If you’ve worked with SEO you’ve probably heard about internal links at some point or another. They are regarded by many as critical for your SEO and promise to boost your rankings sky high.
But is that really the case? And if yes, how exactly do you structure yours to achieve such results. After all, our goal is to have practical understanding of them and not just “know” that they are good for you.
Without further ado, let’s look at internal links in detail and how you can benefit from them.
What Are Internal Links?
Internal links are regular HTML links that point from one page of your website to others. The differentiating factor between internal and external links is that they just point to different places.
While external links point to other websites, internal links point to inner pages and resources on your site under your domain.
What Makes Internal Links So Good?
The reason internal links are great for your SEO is the way Google treats them. Usually, Google sees every page it can and gives it a PageRank score which basically determines where in the search results page that individual page should rank.
The PageRank algorithm is pretty complex and consists of many factors – but one of the main ones that affects it is other pages pointing to that specific page. That is to say, you can just create PageRank out of nowhere – and instead it has to be passed from other websites.
For example, if your page has a PageRank of 1 and no links to it, it has a low chance or ranking high in Google for competitive keywords. However, links from other websites which have high authority are signals to Google that this page is more authoritative than it thinks – and therefore the score should be adjusted. Adjusting this score, in terms, allows Google to also rank the page higher – after all, they want to improve the experience for their end users by showing valuable content.
The reason internal links work so good is that you can actually pass PageRank not only between different websites – but also between your own internal pages present on your website. That’s because PageRank flows from one page to another and from one website to another and it doesn’t “just stop”.
For example, if you have a strong page (e.g. your homepage) which links to one of your important product or service pages, that important page is getting a piece of the pie from all the PageRank flowing to and out of your homepage. In other words, with a few great links on one page, you can improve the rankings of several other pages that you have.
Anchor Texts On Internal Links
Additionally, Google is quite strict on the types of anchor texts that your website has from other websites. For example, they are monitoring for patterns that look unnatural to detect spammy and self-servicing link building tactics. One way of detecting that is by looking at the anchor texts that your inbound links have.
Usually, websites that do not spam the web and are transparent and subtle in their way of building links. Aggressive link building that is badly done usually features many anchor texts with exact or partial match keywords for the target keyword they are linking to. This is often bad as it tells Google that something unnatural is happening – after all, anchor texts are also part of the ranking factors as they indicate relevance.
However, things are a bit different with internal links. Because the website is under your full control, Google is not as strict with those links and the anchors they use. And they want you to give them good indicators for what each page is about. Therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to link to your important pages with anchor texts that contain your target keywords.
Here’s How You Can Create Internal Links
Because there are many Content Management Systems, we likely won’t have enough space to write a guide for all of them here. For that reason, we’ll only cover the guide for the WordPress internal links here.
But surely, because of the popularity of internal links, you can find a guide for any popular CMS out there. All you need to do is Google around. Additionally, the concept behind internal links is the same across all platforms. The only thing that differs is the exact steps you need to take to create them – and how the menus and settings are structured between different CMSs.
Step #1 – Identify The Places That Need To Be Linked
First and foremost, before you start creating internal links, you need to know exactly what pages need to be interlinked in what way. Similarly to how Google looks at the relevance of your external links, the same logic applies for internal links. You want to link relevant pages together – because this is a good signal for Google to understand what each of the pages is actually about even better.
The easiest way to do that is by listing out all of your important pages first. For example, if you’re selling products through your ecommerce store, here’s what you can do. Open Google Analytics and inspect your traffic. See where the majority of your organic traffic is landing on – is it specific product or category pages?
Step #2 – Identify Your High-Conversion Pages
Additionally, look at your Conversion Rates on different pages. Why is that important? Because you might have products that rank for keywords that are not super relevant – and therefore pull in tons of traffic – which ultimately doesn’t convert to anything. Alternatively, you might find pages that aren’t ranking great and aren’t pulling in tons of traffic – yet they convert very well. In this case, it will be in your interest to prioritize those pages.
Step #3 – Research Important Relevant Keywords With An SEO Tool
Last but not least, you want to do some keyword research and determine which topics and keywords (and ultimately products) you should focus on. You can do that step easily with an SEO tool where you simply search for the name and type of product as a keyword. There are many SEO tools out there – some of which quite expensive. Because of that, we recommend that you use a cheaper alternative – like the tool called Morningscore.
By doing these three types of analyses, you’re able to cross reference both which pages have a lot of traffic, which pages are converting the most, and which pages have the highest potential for ranking high in Google for big keywords. This will ultimately save you time and money by allowing you to focus on the products and categories that actually matter. The same can be done even if you don’t have a huge product library or offer services.
Step #4 – Classify Your Website Pages
Once you have the list on your important pages, you need to classify the majority of the pages on your website. If you’ve already created a proper “SEO Silo”, this step should come more naturally. Your goal here is to structure your internal links based on topic. Simply list the “usable” URLs for your site (e.g. blog posts, landing pages, product and category pages, etc). You can safely ignore less important pages like your contact page and secondary informational pages.
Once you have that list, simply merge it with the list you created in step 1 to find the opportunities. For example, if you have a blog post about clearing, it’s very easy to relate it to your “/cleaning-services/” landing page and interlink it from there.
Step #5 – Interlink Contextually Relevant Pages
Alright, now it’s time to actually do the work. Here’s how you can create internal links in WordPress. Firstly, log in to your WordPress dashboard (admin panel) and navigate to the post or page you want to insert the internal link on.
Now once you’re here, simply find the text you want to link from (i.e. the anchor text) or write that new text if none of the content in there makes it easy to link to the page.
Once that’s done, simply press CTRL + K which is a standard shortcut to open the “Link Menu” in many tools and CMSs. This will prompt you with a window where you can set the link destination. And that’s it!
Conclusion
Now that you know why internal links are important and how you can create them, it’s your turn to actually do them. While you’re limited in how many internal links you can create – and actually how much you can benefit from them since they still rely on external links for passing value, they are a great option to quickly boost your pages. Additionally, internal links are a great long-term investment – because the stronger your overall website gets and the more links each of them receives, the more PageRank value they are going to pass over time.
