondary” pages, such as existing blog posts addressing a specific topic of your industry. This will reinforce topic authority and create the benefits mentioned above for your SEO.

Linking to important pages may be easy, but linking to secondary pages requires to know perfectly your topic graph (overall list of topics you’ve addressed in the past on your site) and for each topic, to know their synonyms (to avoid exact match anchor text and so on).

These opportunities are often missed because, well, we’re human! Implementing structure to your content in this way is something that feels like it should come naturally, but when facing mountains of unoptimized content internal linking strategies can often fly out the window.

The InLinks approach relies on entities, with a set of know synonyms automatically built for each entity. Since you’ve more than 100 pages on your website, you need such a tool to be able to keep up with your different topics and know when and where you should link to them.

Introducing the internal linking score

By achieving this study, we built a new indicator to reflect the internal linking status of a project. In a rather logical way, we’ve named it the internal linking score .

Here’s the formula we’re using to compute it:

• n is the number of target pages of a website (as defined using InLinks)
• HardCodedLinks are existing, hard-coded links to a specific target page
• LinksOpportunities are missing internal links detected by InLinks to a target page
• The score is expressed as a percentage

To get a fair idea of the internal linking score, you need to associate your important pages to their respective entities. The more you add pages and associate entities, the more accurate your internal linking score will be.

InLinks also gives you the ability to view the score for each target page. Here is an example of this internal link score visualization by topic. The grey color shows hard-coded links, while blue shows missing opportunities detected by InLinks.

How to optimize your internal linking strategy

These staggering statistics can feel quite overwhelming. Especially if you are an SEO professional tasked with the tedious act of sifting through unfamiliar content to optimize it based on ambiguous topic authority pages. There must be a more concise way to tackle this! One without losing the personalization that mass internal link-building and backlink sites lack!

InLinks allows you to build these links in seconds and inject them onto your website in minutes. It works by giving your the power to assign topics or entities to each page in your project. This makes sure you avoid cannibalization by having two pages mean the same thing.

It then automates an internal linking structure while using its own NLP API to ensure synonyms and conceptually similar language to your target word are being used as anchor texts. This avoids your site feeling spammy or overly automated.

Inlinks makes sure you can avoid missing these vital internal linking opportunities by allowing you to get instant results. It makes optimizing for a specific word or phrase really simple!

A web crawler will take into account all of the pages you submit to a project. It will allow you to not only automate these internal links but also create/implement schema markup. By using these techniques you will be in a minority of sites that optimize every aspect, giving a competitive advantage.

Try inLinks for $1

If you have not yet tried inLinks, you can try InLinks for $1 or book a one to one demo to see how powerful it is and request an a free project setup of inLinks by one of our team.

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I will try this on a site – thanks Dixon 🙂

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Internal Linking

Learn the best practices to develop strong internal links within the website to help search engines understand the website’s structure and discover the content.

What is internal linking?

• Navigational internal links
• Contextual internal links
• Internal linking audit
• Identify site structure and pillar pages
• Linking pillar and clusters
• Anchor text
• Limit the number of links
• Use authority pages to optimize new pages
• Semrush’s Site Audit
• Semrush’s Backlink Analytics
• Yoast SEO Premium
• Ahrefs Site Explorer
• Test your knowledge

An internal link is a hyperlink that points from one page on a website to another page on the same website. It’s different from external links, which are hyperlinks pointing to pages on a different website.

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