When building a website for a small business, the site’s infrastructure matters just as much as all of the “bells and whistles” – the color palette, fonts, logo, and media. A key part of setting up a stable site infrastructure is what SEO experts call internal linking. In other words, connecting the different pages of your website via hyperlinks. In this post, we will explain more in-depth what internal linking is, why it is important for SEO and user experience, and some of the dos and don’ts.
6 minutes
What is internal linking?
Internal links are hyperlinks that connect one page of a website to another page on that same website. These links help guide your visitors to related content and assist search engines in understanding the structure of your website. Additionally, they make your site easier to navigate, both for visitors and search engines. If you are familiar with our blog, you have seen these internal links before. There are even some in this blog post!
Internal linking is crucial for both user experience and SEO, as it facilitates visitors’ ability to find relevant information easily and enables search engines to crawl and index your pages more effectively.
Why is internal linking so important?
Well-executed internal linking creates a smoother, more intuitive journey for your site’s visitors. This makes your website more helpful and enjoyable to use. Not only that, but effective internal linking also enhances your website’s SEO by making your content easier for search engine bots to crawl, understand, and rank. This ultimately helps you achieve higher rankings and better visibility in the search results.
Here are some of the benefits of a solid internal linking strategy:
- Guides users to related or valuable content: By linking to relevant pages, you help visitors find more information. This keeps them engaged and encourages them to explore your site further.
- Improves site navigation: Internal links make it easier for visitors to move between pages, find what they’re looking for, and understand how your content is organized.
- Reduces bounce rate: When users find helpful links within your site, they’re more likely to stay longer and view multiple pages, rather than leaving after reading just one. Even better, it might lead to a sale or newsletter sign-up!
- Fixes dead ends: Linking to other relevant pages prevents visitors from reaching “dead ends” with no clear next step.
- Helps search engines discover content: Search engine bots follow links. Once they find a link, they crawl it and send a summary of its contents to the search engine. If a page has no links, the bot cannot access it and therefore assumes it does not exist. Essentially, that means it will never rank in the search results.
- Establishes site structure and hierarchy: Internal links show search engine bots which pages are most important by the number and placement of links.
- Improves ranking for targeted keywords: Descriptive anchor text helps search engines associate specific keywords with the linked pages, improving those pages’ chances of ranking for relevant search terms.
The Dos and Don’ts of Internal Linking
When executed correctly, internal linking can significantly improve your website’s visibility, user experience, and authority. However, poor internal linking practices can dilute your site’s SEO value or even harm your rankings. Here’s a look at the main dos and don’ts of internal linking for SEO.
Do: Link to relevant content
Ensure that each page contains contextually relevant internal links. This helps your visitors find related information and shows search engine bots the “topic clusters” on your site.
Related: How to Optimize Your Blog Post for Search Engines
While there is no hard-and-fast rule, it is often best to prioritize quality over quantity when it comes to internal links. Aim for a balanced approach. Too few links, and the search engine bot will not find your page. Too many links, and you risk overwhelming your visitors and diluting link equity in the eyes of the search engine.
Do: Regularly audit and update links
Periodically review your internal links to fix broken links, update outdated content, and add new relevant links. This ensures a healthy linking environment and maintains a positive user experience.
It can be easy to forget to do this, but do not let link maintenance fall by the wayside. At least once a year, take the time to work through this process. If you keep up with it, it is far easier to manage!
Do: Keep a logical site structure
A well-structured internal linking strategy mimics your site’s hierarchy. Your site’s main pages should link to subpages, and subpages can link back to categories or related articles. This makes navigation intuitive for both users and search engines.
A word of caution, however. Take care not to simply link each page to every other page on your website. We call this excessive cross-linking. Doing this can create a messy site structure and dilute the value of your links. Instead, focus your internal links on your most important pages. In other words, link to the pages that are most important for achieving your business goals, such as cornerstone content or high-converting landing pages.
DON’T: Use generic anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. Avoid using vague anchor text like “read more” or “click here.” These offer no context to search engines and are less helpful for users. Instead, use clear, descriptive words that tell users and search engines what to expect from the linked page.
DON’T: Over-optimize anchor text
While descriptive anchor text is good, using the same anchor text multiple times or using exact-match keywords every time can lead to trouble. Search engines look at this as a manipulation tactic and might penalize your site. To “get around” this, try using different combinations of words and phrases for anchor text. This is especially important if you are linking to the same page from several other pages.
DON’T: Ignore your mobile visitors
Lastly, take time to optimize your internal links for mobile devices. All internal links should be large enough to read, adequately spaced (adjust line and word spacing if necessary), and easily clickable. Tiny anchor text or closely placed links can frustrate your visitors and negatively impact SEO metrics, such as dwell time.
Best practices recap
- Use natural, descriptive anchor text
- Link to relevant and valuable pages
- Maintain a logical, hierarchical structure
- Regularly audit your internal links
- Keep user experience at the forefront
Conclusion
Internal linking is more than just a technical SEO tactic—it’s a way to guide your site’s visitors, signal content importance, and build a strong site architecture. By following these dos and avoiding the don’ts, you’ll create a website that’s both user-friendly and search engine optimized. Good luck!
Keep Reading: Why User Experience Is So Important