What is Internal Linking? An SEO Guide

Internal linking is when you link from one post on your blog to another post on your blog.

Essentially, anything where the domain name of the post that has the link on it, and of the link itself, are the same is an internal link.

These links look just like an external link to the average user. They’re embedded in the text and usually underlined or another colour.

However, proper internal linking is a bit more complicated.

Internal linking is an incredibly powerful tool for SEO. But it’s one of the most underrated strategies.

When I started internal linking my blog posts, my DA jumped up by 5 points and my traffic increased exponentially. It’s one of the pillars of my 6 months SEO strategy that allowed me to finally monetize my blog.

Let me show you how you can do it too!

Internal links are self-references or self-citations.

It’s like telling someone a story about a recent brain surgery you did and referencing your credentials and other knowledge on the subject off handedly.

You’re not going to give them a 2 hour run down of all of your knowledge. Instead, you drop little tidbits and if they want to know more, they can ask you a question about it.

It’s very similar when writing a blog post.

If I’m writing a post on “things to do in Rome”, the user just wants to know about things to do. But I might reference the best time to visit, where to stay, or even more details on the Collosseum.

I can prove my knowledge on those things by having a separate blog post about them. But the user – and Google – won’t know that post exists if I don’t link to it.

The internal link literally links to the pieces of content, and allows your user and Google to follow that link to learn more on your topical authority.

That’s really the key word here: topical authority.

Internal linking shows how all of your content is related and sends users – and Google – on a journey through your site. This allows the user to find all of the answers they need on a topic, and shows Google you really know your stuff.

BUT you shouldn’t just internal link everything.

Internal linking needs to be done intentionally to work.

How to Create an Intentional Internal Linking Strategy

Step 1: Write around topic clusters

Rather than writing posts when you feel like it about random things, write around a clear topic cluster.

This will make internal linking much easier, because you’re not always struggling to find a way to connect restaurants in Rome to where to stay in Namibia. You’ll be writing around the same topic, which makes it easy to refer to related content.

I plan all of my posts before I write them. I’m talking I have spreadsheets with thousands of keywords that I organize into clusters before I begin writing on anything.

Step 2: Be intentional while writing

Most people wait to consider internal links until the post is seconds away from publishing.

Then they get frustrated that they don’t know how to link to that post about the Colosseum from Rome wineries.

Save yourself the headache and plan your internal linking BEFORE you write the post.

When I do blog post outlines, I have a specific section for internal link ideas. I even make my freelancers do this before they write for me.

I may not use every single one (especially if I have like 40 in there), but it keeps them at the front of my mind while I’m writing.

I naturally reference them that way, or consciously make an effort to refer to those posts throughout.

When writing this post, I know I want to talk about SEO keywords when we get to the section on anchor text so I can include a link to my “what are SEO keywords” blog post.

I probably could have linked it earlier – and I definitely could have linked it in the last paragraph – but I know where it’ll fit best to be relevant and helpful to my user.

I also could have waited until I was done writing this post to consider where to put it, and it might have ended up getting linked in a weird spot where I said “key word” about referring to topical authority.

That wouldn’t be beneficial to my user – or to my strategy – so I’d rather put in the modicum of effort in my outlining process.

Step 3: 10 minimum

You should always strive to include at least 10 internal links per post.

Every blog post on your site should link out to at least 10 posts and have at least 10 posts linking back to it (this is called an inbound internal link).

If you followed step 2, this will be pretty easy. But if you only included 2 posts in your internal linking plan, then you need to go back and add more.

Step 4: Vary anchor text

Google evaluates links in two ways: relevance and popularity.

Relevance doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s exactly on topic for the post. Naturally, we’ll refer to some slightly off topic things like linking from a “things to do in Rome” post to “how to save money for trips” post.

It’s still kind of on topic, but it’s not about Rome.

Google determines relevance largely off of anchor text. This is the text that’s hyperlinked and when the user clicks it, it takes them to the other post.

Anchor text should use an SEO keyword whenever possible.

BUT there are some exceptions to the rule.

Most people try to use the exact keyword of the blog post every single time.

That looks spammy to Google.

