8 Best Internal Linking Strategies to Improve Keyword Rankings

Even SEO beginners will know that the web pages need links. Google finds your site best with the links to and from it.

I am quite sure that you know what internal linking is. It is merely linking the pages within the same domain. On the other hand, external links are different; linking out to the pages on other domains.

Indeed, not all the ranking factors let you have control over it. But, internal links do. You don’t necessarily need any SEO tools.

You believe it or not; internal links are great for SEO and better user experience.

Especially, internal links help you to connect your content with relevancy. Hence, the search engines and users better understand your site structure. Also, navigation is made easier with internal links.

You see, internal linking doesn’t seem to be an advanced SEO strategy. Often, people ignore it or pay less attention. But, it is a no-brainer solution to boost engagement metrics.

Firsthand, build or revamp your site with proper silo architecture and link the related posts internally.

So, let’s dig more about the best internal linking strategies today in this article.

What is Internal Linking?

You can use variant words to explain it. But, internal links are the link attributes those points to and from the pages within the same domain. Internal linking is nothing but interconnecting the content pages of the same website using links.

Why are internal links significant for SEO?

The internal links won’t help you in boosting domain authority though. Still, if using the proper internal linking strategy, you can pass the page authority to your important pages. To put it simply, influence the authority of the top-ranking pages to empower your commercial pages.

For an instant, if your post on “list of blog commenting sites list” is ranking #1 in Google’s SERP results, then link it to and from your money-making post on “Best backlink builder tool.” Monitor the ranking improvement of your latter post.

Similarly, there are more benefits with strategic internal links if you do some groundwork and place links.

There are no hard rules. But, there are some good practices of internal linking to reap the utmost benefits out of it. Let’s get into it the best internal linking strategies.

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Best Internal Linking Strategies or Practices To Boost Keyword Rankings

So, internal links are the key to boost your specific page’s rankings in Google. Let’s see how to do proper internal linking.

1) Use keyword-rich anchor texts

As you have control over the anchor texts of the internal links, you can have some exact match anchor texts. Even Google recommends using keywords in the anchor texts.

But, if the majority of anchors texts are exact, then it is a big no-no. To be safer side, you must have some appropriate anchor text ratio for your links.

Having same anchor texts for different pages will confuse search engines too. Use more descriptive anchor texts for various links.

2) Links to the most important pages

You are passing the link juice and sending the authority between the pages by internal linking. So, it can rank your desired pages in better positions. For now, let’s take Ahrefs to find out the topmost ranking pages in any site. Or you can also refine the pages with most link authority.

Then, link from those top pages to the page or post that you want to boost Google rankings. You can use keyword-rich anchor texts, if possible.

Likewise, you can use the internal linking strategy to boost your seasonal or Black Friday posts. Once done, remove those. But, make sure to link pages of same or relevant category.

3) Run internal link audits

Some low-priority pages are having some good number of internal links pointing to it. Only by running an SEO audit, you can identify and fix the internal links.

You will find more links to your contact page, privacy policy, and all. But, you can’t ignore it as you have it in navigation menus.

You could see more experts displaying their popular posts in home page (site sidebars), understanding the importance of internal links.

Those are the high-priority pages linking.

Also, if any of your pages have SEO or user experience issues, this may also affect other pages. So, I insist you audit your internal links at least twice or thrice a year before the issue boils downs to your important pages.

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4) Strategic link placements

When it comes to link location, placing the links at the top will have more benefits than the links down the page. The internal links that you are putting towards the top will get more clicks.

Rather bouncing, if users spend more time on your site navigating more relevant pages, can reduce your site’s dwell time. Google believes that users love your site content.

Even though you have multiple internal links throughout the page, consider placing 1 or 2 links at ‘above the fold.’

5) Link to orphan pages

Unknowingly, you might dump some important pages inner or buried (orphan pages) in your deep site’s architecture. If you have a lot of pages, Google might limit indexing your entire pages. In such cases, there are chances Google to omit indexing your important (underlying) pages.

So, linking your top-ranking pages to those orphan pages can make search engines to index those.

However, you will have a link from sitemap to the entire pages and posts on your site. Make sure you have it.

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6) Link from the homepage

In most of the sites, the homepage will have some good number of backlinks. The homepage will be authoritative than other pages. So, linking your high-priority pages from homepage can pass more link juice directly. Thus, the homepage authority spreads among the important pages.

Also, this can reduce the link-depth; target pages directly links to the home page. So, those pages will get more clicks too.

Make sure to have all your entire internal links as dofollow. So, the link juice will pass through, and you can send some authority via links.

7) Avoid using automation tools

There are link generators to automate your internal linking strategy. But don’t go for it. You can’t have your internal links placed strategically. There are higher chances for spammy links with more number of exact anchor texts.

Most importantly, internal links must serve users as well apart from search engines. So, automatic link generators won’t give links in accordance with your content flow. After all, it’s a tool, not a human.

Also, those tools might add nofollow tags automatically to your internal links like it does in case of external links.

8) Build with proper silos

Internal links help you have proper site architecture with content relevancy. And, that is easy for both Google and the users to understand and navigate through your related pages.

Despite internal links, nothing can define your site structure in a better way. Link relevant pages together in the same category. You can notice eCommerce sites will have proper internal links in place.

Build proper silo structure and categorize related posts or pages under the parent silo. Internal linking is made easier then.

Pro-tips

Whenever you publish a new post, make sure to link to its relevant old posts and vice versa. This internal linking can boost the ranking potential of both pages. But, don’t have more internal number of internal links as you have control over it. That’s not wrong, anyway. Still, as much as links on a page can lessen the value.

Use anchor texts that are closely related to or associated with the focus keywords of your target pages. So, there will be a noticeable boost in the ranking of those potential keywords. As you cannot decide upon the anchor texts of your external links, use the power of anchor texts while internal linking. But, don’t over-optimize with exact keywords.

Final Words

So, internal links can help you in multiple ways. Reducing the crawl depth, bounce rate concerning SEO. And then, improving the site navigation and user engagement metrics when it comes to user experience. Above all, it helps Google and other search engines to understand your site architecture better.

With proper internal linking, you can compile your relevant pages and drag users and search engines to navigate through those. Hope, the above best internal linking strategies will be more helpful to revisit and make changes to your internal linking. Make sure to monitor the improvement in the keyword rankings.

Let me know your experience with the best internal linking strategies that you practice. How does it help to boost your keyword rankings?

Note: This Internal Linking guide was contributed by Sathish Arumugam. If you have in-depth content to contribute to, then check my guest post guidelines.

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