Presently, one can easily become engrossed in the flashy, extravagant SEO strategies and methods that are inundating the internet.
Despite the widespread attention that SEOs and marketers give to site audits and keeping up with the latest advancements in Google algorithms, they occasionally tend to neglect the fundamental and crucial aspects of SEO.
Internal linking is one SEO element that often goes unnoticed.
Internal linking can be compared to the framework of a house within the context of SEO. It allows for smooth traffic flow, easy navigation between rooms, and a comfortable and intuitive experience. Building a blog without internal linking becomes an illogical choice when viewed through this lens. Nevertheless, a significant number of individuals still do not integrate it into their blogging efforts.
If you fail to include internal links in your web content, not only will it become more difficult for users to navigate, but you will also miss out on crucial traffic, engagement, and shares. Failing to utilize your content to link to other related pieces will result in your audience neglecting your website, which is definitely not favorable.
Internal linking can have a huge impact on your entire website, once you become proficient in it.
A 101: Defining Internal Linking
Internal linking is when you link one page to another within your website.
Suppose we are discussing the integration of SEO into content marketing within an SEJ article. To provide my readers with a better understanding of how inbound marketing, content marketing, and SEO combine, I would include a link to the relevant chapter in the Search Engine Journal SEO guide.
The internal link present on a page of the SEJ website I am working on, which directs users to another page within the same site, holds great value for my readership and facilitates their comprehension of my material.
Internal links are most likely being implemented on your website, even if you haven’t intentionally incorporated them in your written content. As long as your website offers a means to navigate from the homepage to other parts of the site, internal linking is already in place.
In order to make internal linking an effective strategy for SEO, it is important to expand on it and understand how to integrate it into your written material.
The Evolution of Internal Linking
Internal linking has dramatically changed in the past few years. Previously, SEO specialists resorted to using “silos,” which aimed to guide traffic to a page and influence its ranking for a specific keyword. However, this linking method is no longer popular in today’s world. Instead, simpler and more effective linking strategies that prioritize high-quality and user-friendly page linking are now preferred.
Internal linking can be compared to a properly organized residential area where the streets are arranged in a logical manner and navigation from one point to another is effortless. Check out the Roadmap of Good Internal Linking Structure diagram I have included for better understanding.
Q/A: Does it Matter How Many Internal Links I Have?
After conducting research, it appears that there is no preference for maximum internal links in content. The emphasis seems to be placed on having a minimum amount. According to Neil Patel, he includes up to 15 internal links in a single 2,000 word blog post. He suggests aiming for at least 5 relevant links in longer pieces, but notes that up to 15 can be incorporated if they are beneficial to the reader. This strategy demonstrates to Google that you trust your content and possess substantial knowledge on the subject matter. It also increases your SEO and improves your website’s visitor retention time.
KissMetrics suggests producing a significant amount of valuable content to increase the number of links available. (My website has 900 pages and blog posts, and we extensively utilize internal linking.)
A Few Don’ts of Internal Linking
In 2013, the practice of creating a large site footer section filled with keyword links that serve no relevance, friendliness, or usefulness to the reader, also known as spamtastic links, was prohibited.
Including brand-related keywords in your site footer is acceptable but avoid incorporating spammy and keyword-focused links.
John Mueller confirmed in a Hangout that it is not necessary to apply the “nofollow” attribute to every footer link.
If a link on your website is natural, it’s recommended to keep it as a regular link regardless of whether it has a nofollow attribute or not.
3 Reasons Internal Linking Matters
Internal linking continues to be one of the most crucial strategies in SEO, despite the fluctuations in trends. This is because it serves various purposes simultaneously.
In addition to providing user-value by enhancing UX and making sites easier to navigate, internal linking also helps improve your site’s indexability and provides many other benefits.
Listed below are the key motives to prioritize the implementation of an effective internal linking strategy:
1. Internal Linking Helps Google’s Crawlers Navigate Your Site
Crawler bots from Google are employed to explore a website, examine its content, and understand its purpose. During this process, the bots classify the web pages appropriately. However, sites lacking a sound internal link structure encounter a delay in crawling and indexing. Creating internal page links enables Google’s bots to crawl and index pages faster, thus enhancing your website’s SEO and improving its search engine results page ranking.
2. Internal Linking Enhances the Likelihood of Earning Backlinks
One of the most effective approaches to obtaining increased backlinks for your website is implementing internal linking. In regards to SEO, it is preferred that the highest-quality backlinks lead to internal pages within your website and not just your homepage. Without a well-developed internal linking plan, your site’s most common links are liable to be directed to the homepage. This can limit your website’s SEO potential and impede its ability to rank efficiently in the SERPs.
3. Internal Linking Makes Your Internal Pages Stronger
Your page’s “link juice” increases with the number of links it has. By distributing internal links across your site instead of concentrating them all on your homepage, this link juice spreads out, strengthening your internal pages to the same degree as your homepage.
4. Good Anchor Text and Internal Linking Improves the Value of Content
Let’s discuss anchor text now! Attaching an internal link to a meaningful and significant anchor text can enhance the quality of the link and assist readers in exploring and discovering valuable content on your website. Although overuse of keyword-stuffed anchor text is not recommended, anchor text still holds value as it helps both your readers and Google’s bots comprehend your website’s pages.
