Nearly every article on internal linking starts with a discussion of how complicated yet how important the subject matter is. On the one hand, internal linking is such a simple concept, and everyone should be doing it. On the other hand, the theory, process, and best practices of internal linking get extraordinarily complex. It’s both advanced and simple. But regardless of how complex or basic you think it is, no one argues about this: It is important.

• Internal Links Excel
• Internal Links In Word
• Internal Links Clash
• Internal Links Examples

Strategic internal linking is an SEO power technique, especially for content marketing. In this article, I’ve chosen to focus on internal linking for content marketing, because it’s one of the most straightforward and simplest ways to experience SEO uptick. Plus, internal linking among blog articles and other content is something that you can do on an ongoing basis.

How to Build Your Internal Linking Strategy Step 1: Identifying Your Site’s Hub Pages. Your internal linking strategy starts with making a list of the hub pages. Step 2: Creating Topic Clusters Using Internal Links. An internal linking project that maps out topic clusters of. Step 3: Choosing. Internal links are the links you create to other pages on your website. For example, you may have a blog post about healthy brands of dog food. And you might have a blog post about recipes to make your own dog food at home. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains.kastatic.org and.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

In this article, I want to deliver a level of SEO knowledge that will benefit the experienced SEO, but that will also provide actionable data to help SEO newbies.

A Primer on Internal Linking

Whatever your SEO skill, it will help to brush up on some internal linking basics.

The Definition of Internal Linking

An internal link connects one page of a website to a different page on the same website. In an internal link, the source domain and target domain are the same.

The Purpose of Internal Linking

Internal linking has three main purposes:

1. Aids in website navigation
2. Defines the architecture and hierarchy of a website
3. Distributes page authority and ranking power throughout the site

We’ll be spending our time discussing that third point — how internal linking can spread authority and rank throughout multiple pages of a website.

The Theory Behind Internal Linking

Most of the “solid information” and “powerful strategies” on internal linking are little more than sophisticated-sounding prognostication. Still, there’s some merit to theorizing about how Google ranks and values the internal network of linking.

The basic theory is this: Internal linking strengthens the overall search-optimized value of a website. Inner linking does so by providing clear paths for spiders, prolonged sessions for users, and a tight-knit network of pages and posts.

Internal Links Excel

So, how do you do it? Here are the seven commandments.

The Seven Commandments of Internal Linking for Top-Notch SEO

1. Create lots of content.

In order to create lots of internal links, you have to have lots of internal pages. The first step to a killer internal linking strategy is to have a killer content marketing strategy. You can’t have one without the other.

When you create lots of content, you’ll have lots of linkable content. The more links to the more places, the better your internal linking strategy will be.

Some internal linking strategies propose extremely complex layers of pages, silos of content, and a mathematically-balanced formula for number of links to levels of pages. I say it doesn’t really matter. Internal linking doesn’t require organizational spreadsheets and trigonometric derivative charts.

An internal linking strategy with lots of content looks less like an org chart and more like a web.

There are no “cycles.” There are no “silos.” There are no “tiers.” There are no structured flow diagrams. There’s just plenty of happy links going to helpful places.

To create keyword-rich content, with the idea of naturally linking pages, you need a strategy. Ubersuggest can help you find appropriate keywords, which gives you the direction you need to create lots of high-quality content.

Step #1: Enter Your Keyword and Click Search

Step #2: Click Keyword Ideas in the Left Sidebar

Step #3: Choose Your Keywords Wisely

With 292 keywords, there’s no shortage of options. When making your selection, focus on keywords that have a high search volume, 1,000+ is a good start, and a low SD (SEO difficulty). This improves your chance of reaching the first page. And when you do, you know there are enough searches to make it worthwhile.

While internal linking opportunities should occur naturally, you can move things in the right direction by using long-tail keywords in your content.

For example, maybe you create a post titled “How to Compare Waterproof Cases.” Within it, you use keywords such as iphone 6s plus waterproof case and iphone 7 waterproof case. Then, when you create content with these as your primary keywords, you can interlink the pages.

