Internal Links: Ultimate Guide + Strategies

What Are Internal Links? 

Internal links are hyperlinks that pb users to different pages connected the aforesaid website. They usher users to related contented and assistance hunt engines recognize a site’s structure. 

Here’s what an interior nexus looks similar connected a unrecorded page:

And a illustration of the codification for that interior link:

<a href="https://www.example-site.com/">fixing crawlability issues</a>

Types of Internal Links 

Different interior links service antithetic purposes. Common types include: 

• Navigational links: Appear successful main menus oregon sidebars 
• Contextual links: Embedded wrong on-page text
• Image links: Hyperlinked images 
• Footer links: Placed successful the site’s footer area
• Sidebar links: Located successful the sidebar for casual navigation 
• Breadcrumb links: Show a page’s determination wrong the tract hierarchy 
• In-content call-to-action (CTA) links: Prompt conversions oregon actions wrong the text 

Internal Links vs. External Links

Internal links direct users from 1 leafage of your tract to another. They amended navigation, walk nexus authorization among your pages, and assistance hunt engines crawl your site. These links support visitors wrong your domain, which tin summation idiosyncratic engagement and conversion rates. 

External links point from your tract to a leafage connected different domain. They assistance you mention references and supply other context. They besides physique spot and authorization erstwhile you nexus to reputable sources. Getting outer backlinks from different websites tin amended your domain authorization and rankings. 

Here’s a speedy examination table:

Why Are Internal Links Important for SEO?

Internal links assistance hunt engines find and scale each tract pages. They amusement however your pages subordinate to each other, which tells Google which pages are astir important. This organisation of nexus equity tin boost the visibility of little salient pages. 

Users besides payment from a wide way to much information, which increases the full clip they walk connected your site. Google sees longer idiosyncratic engagement arsenic a affirmative ranking signal. 

Let’s instrumentality a deeper look.

1. They Help Search Engines Understand Your Site’s Structure

By linking applicable pages together, you amusement however topics connect. Google’s crawlers observe caller pages by pursuing these links. 

As Google explains: “Some pages are known due to the fact that Google has already crawled them before. Other pages are discovered erstwhile Google follows a nexus from a known leafage to a caller page.”

Here’s a ocular practice of however this works:

2. They Pass Authority

Internal links walk PageRank from pages with tons of outer authorization to different interior pages. A leafage that earns galore backlinks (and frankincense has higher authority) tin fortify different pages done interior links. 

Let’s accidental Page A has tons of outer links pointing to it, which means it apt has much authorization via PageRank. This authorization tin past beryllium passed to Page C and different connected pages by mode of interior links.

Like this:

Identifying these pages tin assistance you marque the astir of the authorization coming into your tract to amended wide rankings. 

However, support successful caput that lone portion of that authorization is passed, and contextual relevance matters—links are astir effectual erstwhile they’re aligned with idiosyncratic needs and contented topics.

3. They Help Users to Navigate Between Relevant Pages

Internal links promote visitors to research related pages. This keeps them connected your tract longer, increases the likelihood of conversions, and helps them find the nonstop accusation they need. 

Let’s accidental a idiosyncratic lands connected an nonfiction connected your tract astir “how to physique a PC.”

You tin see interior links to applicable merchandise pages with PC parts oregon to related contented similar an nonfiction astir “how to hole a PC fan.”

The extremity is to support users connected your tract truthful they implicit your desired action, similar making a purchase, filling retired a form, oregon buying a product. 

Showing users relevant, utile contented connected the close pages is the cleanable mode to bash that.

How to Build Your Internal Linking Strategy

A wide strategy ensures you’re making the astir of each link. 

In this adjacent section, we’ll item that seven-step process. And see a template to simplify your process. 

1. Plan Your Site Structure

Site operation is however your contented is organized and linked. Establish categories and a logical hierarchy to assistance users and hunt engines determination done your site. 

A pyramid-like operation often works best: 

• Top: Homepage oregon main pillar pages 
• Middle: Subcategories oregon clump pages 
• Bottom: Specific contented pages 

Like this: 

2. Identify Pillar Pages

A pillar page is a broad assets that covers a wide topic. It links to much circumstantial pages (known arsenic clump pages). 

Pillar pages assistance you physique topic clusters, which are groups of related content. Creating pillar pages and taxable clusters besides helps tract architecture. 

Pillar pages often people broad, high-volume keywords. Consider your pillar leafage the apical of the marketing funnel. It provides wide accusation and sparks interest. 

For example, a retail tract mightiness person a pillar leafage for “washing machines.” That leafage would nexus to sub-pages astir circumstantial washing instrumentality types. It’s invaluable due to the fact that the keyword “washing machines” gets 18,100 searches per month.

Each conception covers a antithetic benignant of washing instrumentality and past links to adjacent much circumstantial merchandise categories. These merchandise categories whitethorn nexus retired to idiosyncratic merchandise pages. 

