Internal links are one of the most impactful SEO factors that you have full control over. Unlike external backlinks, which depend on other sites linking to you, internal links are entirely in your hands.
As you build content on your site, a natural network of interconnected pages forms through internal links. This network becomes broader, more stable, and more coherent over time, directly contributing to improvements in rankings and organic search positions.
A proper internal linking structure works hand in hand with technical SEO and On-Page SEO optimization. While internal links may not carry the same weight as external backlinks, they still have a significant impact on your site’s ranking, and that should not be ignored.
An incorrect internal linking structure can significantly harm your site’s ranking and hinder improvement in organic search results. Getting this right is one of the easiest wins in SEO.
In this guide, you will learn what internal links are, why they matter, the correct way to approach them from an SEO perspective, and several internal linking strategies you can implement based on the nature of your site.
What Are Internal Links and Why Are They Important?
An internal link is a link that points to another page within the same domain. In other words, a link located on example.com/about that points to example.com/contact is an internal link, whereas a link that points to othersite.com is an outbound link, and I assume that’s clear to all of you.
Internal links pass “power” (ranking value) and context through anchor text and the text surrounding that link.
Internal links can be absolute or relative. An absolute link displays the full URL along with the protocol and domain.
Choosing the right permalink structure is also important for internal linking.
A relative link, on the other hand, doesn’t explicitly state the protocol/domain, forcing the browser (and search engine bots) to assume it’s the current domain. In terms of Markup, these two types of links look like this:
Absolute link:
<a href="http://example.com/about-us">Anchor Text</a>Relative link:
<a href="/about-us">Anchor Text</a>Menus and navigation elements like links in the Header and Footer, breadcrumbs, etc., usually contain internal links only, helping to create the hierarchical structure of the site.
These navigation links assist in guiding users from the homepage to category pages, and from there to landing pages (or alternatively, to individual post pages), and then back to the homepage.
In this guide, we’ll focus on those links that aren’t navigation links. In other words, we’ll focus on those links appearing within the main content of your site’s pages, rather than being part of the main navigation menu, the sidebar, or any other navigation elements.
We’ll refer to these internal links as contextual internal links, and they serve several purposes…
The Purpose and Importance of Internal Links
Let’s try to answer the question “what is the purpose of internal links” in several points:
- They enhance the user experience by connecting to additional essential information relevant to the page’s content.
- They distribute ranking power among internal pages on the site.
- They allow the promotion of paid services or products relevant to the audience arriving at the page.
- They improve the ranking of specific keywords.
- They help Google and search engines to crawl the site more efficiently.
- They assist users in navigating the site.
Similar to many factors influencing site promotion and SEO, internal links also have a dual effect on your site. They affect engagement metrics and statistics, reflected in the time users spend on your site, the number of page views, and conversion rates.
Changes in these metrics, along with improvements in user experience, lead to a positive rise in your website’s ranking. They enhance the positioning of your pages in search results, and consequently, internal links help increase organic traffic to your site.
Internal Links – Important Guidelines
Before we explore several strategies for improving rankings through internal links, let’s ensure we understand the basics. Here are some essential points to consider for the internal linking structure of your site:
A. Maintain a Relatively Flat Site Structure
The ideal scenario is that each page on your site should be accessible to the user within 2-3 clicks from the homepage.
Modern users are demanding when it comes to website speed, page loading times, and the time it takes to achieve their goals on the site. Therefore, you should make it easy for them in this regard.
In complex websites, you can achieve this by using breadcrumbs, tag clouds, and a convenient internal search option.
Take a look at the image below, which describes the number of clicks required to reach each of the sub-blog pages. Although this isn’t a complex site, note that it doesn’t require more than 3 clicks to reach any of the pages.
The largest green point (homepage) represents 0 clicks, and the smallest blue point represents 3 clicks.
B. Ensure that All Important Pages are Linked
Search engines rely on XML Sitemap as well as internal and external links to discover new pages. Therefore, pages that are not linked from anywhere (orphan pages) will be discovered by search engines assuming they are in the sitemap (if it exists).
However, for users, it’s not possible to find these orphan pages because there’s no link to them within the site. For users who don’t reach these pages through organic search, these pages essentially don’t exist.
You should avoid these orphan pages, either by deleting them (if they’re not useful) or by linking to them from other pages on the site.