2. Use anchor text.

In keeping with the content theme of internal linking, your internal links should use anchor text as opposed to linked images. Image links are fine, provided that images are not the main source of links, and assuming the image is properly alt-tagged.

While we’re on the subject of alt tags, Sean Work says:

Write your alt tags like if you had to describe them to someone who is blind…

— Sean Work (@seanvwork) May 1, 2014

The proper use of anchor text, of course, opens a new can of worms. Obviously, you don’t want optimized anchors. Just use natural, unoptimized sentence fragments as anchor text, and you’ll do just fine. No cute tricks. No overthinking it. Just highlight, link it, and be done.

Check out this discussion of linkbuilding for a complete discussion on strategic anchors.

3. Link deep.

The deeper your links go, the better.

There are two types of links you should avoid using in your content:

• Homepage. Most sites have too many links to the homepage as it is. You would rather strengthen internal pages to boost the overall SEO of your site, rather than simply point more links at the homepage.
• Contactus. This is a common mistake of many who are starting out in content marketing. As part of their obligatory call to action at the end of a post, they may write something like, “Give us a call to find out more about our awesome services!” Then, they link to the “contact us” page using the anchor “give us a call.” Don’t link to the contact us page unless absolutely necessary.

In general, you want to avoid links to the top level pages on a site — pages to which the main navigation menu already has links.

The best links — and the most natural links in a content marketing strategy — are deep within the structure of a site.

4. Use links that are natural for the reader.

Internal linking requires a user-focused approach to adding value and information. The link value that gets distributed throughout the site is secondary to this key point — providing value to the reader.

One of the corollary benefits of internal linking is that it improves user engagement on your site. When a user sees an informative link that truly matches the context of the content, they are likely to click on that link. It can be an external link, as long as it’s something that the reader will be interested in. If that link is an internal one, the site visitor stays longer and becomes more involved in your website experience.

Dave Davies, in his Search Engine Watch article, made a good point.

When you link in your content you’re telling the engine that the target of your link is so relevant and important that you want your visitor to simply be able to click a link and go straight there. Basically, that what you’re linking to is potentially so relevant that the visitor may want to stop what they’re reading and go to the next page.

Content links are a strong signal to both the search engine and the user that the content you’re linking to is really good. Readers want that. Thus, internal linking is helping the reader. But you’re also helping your SEO.

Win. Win.

5. Use relevant links.

Internal linking, as I’ve made clear, is less rigorous and scientific than some might think. But you still have to be intentional. Don’t merely link for the sake of linking. Instead, link to content that is relevant to the source context.

In other words, let’s say I have a page on my site about dog food. And, I have a page on my site about the nesting habits of parakeets. (I have neither.)

Should I link the two pages?

There is not a strong connection between dog food and parakeet nests, especially on a superficial level. These two pages probably won’t provide mutual enhancement from internal crosslinking.

But, if I have a page on parakeet food, then it might make a great internal link for my parakeet nest article. Chances are, information about “parakeets” is going to be on both of the pages. Because of this content overlap, the link is relevant.

As much as possible, link to relevant content in your internal linking.

6. Use follow links.

Follow links are the best way to build out the internal link architecture of your content marketing.

One theoretical internal linking strategy of the past was to nofollow most of the links on a page, in order to increase the link juice to a single page. This type of pagerank sculpting doesn’t work as an SEO strategy.

Back in 2005, the search engines came up with the nofollow, known by the attribute rel=nofollow. The idea behind nofollow was that the link “should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index.” As Wikipedia stated, such links would “reduce the effectiveness of certain types of internet advertising because their search algorithm depends heavily on the number of links to a website.”

Despite the uproar and confusion in the wake of the nofollow link, most people now agree that it’s a good idea. As Danny Sullivan explained, nofollow links can help sites “avoid problems with search engines believing they are selling influence or are somehow involved in schemes deemed as unacceptable SEO practices.”

Internal Links In Word

In spite of its value, however, using nofollow links is not a strategy you should be using as part of your internal content links. The link value needs to flow freely to and from internal pages, rather than get stopped up by a nofollow. Keep things free and fluid.

