How to Do Internal Linking for SEO? : A Beginner’s Guide (Updated 2024)

Unlock the power of internal linking for better SEO! Learn the ins and outs of connecting your website’s pages strategically. Dive into this guide to discover simple steps and effective tips on how to boost your site’s search engine optimization through smart internal linking practices.

Elevate your website’s visibility and user experience with easy-to-follow insights. Master the art of linking within your content to enhance SEO and drive organic traffic. Start optimizing your website today with our straightforward guide on internal linking techniques!

If you have some SEO knowledge, you know internal links are an essential part of on-page SEO that helps improve crawling, indexing, and navigation while distributing authority throughout the site.

But some website owners take it for granted and don’t care about planning and implementing an internal linking strategy. As a result, their campaigns do not generate the expected results.

You should not make the same mistake. Here is our updated guide on how to do internal linking for SEO that any beginner can follow with ease!

What Are Internal Links?

The process of linking two web pages of the same website with each other is known as internal linking. They help users navigate through a website and affect SEO rankings.

On the left image, you can see the anchor text “backlink profile” highlighted in blue. When you click on it, it will direct you to a different page about “Backlink Profile” within the same site.

The code used to internally link the two is:

<a href=”https://linkbuilderpros.com/what-is-a-backlink-profile/”>backlink profile</a>

Differences between internal and external links

As mentioned, you only go to a different page on the same website with an internal link. These are usually used as a menu or a table of contents to get to the part a visitor may want.

External links, on the other hand, will take one to a different page on a different website. External links from other websites that link back to you are also known as backlinks which is another tool used for boosting SEO.

While external links can bring you a lot of external traffic, you will need to put in time and effort in communicating with third-party websites to link back to you. For internal backlinks, you need to do no such thing.

All you need to do is find convenient places to link to other relevant pages on your site. It is completely free to do and can be done effortlessly with a bit of research and the help of some tools.

Types of Internal Links

There are a few ways you can implement internal links. Some of them are:

1. Navigational/Menu Links

Navigational links are the most important links on your website that help users understand the structure of the site and get to the page they want to go to. They are a permanent part of the website header and are usually organized around product categories, primary services, or key topic areas.

The navigation menu tells visitors about the “next important” pages. They act as a map, letting users know where all the content and pages are located.

2. Footer links

Footer links are similar to menu links as they also guide to the different parts of a website. However, as the name suggests, they present the option right at the end of the website when users scroll down to the bottom. This is meant to redirect the user to a different page once they are done reading through the current page they are at.

3. Sidebar Links

Sidebars are links to other semi-related articles or content posted beside the original content to entice visitors to check anything else when they are done reading the current one and keep them on the website. This is common in news and recipe sites with eye-catching thumbnails and headlines presented next to the article a visitor is reading to entice them to check that out.

4. Breadcrumb links

Breadcrumb links are used to show the pathway a visitor follows on a certain website to get to any page. This allows them to trace back their way if they need to and can be a useful feature depending on the type of site it is used.

For example, on a clothing store website, one may try to browse categories within categories. When breadcrumb links are presented, visitors can effortlessly switch between pages making their experience smooth and streamlined. It can also give an idea of the hierarchy of a website to anyone.

5. Author links

Author links are links that usually take a reader of any blog post to the profile of the writer of said article. Readers may read a blog and want to know about the credibility of the writer.

These links are a great way to show off the qualifications and accolades of the writer and in turn, increase the credibility of the website itself.

6. Contextual links

Contextual links are links that direct visitors to a different page which contextually makes sense to be there. Examples are when links expand on ideas, refer to a source, define certain terms, or link to other relevant pages. They are usually put in the main body content through the use of anchor texts.

Here, all the blue highlighted texts are contextual internal links.

Why Are Internal Links Important?

Before showing how to do internal linking for SEO, let’s talk about why internal linking matters so much.

Help search engines understand the site structure

Search engines use bots known as “web crawlers” that try to download and learn everything that is there on the internet. The purpose is to collect all these data so that they will know what to present when certain terms are searched on the search bar.

Google uses the web crawler known as Googlebot. The term “web crawler” is used because “crawling” is the technical term for accessing a website and collecting data.

These “web crawlers” will try to understand the structure of a website by following its first link and trying to go through each connection. By using internal linking, you can structure your site in a particular way that will help web crawlers discover and index your site.

Google and other search engines will take note of this with their bots and will present the information on search engines accordingly.

Make your website easier to navigate for users

With successful internal linking, you can present your website in a way that makes it easy for visitors to browse. This is especially important if you have a lot of content covering a wide variety of topics.

For example, let’s say you are visiting an e-commerce website that sells computer parts. Your reason for visiting is to buy a monitor. Not every visitor will be visiting for every part there is. In this example, you want to be able to check the monitor section only.

Most websites will design their website in a way that they get guided to their necessary parts easily.

On this website, you can see that they have arranged all the different parts in separate categories so visitors can browse what they are looking for easily.

All you need to do is click on the monitor segment and you will be presented with all the monitors they have along with all the necessary details.

If browsing for anything specific were difficult, you or any other visitor would not bother to look through thousands of irrelevant posts to get to the item they are looking for.

Boost SERP ranking

Internal linking is one of the best ways to boost ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Internal links are an important factor out of many that are calculated in the ranking of SERPs. Implementing will surely help in SEO and reaching the top of search pages.

Pass on link authority

Google uses an algorithm known as “Pagerank” to measure the importance of a page. Pagerank tries to determine this importance by checking the quality of backlinks a page receives. You can use internal linking to raise the importance or “authority” of your overall website.

For example, let’s say one of your web pages, A, has received a lot of quality backlinks, giving it a high authority according to PageRank. You can pass this authority around by linking it back to other pages to increase theirs.

Increase discoverability of content

When websites grow in size and complexity, orphaned content starts becoming an issue. Orphaned content refers to pages where no internal links are directed and the lack of it makes them hard to find by web crawlers.

While most websites these days have sitemaps that list all their pages, search engines may have a hard time finding them. This is especially true for newly established websites that launch with a lot of content. The non-linked page becomes difficult to find especially since it will take time for the main website to be found by Google. Internal linking of those pages will help in their searchability.

Signal relevance and context

A lot of internal links are usually done through the use of anchor texts. Anchor texts are the clickable texts in a body that link to other pages.

Google reads these anchor texts of internal links to understand the relevance and context of the linked page to various search words.

Signal relevance is basically how much the connected pages are relevant to each other via the anchor text. If there is little signal relevance between them, Google will be less likely to trust or promote the page in the SERPs for related keyword searches.

Having the right anchor text is a part of quality internal link building that will help with SEO.

How to Do Internal Linking for SEO? : Step-By-Step

We have provided a list of steps you may follow that will allow you to implement internal linking with the best results possible.

Determine the site architecture

Firstly, you need to determine the structure or hierarchy of your website. Depending on the type of content you will be hosting, you will need to understand if a deep or shallow hierarchy will be better.

If you have a lot of content t