5. Internal Linking Helps Your Users be Happy
What is the most crucial function that your website should accomplish for its users?
It’s easy – just offer a fantastic experience! Thankfully, implementing an effective internal linking strategy can aid in achieving this goal. Once a reader stumbles upon your content and enjoys it, they will naturally seek out related material that offers comparable benefits. The process of finding such content is simplified through internal linking.
Internal linking enhances the usability and value of a site by enticing readers to stay longer and engage with additional content.
How to Use Internal Linking on Your Site: 5 Actionable Tips
When establishing your strategy for internal linking, there are factors to consider. The approach will vary based on the specific goals of your site, but the subsequent guidelines provide a general framework.
1. Determine the ideal structure for your site
Our advice to website owners is to conceptualize their website as a pyramid structure. At the pyramid’s peak sits the homepage, followed by various sections or categories, with individual posts and pages residing at the bottom (and potentially interspersed with subcategories).
Provided that you execute it effectively, the arrangement of your website’s menu ought to mirror this framework.
2. Decide what your most important content is
Next, it is essential to identify your crucial content. In case you are uncertain, please take a look at our piece on cornerstone content, which highlights that this is your finest and comprehensive material. It constitutes the essence of your enterprise and is the content you want your audience to discover while searching for subjects or items central to your expertise.
To prioritize your content for Google, it is important to include numerous links to it. There are several places where you can link to your cornerstone content, including within your post and navigation menu. Below are some of the most typical choices.
3. Add contextual links
To demonstrate a topic’s relevance and relationship between various articles, it’s recommended to connect them using links. By doing so, you communicate to both Google and your readers that the articles are thematically related. You can incorporate the linking directly into your sentences or include them at the conclusion of your post.
In addition, it is important to indicate to Google which articles serve as the foundation for your topic. To achieve this, you must include a hyperlink to the cornerstone article in all related articles. Additionally, remember to create a link from the cornerstone article to the individual posts.
Contextual linking: an example
Our blog features a key content piece referred to as ‘The ultimate guide to keyword research’. This article is optimized to appear at the top of Google search results for all relevant queries related to [keyword research].
We have included links to other pertinent articles like ‘Avoiding 7 Keyword Research Mistakes’, ‘Understanding Keyword Research’, and ‘Emphasizing Long Tail Keywords’ in the main article. These posts are also linked back to the main article. By doing this, Google will recognize the ultimate guide as the most comprehensive source on keyword research and rank it higher than shorter posts on the same topic.
4. Link hierarchical pages
Ensure that your website’s hierarchical pages are connected by linking parent pages to their child pages and vice versa. Additionally, remember to link sibling pages to each other. On a well-organized site, these pages should be interconnected and linking them in this manner is logical.
Discover how to link parent and child pages for optimal SEO results.
5. Consider adding a related post section
Numerous plugins and modules can incorporate fully functional related post sections into your content, which is an effective method of exposing it to a larger audience. However, it is recommended that you verify whether the related posts are truly relevant if you decide to employ this technique. Alternatively, manually linking to related posts may be more suitable. This is the approach we take on Yoast.com, where we manually select a related post and place a link to it at the end of the article, with the assistance of our internal linking tool, which we’ll discuss in more detail shortly.
6. Try adding navigational links
In addition to connecting from content that pertains to the same topic, you can increase the credibility of your cornerstone content by including links to it on either the homepage or the main navigation menu. It’s best to do this for the most crucial posts or pages that relate to your business, as this creates substantial link equity and boosts their standing with Google.
7. Add links to your taxonomies
Organizing your website using taxonomies such as categories and tags can aid both users and Google in comprehending the topic of your content. For bloggers, it may be advantageous to include internal links to the relevant taxonomies to improve Google’s comprehension of your website’s organization and enable visitors to browse through related content effortlessly.
8. Add links to your most recent posts
It is recommended to link newly published posts or pages to other relevant content on your site. However, ensure that the linking posts or pages have a similar topic to the recently published content. Avoid linking the new post to arbitrary posts or pages on your site.
Even if you publish content regularly, adding internal links is important to avoid having orphaned content that requires correction later. It may seem like a challenging task, but the effort is worth it. Internal links in your recent posts make it easy for search engine crawlers to crawl and index them when they arrive on other pages of your website.
9. Consider adding links to popular posts
Lastly, it is recommended to generate internal links towards the pages or posts on your website that have the highest popularity. It is preferable to establish these sections on the sidebar or footer of your website so that they can be presented on all pages and posts. By doing this, the most popular posts will be enhanced as the link value is transferred from several different pages. Additionally, user accessibility to these posts will be improved, resulting in higher traffic – a favorable indication to Google.
Go link your content
The absence of links impedes your content’s ability to rank. An effective strategy for internal linking enables you to establish the interrelation among contents and which articles are most informative and valuable. If you comply with the directives in this article, both Google and your site visitors will gain a better understanding of your website, ultimately increasing your potential to rank.