7. Use a reasonable number of internal links.

Internal Links Clash

You don’t need tons of links in your internal content. Google’s instructions are simple: “Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.”

Question: What the heck is a reasonable number?

Answer: Nobody knows.

Smart people have tried to answer the question, but not even Matt Cutts has provided a definitive statement. He wrote, “It seemed about right to recommend 100 links or so,” and “in some cases, it might make sense to have more than a hundred links.”

So, should you go for 100 links? Maybe, but that 100-total links includes all the links on a page — footers, headers, nav bars, ads, everything. 100 links isn’t as hard as it sounds, once you calculate the total number of HREFs on an entire page.

When it comes to internal linking, I suggest around three to four, depending on the length of your post. I usually write articles that exceed 1,500 words, and I don’t have a link-heavy navigation bar. So, I wouldn’t feel bad about throwing in ten or twenty internal links if I needed to.

There’s no magic number. There is however, the all-important user. Add as many links as would be helpful for the user.

Do not create massive blocks of site-wide footer links!

This was a really common practice on travel and real estate websites a couple of years ago. These websites would include their most prized keyword-rich internal links near the footer. It wasn’t uncommon to see upwards of 50 of these types of links near the footer. The problem is when you have a website with thousands of webpages; this quickly multiplies into tens of thousands of “spamtastic” links that the search engines will quickly penalize your site for. In 2013, many of these sites were hit with an algorithmic penalty for such practices.

Conclusion

Internal linking when undertaken with these seven commandments in mind, is a cinch. It’s not overwhelming, complicated, or difficult. The great thing is, you’ll experience a stronger link profile and better SEO by consistent internal linking. It’s even worth it to go back and audit your old content to make sure it has sufficient internal linking.

Description

High performance and semi-automatic internal link building plugin for WordPress

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Internal Link Juicer is the state-of-the-art solution for building internal links within post content. It works by using an intelligent per-post configuration of your desired keywords. Overall, it improves your on-page SEO and your user experience (UX) by pointing out the right content for the given context.

Boost your internal linking

• Maximum diversification: With the intelligent placeholder feature, anchor texts can be diversified and the amount of possible links boosted with little effort. This also ensures a natural linking behavior.
• Automation: You don’t have to link your pages manually every time you create a new post. Once your keywords are configured, links will get built automatically.
• Full control over linking pages: Individual posts that shouldn’t contain generated links can be added to the blacklist. Post types, which should be used for linking, can be whitelisted. These options give you full control over the plugin.
• Customize your link output: With the possibility of our predefined template tags, link output can be completely individualized. This lets you customize generated links for your individual context.
• Configurable linking behavior: Link counts per page, as well as links per target URL and linking behavior for targeted keywords, can be flexibly configured using the options. You’ll have full control for every use case.
• Stay in the loop: Despite our “set and forget” approach and the automation that goes with it, you’ll never lose track of what’s going on within the filterable and sortable statistic dashboard.
• Perfect workflow: The plugins keyword panel in the post editor guarantees an efficient and stress-free workflow.
• Best possible performance: With the high-performance index structure, you’re guaranteed a fast rendering of your pages on the frontend. You don’t have to worry about delays in building internal links.

Our free Basic version is full of features and extremely customizable. However, we offer many more advanced features in our Pro version:

PRO features:

• Enabled taxonomies: Enables links from and to category and tag pages. With this, you cover 100% of your internal linking.
• Custom link targets: Link to internal and external pages that are not managed by WordPress. With this, you link to affiliate links in no time at all.
• Auto keyword import: Import keywords for your assets from internal ressources like post or term titles in bulk. If you have installed Yoast SEO or RankMath, you can also import already set “focus keywords”.
• Professional statistics: Get the maximum out of your optimization process. Deep insights with a full and unlimited link detail view.
• Maximum scalability: With the additional index modes, no project is too large to be optimized by the Internal Link Juicer. Best possible performance for any size.
• Supports manual optimization: With the Pro version, you can take your manually created links into account and exclude them from automatic linking on affected pages.
• Ready for teams: Role-based access to keyword configuration allows you to let your editors work with the Internal Link Juicer.
• Full support: You will receive prioritized premium email support from our experienced SEO and development team.