Avoid making pillar pages excessively narrow. You request capable clump pages to enactment them. 

3. Create Topic Clusters

Topic clusters grow connected your pillar taxable successful much detail. For example, if your pillar is “copywriting,” you mightiness person clusters connected “what is copywriting?” oregon “email copywriting tips.” Each clump links backmost to the pillar leafage to reenforce topical relevance. 

You tin besides make clusters wrong clusters. For instance, the “email copywriting” clump mightiness see sub-pages astir taxable lines and calls-to-action (CTAs). These pages should nexus backmost to the main pillar leafage to amusement that it’s the superior assets connected the topic. 

Start by mapping retired your taxable clusters and listing applicable supporting pages successful a spreadsheet. Like this: 

For much in-depth instructions, cheque retired our Ultimate Guide to Keyword Research.

4. Use Authority Pages to Pass Link Equity

Your astir authoritative pages person high-quality backlinks from outer websites. Google views backlinks arsenic votes of confidence. A leafage with galore “votes” tin walk immoderate of that authorization (or nexus equity) to different pages via interior links. 

To bash this effectively, place your astir authoritative pages utilizing Semrush's Backlink Analytics tool.

Enter your domain and click “Analyze.”

Click the “Indexed Pages” tab.

This study volition show a database of your website pages, which are (by default) sorted by fig of referring domains.

These are your astir almighty pages.

Export your results arsenic a .csv oregon .xlsx file. Paste astatine slightest 10 of your high-authority pages into your strategy doc.

Add interior links from these pages to little authoritative pages connected your site. 

This process helps amended wide rankings by distributing authorization to pages that request a boost. 

5. Support New Content

A beardown interior linking operation is captious erstwhile you person fewer oregon nary authoritative backlinks. 

To start, take a caller portion of contented oregon a leafage that needs amended performance. Then, look for applicable interlinking opportunities. 

Use Google’s “site:” search operator to find pages that notation your people keyword. For example, we mightiness hunt for “site:semrush.com interior links” to find related articles.

Collect each applicable pages from the hunt results. 

Paste those URLs into your strategy document. 

Add links from each of those pages to your caller document. Track your advancement arsenic you go. 

This method helps you walk authorization to your caller page. 

6. Choose the Right Anchor Text

Anchor substance is the clickable substance successful a hyperlink. Like this:

You person afloat power implicit anchor substance connected your ain site. 

Use strategical words and phrases truthful users and hunt engines recognize the linked page’s topic. Clear anchor substance helps Google spot however your pages connect. 

SEO-friendly anchor substance is:

• Brief: Limit anchor substance to 5 words oregon fewer
• Relevant: Avoid vague, clickbait phrases similar “click here” 
• Optimized: Exact-match anchor substance is acceptable for interior links if it’s relevant. The extremity is not to employment keyword stuffing techniques.

Be cautious with outer links, manipulating outer anchor substance violates Google’s webmaster guidelines.

With champion practices successful mind, delegate anchor text to your pillar and clump pages based connected keyword research. 

7. Add Navigational and Contextual Links

Navigational links are among the astir important interior links due to the fact that they look permanently successful your main menu. This main navigational operation usually appears successful the apical paper oregon sidebar. And features merchandise categories, services, oregon halfway contented topics. 

Like this:

Contextual links (or in-text links) look wrong the main assemblage contented of a page. Instead of pointing to a top-level navigational page, they usher users to different related content.

For example, this astir leafage includes a nexus (“Fossil Free Media”) that points to a deeper, related page. 

The links are often placed wrong descriptive anchor text (i.e. “Fossil Free Media”). 

Adding some navigational and contextual links makes it easier for hunt engines and users to research your site. This helps them find what they request and tin amended idiosyncratic acquisition and tract rankings. 

Auditing Your Site’s Existing Internal Links 

You astir apt already person immoderate interior links successful spot unless your website is wholly new. To make a beardown interior linking strategy, you indispensable archetypal recognize your existent interior linking structure. An interior nexus audit tin help. 

Use the Semrush Site Audit instrumentality to place communal interior linking issues and larn however to hole them. 

Let’s reappraisal the main issues you’ll apt encounter. 

1. Broken Internal Links

Broken interior links nonstop users and hunt motor crawlers to pages that don’t exist. Deleted pages and mistyped URLs often origin these errors. This leads to 404 errors, which walk nary authority. 

Find breached links successful the “Errors” conception of your Internal Linking report. Then, region oregon regenerate each nexus with a valid nexus that points to a unrecorded page. 

2. Too Many Internal Links

Having excessively galore links connected a leafage tin confuse Google’s crawlers. Hundreds oregon thousands of links besides marque it hard for users (and hunt engines) to spot which links matter. 

Don’t cram links onto a page. Fewer, much targeted links typically supply a amended idiosyncratic experience. The Site Audit instrumentality flags pages with excessive links successful the “Warnings” conception of your interior Linking report. 