Think about it: if your friend always told you to to try a restaurant because “they have the freshest fries and they’re so yum yum good” you’d be like … dude are you ok?

Humans naturally vary their speech and the words they use. The same goes for a natural internal link.

If you use the exact same anchor text every time, it kind of comes off as an ad to Google. It also just doesn’t tell Google a ton about the post.

It’s exactly the same as when we build backlinks. We want them to sound natural so we vary the text we use each time as much as possible.

For the SEO keyword post I linked to above, that’s one of the few internal links I’m giving that post what uses “seo keyword” as the anchor text. I’ll also be using variations or secondary keywords like “what is a keyword” or “search term” or “your keyword”.

This is especially important for long tail keywords. It would be nearly impossible to reference a one sentence keyword every single time you link to that post. So break it up into segments.

It’s also ok to occasionally use “click here” or “read more”. But I wouldn’t make a habit of it, as they don’t tell Google anything about the post.

If you’d like to learn more about the relevancy vs. popularity metrics, check out this interview with Cyrus Shepard.

Step 5: Ensure there are no orphaned posts

It’s important to ensure every single post has internal links pointing to it.

Link Whisper makes these really easy to find with their link reports.

If I find any posts with 0 internal links, I immediately find opportunities to link to them.

The same goes for posts with less than 10 internal links pointing to them.

Orphaned posts – these posts with 0 links – are kind of stranded in the abyss. Google and your user will struggle to find them.

They also have no added context from the internal links pointing to them and telling Google what they’re about.

Step 6: Leave placeholders

We’re not robots – even if we are using AI writers. We can’t produce 10 high quality articles in 5 minutes (and for those of you saying AI can, no it can’t. It can produce something that fast, but it won’t be high quality).

That means we often create a blog post and then need to give ourselves a minute before we create the next one in our strategy.

Thinking ahead, and knowing what you’ll be writing in a topic cluster, is your friend here. Just like we prepared for internal links in step 2, we can prepare for links that don’t exist yet.

Obviously you shouldn’t say “click here” and have no link.

But you can reference the keyword or secondary keyword topic, giving yourself a spot to add a link once the new post is live.

For example, “Spring is definitely the best time to visit Rome.” That’s a sentence I’d include anyway, but now I can wait to add the internal link to the best time to visit Rome post for later.

I do this all the time, then I double back with Link Whisper to add the internal link later.

Since many of my topic clusters are over 50 posts, I need something to remind me where I was intending to put that link. Link Whisper makes that incredibly easy for me.

Step 7: Freestyle a bit

People think you need to be incredibly rigid for this strategy to be intentional.

Wrong!

Yes we try to be as intentional as possible and to ensure every internal link is added thoughtfully, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect every time.

We will link between pillars if you’ve referenced another pillar. We will reuse anchor text once in a while. We will use “click here” and other thing anchor text because it’s needed in the context of the writing. We will sometimes have less than 10 links while we’re starting up a pillar.

It’s ok!

Being intentional means that we have a better strategy than most. But it doesn’t mean every single link is going to be perfect.

I track my anchor text via Link Whisper so I can ensure I’m varying it enough. But sometimes in the months between audits, I’ll fall back into old patterns of accidentally using the same anchor text too often for a post. I’m only human, and I’ve got the memory of a goldfish

It’s fixable! I do my audit and vary some of them when I notice.

It’s just like any other SEO strategy. The rules aren’t 100% perfect, so we follow them as best we can, but sometimes we have to play around with them. As long as you’re aiming for 100%, you’ll actually end up somewhere around 75% – which is still better than most bloggers out there.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to add internal links the right way, it’s time to go implement this intentional strategy.

I use Link Whisper to help me automate mine.

When I first needed to add internal links, I had over 180 posts on my blog. And none of them were properly internal linked.

It would have taken me at least a month of doing nothing but internal linking all day every day to get that sorted.

Cue Link Whisper! It only took a couple afternoons to have the whole site sorted – and a fair bit of that was me faffing about with learning the software for the first time.

I still use it years later because it continues to work.

I have a full review and tutorial on how to use Link Whisper to automate your internal linking – and fix any struggles you’re having with the plugin here.

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