Internal Linking And SEO, Plus How To Develop An Internal Link Strategy For Your Blog
Internal links seem like a pretty simple website tool, but they’re actually part of a pretty meticulous SEO strategy.
In this post, we cover what internal links are and what role they play in SEO.
We also cover how to develop an internal link strategy from blog content as well as how to use internal links properly.
What are internal links and why are they important for SEO?
An internal link is a link on a web page that leads to another page on that same website.
Internal links are important for search engine optimization (SEO) for a number of different reasons but mainly:
- Site structure.
- Passing link equity.
- Helping users navigate your site.
Site structure
When search engines like Google crawl your website, they use the internal links you insert on your pages to find additional pages to crawl so they can index them.
When a single page on your site, such as your Home page, has a lot of internal links that point to it, Google will crawl it more and recognize it as a primary page on your website.
You can use this to your advantage by developing an internal link strategy that’s designed to make Google crawl more pages than others.
Passing link equity
Let’s say you already have authoritative pages on your website.
We know from the last section that the more authority a page has, the more Google will crawl it. We also know that Google uses internal links to find additional pages to crawl on your website.
If you edit that authoritative page and insert an internal link to a page on your site that doesn’t have as much authority, you can actually pass some of that authority onto the smaller page.
The amount of authority a page has is called “equity.” Therefore, this practice is called passing link equity.
Site navigation
When you use internal links, you should only link to pages that relate to the page you’re inserting the link on.
Not only does this give Google context as to what the original page’s topic is about, it also helps your visitors find additional content on the same topic.
This reduces a Google ranking factor known as bounce rate, which measures the percentage of users who visit your site and only view one page.
Plus, the more time visitors spend on your site, the more likely they’ll be to join your email list or buy something.
Using internal links for site navigation also helps you write content that’s more concise.
If you need to talk about a topic in Article A that you already wrote about in Article B, you can give a brief explanation of it in Article A and link to Article B if your visitor wants to learn more about the topic.
How to develop an internal link strategy for your blog
There are different types of internal links:
- Navigational – The internal links you insert into your site’s menu for your Home, About, Blog and Contact pages.
- Footer – Internal links you insert in your site’s footer content.
- Sidebar – Internal links you insert in your site’s sidebar.
- Contextual – Internal links you insert in your page’s body content, such as the text within a blog post.
We’re only going to discuss contextual links.
There are also external links, which are links that lead to another website, but we’re not going to discuss these, either.
This is the three-part internal link strategy we’re going to discuss:
- Create or identify your site’s pillar pages.
- Create topic clusters for your pillar pages.
- Use internal links to connect your pillar pages to your cluster pages.
1. Create or identify your site’s pillar pages
Pillar pages, also known as cornerstone content, are authoritative pages on your site that target broad, highly competitive keywords.
These are primary keywords you want your site to rank for, so you start out by writing a large, authoritative article for each one of those primary keywords.
Each one of these articles will be a pillar page on your site that represents a broad topic. In fact, the topic should be so broad that the post itself inspires several smaller posts about related topics.
To create pillar pages, start with a keyword research tool that includes competitive research, such as Semrush, SE Ranking or Mangools.
Start by making a list of broad and/or competitive keywords in your niche and entering each one into your chosen keyword tool.
For example, “how to start a blog” isn’t necessarily a broad keyword for Blogging Wizard’s niche, but it is a highly competitive keyword we want the site to rank for, so it’s a pillar page we’ve included as a link in our navigation menu.
Make a list of keywords like this for your niche, then use your keyword research tool to confirm that they’re competitive.
If your keyword research tool also has a competitive research tool, enter the domains of some of the biggest competitors in your niche into the tool, and see what competitive keywords they rank for as these are keywords you’ll want to rank for at some point.
Start with three competitive keywords to target, and create pillar pages for each. You can use a content optimization tool like Surfer SEO to optimize each article.
It’ll give you a recommended word count target, tell you how many images the post should have and list secondary keywords you should mention.
If your blog is already up and running, go through your past articles and see if you’ve already targeted a few broad or competitive keywords. You should turn these posts into pillar pages by optimizing them or completely rewriting them before you create new ones.
2. Create topic clusters for your pillar pages
As you research and write your pillar pages, you’ll become aware of numerous subtopics you can break each page down into.
These are called topic clusters.
Let’s use our own pillar page on starting a blog as an example. Here are a few of the main subtopics we mention on that page:
- Blogging
- SEO
- Making money blogging
- WordPress
- Web hosting
Each one of these subtopics can inspire dozens of additional blog posts, so they’re great choices for our topic clusters.
If you scroll through the page, you’ll notice plenty of internal links for additional articles we’ve written that relate to our topic clusters:
- Blogging
- How to Choose a Niche
- Best Blogging Platforms
- Choosing a Blog Name
- Blog Post Ideas
- How to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog
- Benefits of Blogging for Business
- SEO
- Keyword Research Guide
- Beginner’s Guide to SEO
- Making Money Blogging
- Best Affiliate Networks and Programs
- How to Make Money Blogging
- WordPress
- Why Use WordPress
- Best WordPress Blogging Themes
- Must-Have WordPress Plugins
We even have a list of articles we’ve written on different types of WordPress plugins in that post.
Basically, your pillar pages establish what topics your website is about. Topic clusters help you keep your content in line with those topics.
As you write your pillar page, jot down any additional blog post ideas that come to mind.
You can organize them in a Google/Word document, a visual board tool like Milanote, or plain old pen and paper.
You’ll start to notice topic clusters you can group several ideas into as you do this.
A keyword research tool can help you identify other potential topic clusters.
3. Use internal links to connect your pages
Let’s call each article you create for a topic cluster a “cluster page.”
This means our article on choosing a niche would be a cluster page for the topic cluster “blogging.”
With that explanation out of the way, know that the most important part of an internal link strategy is making sure that each of your cluster pages contains an internal link for the pillar page it relates to.
This helps search engines recognize your pillar page as a primary page that should be given more authority than most other pages on your site.
You can also link to cluster pages from pillar pages and other cluster pages. Not only does this pass on authority, it also helps search engines identify a page’s topic.
Best practices for using internal links
The text you apply an internal link to is called “anchor text.”
Anchor text should be short yet descriptive, so descriptive that your visitor knows exactly what content awaits them on the other side.
However, it’s important not to over optimize anchor text by stuffing it with keywords. Use keyword synonyms instead.
You should also make sure you distribute internal links throughout your post instead of inserting them all in the same section or closer to the top of your article.
How to monitor internal links
There are three things you should do to monitor internal links on your site.
The first is to use Google Search Console to monitor the presence of broken links as they appear.
Broken links often occur when the URL of the page a link leads to changes or the page gets deleted altogether.
In these instances, you should update the link or remove it.
If your site is already established, identify authoritative pages, and add related internal links to them.
You can also do this step in the reverse order by identifying your least authoritative pages and finding a related pillar page you can add their links to.
Google Search Console and similar SEO tools will also alert you of something called “orphaned pages.” These are pages that no other page on your website links to.
See if these pages need to be optimized, and remove them if they’re not worth optimizing. Otherwise, find a few related pages you can add orphaned internal links to.
Final thoughts
Internal links are a critical part of your blogging strategy.
They’re essential for your readers and when strategically placed, they’ll help you rank better in search engines like Google as well.
