Internal Links for SEO: Ultimate Guide

Internal links are valuable for SEO efforts. It is a set of practices and techniques that can help websites rank higher in search engine result pages (SERPs). In this article, you will learn about internal linking for search engine optimization, why it’s important, examples of internal linking, best practices for internal linking, and tools for internal linking.

Let’s get started!

What is Internal Linking?

When you link to one page of your website from another page of the same site, you are adding an internal link. Internal linking is one of the cornerstones of SEO. When you build out a healthy internal linking structure, you will see benefits across the board.

First of all, internal links increase the authority of a page. Then, you’ll get better click-through rates, you’ll see higher conversion rates, and your overall site traffic will increase. A well-managed internal linking strategy can greatly enhance your SEO.  The content you diligently create should be linked to each other with a correct internal linking strategy. It is an underrated SEO strategy as it is completely free with a high success rate.

There are four types of links to be aware of for internal linking. contextual links, navigational links, footer links, and image links. Contextual links are most important for the SEO. When you click a contextual link, you’re taken to another page on the same website that has information about that particular term. Deep link is a type of contextual link that takes visitors to a specific product or service page on your site. When done right this type of links can substantially increase your conversion rates.

Why is Internal Links Important for SEO?

The best way to improve your SEO is to create a quality website that is rich in information, relevant, and easy to read. Internal linking is one of the best ways to achieve this. When you link to related pages on your website, you are telling Google and other search engines that those pages are important.

You are also making it easier for readers to navigate your site. Readers who click on internal links are taken directly to the page they are looking for without having to click through to the homepage first. This speeds up the reading process and gives you a better chance of getting clicked on.

Another important part of your SEO strategy is to link out to other authority websites. By linking out to other websites in your industry, you are showing Google that you are a hub of useful information and that you are actively building relationships with other websites in your niche.

Best Practices for Internal Linking

Here are some best practices for internal linking when you are building out your website.

Create a logical page hierarchy for your website structure. Site structure helps search engines to understand the relationship between these pages where branches are created via internal links.

• Find internal link opportunities in your content. Your links need to be natural for the users.
• Make a list of topics and keywords you want to rank for. Then go through your content and find places where you can add in links to your other articles. This will help your readers find more information and improve your SEO at the same time.
• Use linkable keywords in your anchor text. Descriptive anchor texts should explain what the linked page is about. It is even better if you already have SEO-friendly URLs.
• Use words and phrases that people would use when they click on links in your content. This will help you with both your SEO and your click-through rate.
• You don’t want all of your links pointing back to the homepage or your blog. Make sure you link to a variety of different pages that are relevant to your readers. Use deep links where possible. Most beneficial and natural links are deep within the structure of a website.
• Make sure internal links are readable.
• Don’t use overly complicated language or sentence structures when linking to different pages on your website. This will confuse readers and slow them down.
• You can add internal links to your old content whenever you edit or update a page. This will help to build out your internal linking strategy over time.
• Don’t use high number of internal links. You don’t need tons of links.

Tools to Manage and Audit Internal Links for SEO

If you want to do a thorough internal linking audit, there are a few tools that can help you with that.

• Open Site Explorer: This tool is owned by Moz and will show you which pages on your website currently have links to them. It will also show you which pages have no links and need to be added to your linking strategy.
• Ahrefs: This tool will allow you to view your linking structure and find pages that need to be linked to. It will also show you which pages have the most links going to them so you can create more internal links.
• SEMrush: This tool allows you to see keywords that are bringing traffic to your website and what pages are receiving those clicks.
• Google Search Console This tool allows you to see which pages on your website are receiving links from other websites. You can also find pages that don’t have any incoming links.

Four Advantages of Internal Links

1) First, crawling and indexing! Internal links help search engines like Google to discover new pages so they could be added to their index.

2) Internal links help increase the authority of your pages. That helps a website to rank higher.

3) Internal links help search engines to better understand what a page is about. Anchor text and the content that surrounds the link are the determining factors for this. Descriptive keywords need to be used in the anchor text.

4) It can also help human visitors discover new content on your website. When you link to another page on the site, you increase the likelihood that other parts of your site will also receive visits. When used effectively with a useful and fluid site structure, it can improve the user metrics such as bounce rate and dwelling time.

Conclusion

A well-managed internal linking strategy will help to improve your SEO. Start working on your internal linking strategy today by finding pages that need links, creating links, and working on improving your linking structure over time.