Check out the pricing here: https://internallinkjuicer.com/#get

Built for…

✔ (SEO) Affiliates

Are you tired of slow or outdated plugins for automatically building internal links to your pages? With the Internal Link Juicer, you can use your full SEO-potential and enhance the user experience (UX) of your website. With zero frontend performance costs, this plugin provides a solid basis for reliably scaling your project. Over time, it helps you sustainably improve your rankings in search engines by optimally distributing your internal link juice through intern links.

✔ Bloggers

Take your blog to the next level and equip your WordPress site with powerful tools for an automated internal link building process. The Internal Link Juicer requires no technical know-how. The configuration is simple and we also offer a variety of free tutorials on our website. The features are perfect for you if you want to automate an important area of on-page optimization to focus once more on your main goals.

✔ Agencies

Get happy customers with little effort. With this efficient method for building internal links, you’ll save time and stay stress-free. You can freely configure the view by using customizable template tags. If you’re into analytics, the dashboard will give you insight and control over your internal link juice. This way, you’ll always have an overview of your internal backlinks to keep track of the metrics.

✔ Businesses

Plugin stability and security are a must-have for your business. With the Internal Link Juicer, you’re guaranteed reliability in quality and performance. This plugin actively optimizes the user experience (UX) on your website. By setting internal links, your visitors will find the information they’re looking for faster. Say goodbye to high bounce rates. Your interactions will increase in a meaningful and lasting way.

Internal Links Examples

✔ You

Join our community and make the Internal Link Juicer your go-to internal link building plugin. Our goal is to create a new WordPress standard for internal link building. We want to be driven by you! Looking for a new feature? Found a bug or redundancy? We can fix it or build it, making certain you get the most out of your experience! Simply use our Support Forum.

Installation

1. Download the internal-links.zip file and unzip it
2. Upload the internal-links folder to your wp-content/plugins directory
3. In the WordPress admin area, click “Plugins” on the menu and activate the Internal Link Juicer
4. Set up your keywords in the post editor and let the magic happen!

FAQ

An internal link is a link that is placed on a page which links to another page within the same domain. Internal links have an extremely high value when it comes to SEO and also the general optimization of websites.

Internal links…

• have an immense influence on SEO
• help search engines find new content quickly
• help search engines to better interpret and classify the content of a page
• can distribute traffic to well converting subpages

On our website we created a comprehensive guide about internal linking, where you will find a lot of knowledge and useful tips.

Absolutely not. The Internal Link Juicer was explicitly designed for fast loading times and maximum performance. It solves the problem of generating links using its own index. This prevents additional delays while loading the frontend.

Of course no guarantee can be given for this. But building internal links within a website is a basic discipline for onpage SEO. Internal links help search engines to find your content faster and understand it better. Both are important parts for good rankings. We help you to massively improve the structure of intern links and even automate the whole process stress-free.

No – the plugin has its own index, where links that need to be created are efficiently stored. Whenever a page is rendered, the links are generated before output and your existing content is enriched with them. The content itself is not manipulated by the plugin.

Yes – the plugin works with content (within posts or pages) that gets generated through shortcodes.

Yes, at any time! With our blacklist feature you can easily disable the generation of links on individual pages.

Yeah, definitely. With the help of our templating system you can change the output of your generated links in no time at all.

Yes – we provide an own compatibility mode for WPML and Polylang as this has been requested by many users. We are planning to support more 3rd party plugins soon – requests always appreciated!

We understand that, depending on the size of your website, it can be difficult to enter keywords manually. For this reason, we implemented the possibility to export all linkable content in the import/export area, enrich it with your own sources, and re-import it afterward.

The Pro version also provides a direct import of post (and term) titles or, if installed, Yoast SEO and RankMath “focus keywords”.

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