How do you boost your organic ranking with internal linking?

1 What is internal linking?

Internal linking is the practice of linking one page of your site to another page of your site using a clickable anchor text. For example, if you have a blog post about organic search, you can link it to another post about link building strategies using the anchor text "link building strategies". This way, you create a connection between the two pages and signal to both your visitors and search engines what they are about and how they relate to each other.

2 Why is internal linking important for SEO?

Internal linking has a multitude of advantages for SEO. It helps create a well-structured and organized hierarchy of your site that search engines can easily crawl and index, as well as comprehend the theme and purpose. Additionally, it can distribute page authority and relevance by linking from a high-authority page to a lower-authority page, or by linking from a relevant page to another relevant one, thus reinforcing topical signals and keyword associations. Furthermore, internal linking can improve user experience and engagement; by linking to other pages that provide more information, context, or value to your visitors, you can reduce bounce rate, increase dwell time, and make it easier for them to navigate your site.

3 How to create an internal linking strategy?

To create an effective internal linking strategy, you should use descriptive and relevant anchor texts that match the topic and keyword of the page you are linking to, and avoid generic terms. Additionally, it's important to link to your most important and valuable pages, such as cornerstone content, landing pages, product or service pages, or evergreen content. You can use tools like Google Analytics or Search Console to identify top-performing pages. Furthermore, links should fit the context and flow of your content naturally and contextually. Link to pages that provide additional or complementary information, or answer a question or a problem that your visitors might have. Avoid overlinking or underlinking, and aim for a balanced and reasonable number of links per page.

4 How to audit and optimize your internal links?

To ensure that your internal links are beneficial for your SEO and user experience, it's essential to audit and optimize them on a regular basis. Tools such as Screaming Frog or Ahrefs can be used to crawl your site and assess your internal links. Additionally, you should check and rectify broken or redirected links, orphan pages, duplicate or conflicting links. Broken or redirected links can damage your SEO and frustrate visitors, so they should be removed or updated swiftly. Orphan pages can be difficult to find and access for both users and search engines, thus they should be linked to from relevant pages or added to the sitemap. Duplicate or conflicting links can cause confusion for visitors and weaken relevance and authority signals, so they should be unified and clear.

5 How to measure the impact of your internal links?

To evaluate the impact of your internal links on your organic ranking and user behavior, you need to measure some key metrics, such as organic traffic, click-through rate (CTR), and conversion rate. Google Analytics or Search Console can be used to track organic traffic and CTR of pages with more or less internal links. Additionally, you can use other tools to monitor conversions generated by each page. Optimizing internal links can guide visitors to conversion pages and increase conversion rate. By measuring these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into the performance of your internal links.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?