Identify those pages and region unneeded links. 

3. Nofollow Attributes successful Internal Links

Nofollow links person the rel=“nofollow” attribute, which tells Google not to walk authorization to the linked page. SEOs often usage nofollow for outer links they don’t privation to endorse.

But you typically privation interior links to walk SEO value. 

Followed nexus (passes authority):

<a href="https://example.com">Anchor Text</a>

Nofollow nexus (doesn’t walk authority): 

<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Anchor Text</a>

Check your Internal Linking study for links with rel=”nofollow” nether the “Warnings” section. 

Then, region the rel=“nofollow” property from immoderate interior links you privation to walk authority.

4. Orphaned Pages

An orphaned leafage has nary links from different pages connected your site. Google discovers caller pages by pursuing links, truthful orphaned pages are hard to find. If Google can’t find them, those pages won’t beryllium indexed oregon look successful hunt results. 

Look for “Orphaned sitemap pages” nether the “Notices” conception of your Internal Linking report. 

Then, nexus to each orphaned leafage from a leafage that’s already portion of your tract structure. Make definite the leafage you’re linking from isn’t orphaned, oregon the contented volition remain. 

5. Pages with Only One Incoming Internal Link

Internal links awesome which pages are important. The much interior links a leafage has, the easier it is for hunt engines to observe and fertile it. Pages with lone 1 interior nexus are harder to find and whitethorn look little important to hunt engines. 

Use the Site Audit instrumentality to find pages with lone 1 interior link. Look for the “Pages with lone 1 interior link” announcement successful your Internal Linking report. 

Then, place applicable pages crossed your tract and adhd caller interior links to these underlinked pages. 

6. Crawl Depth of More Than Three Clicks

Crawl extent is the fig of clicks from your homepage to a circumstantial page. If users indispensable click respective times, hunt engines whitethorn spot that leafage arsenic little important. According to Google, pages with less clicks often fertile higher.

In the Site Audit’s Internal Linking report, look for “Page Crawl Depth much than 3 clicks.” 

Then, make nonstop links to these deeper pages—ideally from pages lone 1 click from your homepage. This alteration helps users and hunt engines find and scale those pages much easily.

7. Internal Redirects

Internal links that constituent to permanently redirected URLs tin trim crawl budget (the fig of pages Google volition crawl during a fixed clip frame). If different pages connected your tract inactive nexus to an aged URL, users volition click that aged URL and get redirected. This other measurement is unnecessary.

Here’s what it looks like:

Internal redirects besides dilatory load times, which hurts idiosyncratic acquisition and PageSpeed.

Update your interior links truthful that they pb straight to the caller page. To find interior redirects, unfastened the Site Audit instrumentality and spell to the “Crawled Pages” tab.

Search for your aged URL successful the hunt bar.

Click connected the URL successful the results, past click the “# URLs” nether “Incoming Internal Links.” 

You’ll spot a database of pages that inactive nexus to your aged URL. Change those links truthful they constituent to the caller leafage alternatively of the old, redirected one. 

Like this: 

8. Redirect Chains & Loops

A redirect chain occurs erstwhile much than 1 redirect separates the archetypal URL from the last URL. This often happens during tract migrations. 

For example: URL A was /our-mission/. Later, it redirected to /about-us/ (URL B). Then, if you changed URL B to /about/ (URL C), you would make a concatenation of redirects. Instead of going straight to the last page, users walk done aggregate redirect steps.

Here’s what it looks like:

A redirect loop occurs erstwhile 2 (or more) pages redirect to each other, truthful the idiosyncratic ne'er reaches a last page. 

Like this:

In your Site Audit Issues report, look for “redirect chains and loops.” 

You’ll spot a database of affected pages, positive the redirect benignant and however galore redirects are linked to each page.

Correct redirect chains by ensuring there’s lone 1 redirect to the last URL.

Correct redirect loops by deleting oregon fixing the loop truthful that users and crawlers scope 1 last destination without bouncing back.

9. Links connected HTTPS Pages Lead to HTTP pages

Google recommends utilizing HTTPS for a unafraid site. After switching to HTTPS, you whitethorn inactive person immoderate links pointing to HTTP pages. This creates other redirects and tin trigger information warnings.

To rapidly find this error, spell to your Site Audit study and click “View Details” nether the “HTTPS” section.

Then, scroll down to find the “X link(s) connected HTTPS pages leads to HTTP page” error. Click connected the fig of links to spot which pages person the issue.

Then update those HTTP links to constituent to HTTPS pages instead.

Fix Internal Linking Issues with Site Audit

Even with a caller interior linking strategy, tally regular audits to drawback caller issues. Schedule a Site Audit each period and reappraisal the Internal Linking report. This helps you support a steadfast tract operation and amended your SEO.

Be definite to tally your Site Audit each period oregon truthful and cheque the Internal Linking Report for issues. This is the champion mode to support tabs connected your tract wellness and marque improvements arsenic needed.