Improve Your SEO with an Internal Linking Strategy (Best Practices)

Today’s post will go over a simple tactic that you can use to improve the overall SEO and architecture of your website.

Internal linking!

Internal linking is something you can get started with as soon as today and should be a main area of focus with each blog post you write moving forward.

Creating a natural internal linking strategy can really help strengthen your website’s SEO and provide a better overall user experience for your visitors.

Although you may not see results right away with this, overtime this can help noticeably improve your search engine rankings and lead to faster indexing of pages by Google.

Let’s discuss internal linking in a bit more detail below.

What Is Internal Linking?

• Internal links are hyperlinks on a page of a website that point to a different page on the same website/domain.

An example of this would be a link within a particular blog post that points to another helpful/relevant blog post from the same website.

The best way to do this is by using relevant anchor text to encourage users to click-through to another page of your website. See example screenshot below:

Internal Linking Benefits

There are various benefits to adding internal links throughout your content and website.

Some of these include:

• Improved Bounce Rates – Naturally if done correctly, internal links will help improve your bounce rates as visitors will be navigating to various pages of your website, rather than just bouncing off from the first visit. The key is to not overdue it here but instead to strategically place internal links that will encourage user click-through and will help the reader find more helpful content on your website.
  
• Increased Time Spent on Website – Internal linking helps increase the overall time that people spend on your website. If someone clicks on one of your internal links within an article, they are most likely interested in the page/content they’re being directed to, hence they will be spending more time on your website. This is helpful from an SEO perspective as it shows Google that people enjoy your content and are spending a sufficient amount of time on your website.
  
• Helps Visitors Navigate Website More Effectively – If you don’t have any internal linking structure, you are doing a disservice to your website visitors. People want to be guided or told where they can find more valuable content. With internal linking, you are helping your visitors navigate your website more easily and efficiently.
  
• Can Improve Search Engine Rankings/Page Authority by Spreading Link Juice – Internally linking to other pages on your website can help improve your overall search engine rankings overtime. This strategy is especially beneficial if you consistently go back to older blog posts and identify opportunities where you can add a few internal links. Sometimes these older articles have a higher page authority (due to age and potential links being built to them) and can pass powerful link equity/juice to other blog posts.
  
• Helps Google Better Crawl and Index Your Website – Lastly, proper internal linking can allow Google to better crawl your website. This can result in pages being found and indexed faster by the Google crawl bot.
  

Creating an Internal Linking Strategy for SEO

Now that we’ve discussed exactly what internal linking is and the benefits it provides, let’s dive into how to actually incorporate this into your own website.

1.) Make Internal Links Natural

Most importantly you want to make sure that you only add internal links where they make sense in your content. Internal linking of course is beneficial from an SEO perspective but not if you abuse it. The Google algorithm will easily pick up if you’re overdoing it with your internal linking strategy. Put yourself in the reader’s shoes and try to strategically place internal links where you think they would most benefit them. There is no magic number of internal links, just make sure they are relevantly and naturally placed. Overtime you will get better at identifying areas where you can internally link to other pages/posts on your website. As a result, this should help improve your search engine rankings in the long run.

2.) Use Keyword Rich/Relevant Anchor Text

Using keyword rich and relevant anchor text for your internal links will help both with your SEO and encouraging users to click-through to another page on your website. I would recommend mixing up your anchor text from post to post. Don’t use the same exact anchor text in every single blog post to point to a specific page. Again, make this natural and weave internal links into your content using a diversity of keywords/phrases.

3.) Incorporate Internal Linking into any New Blog Content

Make sure with each new blog post you write that you are adding a handful of internal links to other articles you’ve written in the past and that are relevant. Get into the habit of implementing these internal links for all of your content generation efforts moving forward. This will begin creating a strong internal linking architecture for your website and can help Google better crawl and index your content as well. Use appropriate keyword rich anchor text as discussed above with the intent of helping your website visitors navigate to older articles of yours.

4.) Update Old Blog Posts

Older blog posts can have more page authority since they’ve been published longer and potentially have backlinks pointing to them. You should revisit your old articles to see if there is any opportunity to add additional internal links. This can be an excellent way to give a particular page a nice SEO boost and especially if the page you’re linking from has a solid page authority. This is a tactic that I’ve personally seen really good results with. There are ways to check a page’s authority by using tools such as MOZ but it’s not entirely necessary when just starting out. Just make sure you’re finding natural and appropriate spots to internally link from and let some of these older posts work their magic!

5.) Give It Time

Lastly, you need to give your internal linking strategy some time to see the full benefits. This isn’t a tactic that you will see results overnight with, but if you do this consistently and commit for the long-term, it can really have a positive impact on your overall SEO. Again, each post you write moving forward should contain some type of internal linking structure directing visitors to other helpful and informative articles of yours. Overtime, your internal links will be spreading necessary link juice and traffic across your website.

Conclusion

As simple as this strategy is, internal linking can really help strengthen your website organically, while also provide your readers a better experience navigating through your pages/posts. This can ultimately allow you to build a more engaged following overtime and give you a nice boost in the search engines as well!

Do you currently have an internal linking strategy in place?