Exceptions to this rule are landing pages created for pay-per-click campaigns. These pages usually behave as independent areas on the site that are not linked from the main content and are often blocked from indexing.
An optimal site structure generally ensures that all important pages are linked, and it takes no more than 3 clicks to reach the deepest level of the site.
An example of a non-optimal internal link structure is when there are orphan pages and no consistent internal link pattern.
C. Maintain a Reasonable Number of Links on Each Page
But what is the reasonable number of links? There are no strict rules here beyond the fact that you should always consider the user experience.
If the links contribute to the user experience in the end, there’s no reason not to present even hundreds of links on a particular page.
From an SEO perspective, you should consider that the more internal and external links there are on a page, the lower the Link Equity each link passes to its destination. To pass higher Link Equity to specific pages, you should minimize the number of outbound links from the page.
Should You Add Nofollow to Internal Links?
Generally, there is no reason to add NoFollow to internal links. Since 2019, Google treats nofollow, sponsored, and ugc as hints rather than directives, meaning the link equity from a nofollowed link simply evaporates rather than being redistributed to other links on the page.
In practice, using nofollow on internal links for “PageRank sculpting” no longer works as it did before 2009. Reserve nofollow only for links pointing to pages that search engine bots cannot access, such as login pages or admin areas.
For more information about NoFollow links and the different link attributes, refer to the post on NoFollow links and their value in SEO strategies and the post on Nofollow, Sponsored, and UGC link attributes.
D. Write Natural Anchor Texts but Use Keywords
Using relevant keywords in the anchor text of internal links is another option you can leverage to improve the ranking of keywords. In a certain sense, internal links are similar to outbound links, so using relevant terms in Anchor Texts is a free and simple way to strengthen the relevance of a specific topic.
However, it’s crucial not to mislead users with your choice of words in those Anchor Texts. You can certainly add keywords, but maintain contextual and natural Anchor Texts that clearly indicate to users what the linked page is about.
Another point is identical links to the same URL. If there are multiple links to the same address on a page, search engines will give higher priority to the anchor text of the first link among them.
You should ensure that the correct keywords are in the first link among identical links.
E. Add Links in the Main Content of the Site
Links that appear in the main content of the page (contextual links) have higher SEO value compared to navigation links appearing in the header, footer, or sidebar.
From Google’s perspective, links in the main content add new information and value for users, so it’s logical that they consider these links to have more value than navigation links. However, each case is unique, and it cannot be universally stated, though observations and tests indicate this tendency.
Note that the specific context around a certain link (context) appearing in the main content of the page has a positive impact on the ranking of the page to which the link points.
F. Consider Adding Additional Article Elements at the Bottom of Each Post
An element of related articles (Related Posts) will automatically increase the number of internal links in your blog/site. In addition to reducing the bounce rate on your site, these internal links pass value (Link Equity) to other relevant posts on your site.
G. Don’t Go Overboard with Affiliate Links
If your site is based on affiliate marketing, you’ll probably want to add affiliate links to various pages. However, don’t overdo it.
Too many affiliate links on a page can be interpreted as a spam attempt by search engines, which could negatively affect your SEO efforts.
H. Use the Right Tools to Check Broken Links
Regularly checking your site for broken links is crucial. Pages that return a 404 error page due to a broken link have no value and can negatively affect your site’s performance in the search results.
You can use tools like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console to identify and fix these errors. Google Search Console’s “Links” report also shows which pages have the most internal links, helping you identify pages that may need more linking.
Make auditing internal links a regular part of your SEO maintenance routine. Broken links waste link equity and create a poor user experience. Pages returning a 404 error pass no value and can negatively affect your site’s overall performance in search results.
Internal Links and Topical Authority
In recent years, search engines have shifted from evaluating individual pages in isolation to assessing your site’s overall expertise on a topic. This concept is known as topical authority, and internal links are the primary mechanism through which you establish it.
The dominant content architecture for building topical authority is the pillar-cluster model (also called hub-and-spoke). It works like this:
- A pillar page is a comprehensive resource targeting a broad core topic.
- Cluster pages are focused articles covering specific subtopics, questions, and use cases.
- Internal links connect these pages bidirectionally – from pillar to cluster, cluster back to pillar, and between related cluster pages.
This structure signals to Google that your site covers a topic comprehensively, which is a key factor in how E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is evaluated. Sites using well-structured content clusters consistently see stronger, more durable rankings compared to sites with isolated, unconnected posts.
