An internal link is a hyperlink that connects one page on a website to another page on the same website.
Internal links help users and search engines navigate around your site easily.
They also form the website’s hierarchy and help search engines discover and index your pages easily.
Simply put – Internal links are essential for both user experience and SEO.
An internal link is made up of three key elements:
Different types of internal links accomplish different things for your website.
For example, internal links from your website’s main menu (such as home, about us, services, contact, etc.) help users find key pages quickly.
But internal links within your content help users find more relevant information about the same topic.
That’s why you need to pay attention to your internal linking strategy.
An internal link is more than just a link between pages…
It is essential for building a user-friendly website that directs traffic to relevant sections. This will:
What Will I Learn?
Internal links are important to Google because they help Googlebot easily find, crawl, index, and understand your content.
They also pass link equity, which can help boost the PageRank of individual pages on your site.
Here’s a breakdown of why internal links are important to Google.
Internal links connect related content.
This is important because it allows users to easily navigate around your website and find information quickly.
That’s a big win for user experience.
But that’s not all…
Google also uses internal links to better understand your site’s content. Linking relevant pages together gives Google more context about each page’s content.
Google crawls the internet through links.
Internal links help Google’s crawlers discover new pages on your site by providing clear pathways.
Think of these pathways like bridges between your pages.
When a page is internally linked, it signals to Google that it is important and worth indexing. This means that Google is more likely to increase the page’s visibility in the SERPs.
More visibility = More search traffic.
Who doesn’t want that, right?
Using internal links strategically helps create a logical site hierarchy.
This reduces the crawl budget cost of crawling and indexing your website.
Let me explain:
It costs money for Google to crawl your website. They don’t want to waste money finding pages and understanding the site hierarchy.
Internal links make crawling your site much easier. The easier you make it for Google, the higher you will rank.
It’s as simple as that!
If you didn’t know…
Google tracks how users interact with your website.
Internal links guide users to relevant and helpful content, improving their overall experience on your site. This will keep users engaged and help them quickly find the information they want.
That’s exactly what Google wants from you!
Internal links connect pages within the same website, improving navigation and site structure.
External links point to pages on different websites, providing additional resources and credibility.
Let me explain:
Internal links are used to connect pages on your site together.
They also help search engines better understand your website structure and pass link equity to different sections of your site.
The more internal links a page has, the higher it will likely rank in Google.
Check out our internal link building guide to learn more about leveraging internal links for SEO.
External links help point your users to other websites and resources that could benefit them. They also help establish credibility when you add an outbound link as a source.
Google pays attention to the websites you link out to!
On the flip side, getting more external links pointing at your website can massively benefit your SEO.
These are called backlinks (or inbound links) and are one of the most important Google ranking factors.
Internal and external links are both very important to SEO.
The good news is that you have complete control over your internal links, which means you can take advantage of them to boost your search traffic!
Follow these six best practices for better internal linking.
Your most important pages should have the most internal links.
This highlights their importance to Google and can boost their visibility in the organic search results.
Here’s how to quickly check:
Log in to Google Search Console, click on “Links”, and then click “More” at the button in the internal links section.
Google Search Console will show you a complete breakdown of the number of internal links on each page of your website.
Your home page should have the most links, followed by your most important pages. If it doesn’t, it’s time to build more internal links to those pages.
Connect pages with related content to enhance user navigation and provide more value to your readers.
This will do three things:
It will also help create topic clusters on your site, boosting your SEO and giving your site more topical authority.
Here is the easiest way to find more internal linking opportunities for your site:
Go to Google and use this search operator:
This will bring up a list of pages on your website that Google already finds relevant for your target keyword.
Now add links from these pages to the page on your site targeting the keyword.
Use exact match anchor text and add the link to the most relevant part of the content.
Keep in mind that you might need to rewrite the text to make it sound more natural.
Use descriptive and relevant anchor text that accurately reflects the linked page’s content.
Google uses your anchor text to understand the linked page AND the page you are linking from. The better Google understands it, the higher it will rank.
Typically, when linking in-content, you should use the exact match anchor text for the target keyword of the linked page.
Just make sure it sounds natural to avoid keyword stuffing.
Pages that are deeper in your site structure typically get less visibility.
Internal links solve this problem!
Include links to deeper pages within your site to distribute link equity and ensure all valuable content gets indexed.
This encourages users to explore more of your site and find content they might not have seen.
It also helps search engines crawl and understand the full breadth of your content.
Regularly check your internal links to ensure they are working and relevant.
Fix broken links and update outdated ones to maintain a quality user experience.
I use SEO Spider from Screaming Frog and Ahrefs for this. Both tools help you quickly identify issues related to internal links.
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