Internal Linking: The Quiet SEO Task Most Sites Skip
Links between your own pages help visitors and search engines. A simple way to plan and improve internal linking.
Most SEO advice focuses on earning links from other websites. Links between your own pages get far less attention, yet they are completely under your control and often bring quick improvements. Internal linking helps visitors find related content and helps search engines understand which pages matter most.
What internal links do
Internal links do three useful jobs:
- Help people navigate. A reader finishing an article about keyword research may want to know how to write page titles next. A link makes that easy.
- Help search engines discover pages. Crawlers follow links. Pages that nothing links to, known as orphan pages, may be found late or not at all.
- Share importance. Pages that receive many relevant internal links are treated as more significant within your site.
Types of internal links
Navigation links in the menu and footer appear on every page. Keep them for your most important sections.
Contextual links sit inside the text of a page or article. These are the most valuable for SEO because the surrounding words explain what the linked page is about.
Related content links, such as "related posts" boxes, are helpful but less specific than links written into the text.
Choosing anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link. It should describe the page it points to. "Read our guide to SEO audits" is clearer than "click here". Use natural phrases and vary them; you do not need the exact same wording every time.
A simple plan
- List your key pages. These are the pages you most want people to find, such as main services or cornerstone guides.
- Find related content. For each key page, find articles and pages on related topics.
- Add links where they help the reader. One to three relevant links in an article is usually plenty.
- Link back up. Make sure detailed articles link to the broader guide they belong to, and the guide links to the details.
- Check new content. Every new post should link to at least one older page, and you should add a link to it from an older page too.
Fixing common problems
- Orphan pages: use a crawler to find pages with no internal links pointing at them, then link to them or remove them if they no longer serve a purpose.
- Broken internal links: after changing URLs, update links to point straight to the new address rather than relying on redirects.
- Too many links: a page stuffed with links helps nobody. Keep them relevant.
- Deeply buried pages: important pages should be reachable within a few clicks of the home page.
An example from this site
Our guide to SEO techniques links to the SEO audit guide, which in turn links back. Articles such as writing meta titles and descriptions link to the broader guide they support. It is a small habit, but it makes the whole site easier to explore.
Make it routine
Internal linking is not a one-off project. A few minutes spent linking each new article to older ones, and checking for broken links every few months, keeps a site well connected as it grows.