Internal links are the mechanism through which you tell search engines: “These pages are related, and together they demonstrate that this site is an authority on this topic.”
The practical takeaway is simple: when you publish a new post, don’t just link forward from it. Go back to existing relevant posts and add links to the new content as well.
This bidirectional linking strengthens the entire cluster.
Internal Linking Strategies for Better Rankings
Here are several strategies you can use to improve the internal linking on your site. There are many different strategies for internal links, but based on testing, these six have the most significant impact on rankings.
Depending on the nature of your site, you can choose one strategy or combine several of them for better results.
1. Link from High Traffic Pages to Conversion Pages
Many businesses run a blog with useful information for users in their field. Many of them do it successfully, and their posts generate high, relevant traffic.
However, blog posts are typically not designed to convert. Why not channel those users from high-traffic posts to landing pages that have been optimized specifically for conversions?
2. Link High Value Pages to Low Value Pages
It is said that you have a blog with a lot of useful content. As we know, useful content attracts inbound links from other websites that direct to it.
You can use the same power of post ratings in your blog to promote pages that are slightly behind in Google search results, as mentioned on page 2 of Google search results.
In the professional language, these pages are called “low-hanging fruit pages.” From an SEO perspective, the term “low-hanging fruits” refers to changes and improvements that can be easily implemented but contribute significantly to the ranking. Like ripe and tasty fruits hanging low on the tree, right within your reach… 🙂
3. Links for Ranking Main Pages for High Search Volume Phrases
In this scenario, your website has been optimized for several competitive phrases that people frequently use. These phrases are usually more generic three-word key phrases with specific meanings, such as “buying cheap shoes.”
In a typical situation, the content of the homepage is optimized to rank high for these phrases, while other pages on the site serve as supporting pages. These pages still provide essential information to users but are not intended to rank high for the phrases.
In this case, most of the contextual internal links from those supporting pages should point to the homepage, and the anchor text of these links should contain the target keywords. It’s important to use consistent anchor texts, meaning only variations and synonyms of the targeted phrases should be used.
In such an internal linking structure, there are many more links pointing to the homepage than to each of the categories beneath it or the bottom-level pages. Here’s an image depicting this linking structure:
4. Create an Internal Link Structure Targeting Medium Search Volume Phrases
In this scenario, you mainly focus on medium search volume phrases. Typically, these are three-word key phrases with more specific meanings than the example phrase mentioned in the previous section, like “buying Adidas shoes.” These phrases are usually related to product categories on e-commerce sites or topic categories on blogs.
In practice, when using this approach, the category pages on your site will have the highest priority, and most of the contextual internal links should point to these pages. Remember to consistently use anchor texts and ensure that those categories are just one click away from the homepage.
5. Targeting Low Search Volume Keyphrases with Internal Links
Instead of focusing much on high search volume phrases, you might prefer to target many long-tail keywords with relatively low search volumes. In most cases, these are lower-level pages in terms of hierarchy, such as individual blog posts or specific products in a digital store.
In this case, most of the contextual internal links would point to other pages within the same (low) hierarchy level, and these pages should be appropriately linked in the same “layer of pages.”
6. Stay Natural – Add Natural Internal Links for the Reader
This is a strategy where you don’t obsess over the number of internal links, the exact anchor text of each link, or any SEO-specific tricks. Instead, you use common sense to create links within your content that are genuinely helpful and useful to your readers.
In practice, you follow the guidelines mentioned in this post under the “Important Guidelines” section and use your natural judgment.
This approach works particularly well when combined with the pillar-cluster model described earlier. By consistently writing about related topics and linking between them naturally, you build topical authority without any forced optimization.
FAQs
Common questions about internal links and their impact on SEO:
Summary
Internal links are one of the most impactful SEO factors that you have full control over. An incorrect internal linking structure negatively affects user experience and hinders search engine ranking improvement.
On the other hand, a well-planned structure distributes ranking power, helps search engines crawl your site efficiently, and builds the topical authority that modern search algorithms reward.
The key principles are straightforward: maintain a flat site structure (2-3 clicks to any page), ensure all important pages are linked, use descriptive anchor texts with relevant keywords, and place links in the main content where they provide genuine value to readers. Whether you choose a specific strategy from those outlined above or simply link naturally between related content, the goal is the same – create a coherent network of interconnected pages that serves both users and search engines.
