Internal Linking for SEO: The Complete Guide (2024)

What Are Internal Links?

Internal links are hyperlinks that point to pages on the same domain. These are different from external links, which link out to pages on other domains.

There are various types of internal links. Such as those in your navigation menus and those you include in your content.

Why Are Internal Links Important for SEO?

Internal links help Google find, index, and understand all of the pages on your site. And they help users navigate your website and find your content.

If you use them strategically, internal links can also send page authority to important pages. Meaning you can pass the value of high-quality backlinks from one page to another.

In short: internal linking is key for any site owner that wants higher rankings in Google.

Internal Linking Best Practices

Use Keyword-Rich Anchor Text

Anchor text is the word or words you place the hyperlink over. This provides context for Google and users about where the link will take them.

You can get away with using some exact match anchor text in your internal links. Like linking to a blog post on ecommerce SEO over the text “ecommerce SEO.”

(Which is typically not advised when it comes to your site’s backlinks.)

Google recommends that you’re descriptive with your anchor text:

For example, here’s an internal link on a page on Backlinko:

That anchor text helps users AND Google understand that the page I’m linking to is about “guest posting.”

That said, it looks spammy if all of your anchor text is exactly the same.

Google has said in the past that using lots of exact match anchor text in internal links won’t “typically” hurt you.

But I like to stay on the safe side. That’s why I mix up my internal link anchor text quite a bit:

But this makes sense anyway.

Because the more context you can provide Google with on what a page is about, the easier it’ll be for the search engine to understand what search queries that page is relevant to.

Link to AND From Your Important Pages

When you link to another page on your site, you can send authority from the linking page to that page.

(Which can help that page rank better in Google.)

These internal links aren’t nearly as powerful as links from other websites. And they may not always pass a lot of authority.

But they still help.

That’s why smart SEOs strategically link to AND from important pages.

Here’s the exact process:

First, fire up your link building tool of choice, like Semrush. Specifically, the Backlink Analytics tool.

Next, find the best-performing pages on your site. In the “Indexed Pages” section of the tool, they’ll be sorted for you by the number of referring domains.

This is the number of unique websites that link to each of your pages.

Finally, link FROM those pages to the pages that you want to rank most.

For example, when I published this guide to Google RankBrain, it of course had zero backlinks.

But (obviously) I wanted it to start ranking fast.

This is a high-priority page for me. But because it’s a brand new page it had pretty much zero backlinks.

Enter: internal linking.

First, I used Semrush to find my best-performing pages.

And I added internal links from those high-authority pages to my new post.

I also used keyword-rich anchor text whenever possible:

This helped the post rank on page one. And it still has one of the top spots today:

Don’t Use The Same Anchor Text For Two Different Pages

Going back to anchor text: avoid using the same words for two different pages.

This can confuse the heck out of Google.

For example, let’s say you have two pages on your site.

One is about grain-free chocolate chip cookies. And the other is about low-carb chocolate chip cookies.

Well, you wouldn’t want to link to both pages with the same anchor text:

When Google sees that, they think that both pages are on the exact same topic.

(It’s not exactly clear to users either.)

Instead, use different, descriptive anchor text for each page:

Audit Your Internal Links Regularly

Google Search Console has an AWESOME feature that lets you check your internal links.

For example, if you look at my report, you can see that most of my internal links point to my about page, contact page, privacy policy etc.

This isn’t ideal for SEO. But because these pages are all in my site’s main navigation, it’s something I have to live with.

For a different (and perhaps more useful) look at your internal linking structure, run an audit on your website. You can use a tool like Screaming Frog for this:

Or run a Site Audit through Semrush:

To quickly understand things like crawl depth, how your links are distributed across your site, and where you might have errors.

I recommend doing an internal link audit one or twice a year. You’ll sometimes find that low-priority pages are getting a ton of internal link love.

And as you add new content, it’s easy to forget to go back and add new links to those posts.

Put Links High Up on Your Page

I’ve tested internal link placement A LOT.

And I can tell you that putting internal links towards the top of your page can reduce your bounce rate and improve dwell time.

What does this have to do with SEO?

Well, when someone spends a long time on your site, it tells Google: “People are loving this result. This page must be a great result for this keyword.”

Whether Google directly uses that in its ranking systems is up for debate.

But one thing is for sure:

Getting people to stay on your pages for longer is a GOOD thing for your business.

And when you put internal links high up on your page, it gives people something (relevant) to click on right away.

Which means they’ll spend more time on your site.

