The Importance of Internal Linking for SEO

Internal linking is an important but often overlooked SEO strategy. It’s also one of the easiest to do, in my opinion! You don’t need any technical expertise or SEO knowledge at all, really. You just need to have a deep understanding of the layout of your website (and I’m guessing you do!) Internal linking for SEO can have several benefits to the growth of your business on search and among your audience. So, let’s chat about what internal linking is, some benefits (AKA reasons why you should start doing it!), and some best practices to get started.

What is Internal Linking?

Internal links are links on pages within your website that go to other pages on your website. You’re keeping everything within the same domain. There are two types of internal linking:

• Navigational: These are links in your main menus.
• Contextual: Links within content like blog posts or podcast show notes.

You probably already have navigational links (otherwise, how would people explore your website?!), but contextual links are sometimes overlooked. 

Internal links are different from external links, or links that direct users from one website to a different website. You might have these kinds of links in your blogs by citing sources or studies you reference in your content.

Internal links are also different from backlinks (I know, there are so many types of links!). Backlinks are when someone else’s website links back to yours. Genuine backlinks (not paid) are very beneficial to your SEO! 

And so are contextual links; we just sometimes forget to add them!

SEO Benefits of Internal Linking

How exactly does internal linking help improve your SEO? Let’s talk about it!

Helps Search Engines Understand Your Site Structure

You know how you use heading tags to structure a blog post? You’ll see I have my main blog title, which is the most important part of the page because it tells you what this blog is about. Then, I have headings (H2) that help you skim the sections of the blog I’m going to talk about. Finally, there are smaller headings (H3) that go a little more in-depth to the main headings. This structure helps you quickly understand the point of this blog post.

And that’s exactly what links help search engines do. Internal links for SEO help search engines identify which pages are the most important. By linking to these pages on a lot of other pages, you’re showing how important they are. This boosts their visibility in search results!

Enhances User Experience

You finish writing a blog post and publish it. But what is the next step of the user journey? You always want to provide other relevant resources for them to explore after they’re done reading a blog post. Otherwise, they’ll probably just bounce off your website, and you don’t want that! Linking to other resources gives them a reason to stay and learn more about you and what you offer.

Improves Indexing

Search engines also follow the user experience journey throughout your website. Internal links for SEO help search engines navigate your website. Let’s say Google ONLY knows about your home page, but on your home page, you’ve linked to your about, services, and contact pages. Now Google knows about those three pages, too. Then, on your services page, you have links to relevant blogs. Now Google knows about those pages, too. 

Internal linking is how search engines discover new pages on your website, which helps index your website more effectively. Of course, you can always manually request indexing on Google Search Console, but internal linking helps search engines do it on their own, too. 

Also, without internal linking, pages could be orphaned, which means they are isolated and hard for search engines to find. When search engines don’t know a page exists, it can’t show it in search results. So this is a big deal for your SEO!

Distributes Link Equity

Not all pages on your website hold the same SEO value. Pages with high-quality backlinks usually have higher authority with Google. Internal linking allows you to distribute that link equity across other pages on your website. 

Let’s say you have a cornerstone blog that gets significantly more traffic because it has a lot of backlinks and a stellar focus keyword that helps it rank higher in search results. In that cornerstone blog, you have links to ten other blog posts. Those ten other blog posts get a little boost to their SEO just because they are tied to that cornerstone blog.

Best Practices for Effective Internal Linking for SEO

Whew, okay, so now you know the benefits of internal linking for SEO and that you should start doing it. But first, there are a few best practices to help you get started and some common mistakes you should avoid.

Use Descriptive Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text in your blog that’s actually linked, like this text to my blog about building strong client relationships. Notice how it’s super descriptive, so you know exactly what you’ll find on the page before you click? You don’t want hyperlinked text to be generic, like ‘click here.’ The anchor text helps users and search engines understand what they’re going to get after clicking. Make it well-known so you don’t get bounces.

Think Relevancy

I can’t stress this enough. ONLY link to pages that are relevant to what you’re talking about in a blog. Don’t link to pages on your website just to get an internal link. That will result in poor user experience. Link to relevant pages that add value to your blog.

Regularly Update and Audit

As you publish new blogs, you have more opportunities for internal linking for SEO! I check for new internal linking opportunities for myself and my clients every month. This helps with your internal linking strategy, but Google also loves to see blogs being updated regularly because that means you’re providing up-to-date information for your audience.

My Process for Internal Linking for SEO

My process is a little manual right now… I’m sure there are tools out there that help you do this more efficiently, but for now, I’ll share how I do it!

I finish writing a blog post, then I go through and link to relevant resources. Usually, I’ll scan my list of blogs to see if anything relevant sticks out to me. Since I just wrote the blog, I know what I talked about so it’s pretty easy to find blogs that I can link to. Sometimes I’ll find an old blog that’s relevant but I didn’t talk about it in my new blog. I can add a few sentences about that topic to the new blog and link to the old one.

Then I’ll think about if there are places to link freebies or affiliate links. These aren’t always internal links, but they are great to add value to your blog!

Finally, see if there are places to link your paid offers. For me, this would be my blog writing and SEO services. This would typically be at the end as your final call-to-action. You don’t want your blogs to be too salesy!

Tools to Help with Internal Linking

I love using the WordPress plug-in Yoast to help make sure my blog posts are fully optimized. One thing they catch is (you guessed it) internal links! Yoast recommends that you have at least one internal link in every blog post. 

While you’re auditing, fix broken links with the free tool Broken Link Check. Nothing is more annoying than landing on a 404 page! It will identify broken links on your website so you can easily fix them.

You can also use Google Search Console to see which of your pages have been indexed and any reasons why they haven’t been. You can manually request indexing for specific pages, too. I also do this once a month for myself and my clients just to make sure our new posts are on Google’s radar as fast as possible.

And there you have it! Internal linking is so important for your SEO, but it’s easily overlooked. I hope this blog showed you why you should start an internal linking for SEO strategy. If you want me to do it for you, like I do for all my clients, let’s talk on a discovery call! I’d love to show you how an internal linking strategy can boost your website traffic.