For example, you can see that I placed a relevant internal link in the intro of this hub page:

Of course, you want to add internal links throughout your page. But don’t be afraid to add 1-2 internal links towards the top of your page when it makes sense.

Also note that the intro isn’t always the best place to include an internal link.

For example, you don’t necessarily want to guide readers away from the page they’ve just landed on.

So ensure any links at the top of the page are strictly relevant (like the content strategy example above). And consider including the first internal link in your first section. Rather than in the intro.

Use “Dofollow” Links

If you want to pass authority around your site via internal links, you’ll need to use normal “dofollow” links.

Yup, this is obvious. But it’s worth mentioning because I’ve seen people nofollow their internal links before.

It’s usually because they use some kind of plugin that automatically adds the nofollow tag to external links. And a bug or setting makes their internal links nofollow as well.

Note: There’s technically no such thing as a “follow” or “dofollow” link. But naming them makes it a bit easier to differentiate between the two types.

Use Internal Links to Help with Indexing

Google usually finds and indexes all of the important pages on a website.

But if you have LOTS of pages (or a limited crawl budget), Google might only index a certain percentage of your site’s pages.

That’s where internal links come into play.

Internal links make it easy for Google to find pages on your site.

Especially pages that are buried deep in your site’s architecture. And it prevents orphan pages—pages with no internal links pointing to them.

So if you have a page or set of pages that you want indexed, internal link to that page or that page’s category from your site’s navigation:

Directly from one page to another:

And don’t forget to link from your sitemap to the page you want to get indexed:

Link Strategically From Your Homepage

Your homepage is typically the most authoritative page on your entire website.

For example, my homepage has more than 20x the backlinks that my 2nd most-linked to page has:

So it’s important to link strategically from your homepage to pages that need some juice.

In my case, I link from my homepage to my hub pages:

And that internal link sends authority to the various pages in that hub.

I also link to my blog feed in the site’s footer (including on the homepage).

And because my blog links to every post on my site, that homepage authority ultimately reaches all of my posts:

I also link to my latest and best posts on the homepage. Helping instantly pass some authority on to individual pages.

Avoid Automation

I’m not a fan of tools that automate internal linking.

Why?

Three reasons:

1. It’s hard to be strategic: Plugins and tools add internal links without understanding which pages need the most juice. Or which pages on your site are best to link FROM.
2. The potential anchor text spam: Depending on the size of your site, a plugin can EASILY create 1k+ exact match anchor text internal links overnight. Which can seem spammy.
3. It ignores users: Internal links aren’t just for SEO. They also help users find related content on your site.

Add Internal Links to Old Pages

I do this as part of my quarterly SEO website audit. And it’s SUPER helpful.

Here’s how it works:

First, find an old article on your site that you published at least a year ago.

Next, grab a list of pages that you have published since you first published the old article.

Finally, scan the page for places where you can add an internal link to a new page.

Voila!

You just got a handful of helpful internal links from a few minutes of work.

Don’t Go Overboard

Internal links are great. But at a certain point, links on a page don’t pass as much value.

Think about it:

If you could just keep adding links and keep spreading authority across them, everyone would just add hundreds of internal links on all their
pages.

That probably wouldn’t be great for user experience.

That’s not to say that you can’t go above a certain number on a given page. For example, this page on my site has at least 200 links:

Just know that beyond a certain point, each additional link on that page passes less and less value.

But if a link is truly valuable for the reader, it shouldn’t matter about passing authority. It should be about giving the reader a good experience.

So you should include that link.

Consider First Link Priority

Sometimes you’ll find yourself with two identical internal links on the same page.

This isn’t a big deal. In fact, it’s common if you have lots of links in your site’s navigation. Like on this website, we link to the About and Newsletter pages in both the top navigation and the footer:

The only issue is anchor text.

Which anchor text does Google “count”?

The theory many SEOs subscribe to is that it only counts the first one on the page. But John Mueller has said there is not necessarily a defined system in use.

Regardless of whether it matters for ranking, it probably makes sense to consider the first instance of your internal link as the “most important.” As that’s the ones users will find first, and probably be most likely to click on.

Learn More about Internal Linking

If you want to further improve your site’s performance through effective linking, check out these resources:

Website Architecture: Learn everything you need to know to build an SEO-friendly website architecture.

Link Building: Master the art of getting backlinks so you have more authority to pass through your internal links.

Technical SEO: Get on top of other issues with your site’s technical setup to further improve crawlability and overall performance.