The Importance of Internal Linking: Enhancing SEO and User Journey

After more years than I want to admit of being in the business of SEO, there is one thing I notice is almost always true: when building or maintaining a website, the value of internal linking often goes unnoticed or undervalued. And yet, internal linking is one of the most important ways to improve both search engine optimization (SEO) and the user journey.

Internal links—links that connect different pages on your website—are critical for guiding users and search engines through your content and for helping them understand the structure and context of your website. A well-thought-out internal linking strategy can improve crawlability, discoverability, relevancy, and site engagement.

Why Internal Linking is Essential to Search Visibility

Think of internal linking like organizing your storage space. You store the items you use most frequently upfront, within easy reach, while the items you rarely need are placed on higher shelves or behind other items. This makes your space more efficient and saves you time and effort.

Similarly, internal links help search crawlers and users easily access important pages of your site. The more links pointing to a page, the more valuable it is considered by search engines like Google, as it signals that the page is integral to your site's content structure.

How Search Engines Interact with Linked Pages

When search engine bots crawl a website, they follow links to discover and index pages. If a page has numerous internal links pointing to it, it's essentially more accessible, increasing its likelihood of being crawled and indexed more frequently. The more links a page has pointing to it, the more "authority" it accumulates in the eyes of search engines. This, in turn, improves its ranking potential, making it more discoverable in search engine results pages (SERPs). In contrast, pages that receive fewer internal links are seen as less important, and are less likely to be crawled as often or to be discoverable in search.

An XML Sitemap is Not Enough to Drive Rankings

While XML Sitemaps can help a search engine discover, crawl, and index pages on a website, they do not guarantee that all pages will be indexed. A website can still be crawled and indexed without an XML sitemap and not be penalized in SERPs. However, a site full of orphaned or near-orphaned pages—pages that are not linked to or from any page or section of your site—are likely to be rarely crawled or indexed for ranking opportunities. I have often seen high ranking pages not within an XML sitemap, but I have never seen a high ranking page with no internal links.

How Users Interact with Linked Pages

For users, internal links serve as a roadmap to guide them to relevant content. If a page is linked to very often, it signals to users that this content is important and worth checking out, increasing the likelihood they will visit the page. This increases time spent on your site, boosting engagement and conversion opportunities, which in turn can improve rankings.

Key SEO Best Practices for Internal Linking

To make the most of internal linking, it’s important to follow certain best practices:

Do's:

• Use Descriptive Anchor Text: The clickable text in a hyperlink should clearly describe the destination page's content. Avoid generic text like “click here.”
• Link to Important Pages Frequently: Pages like cornerstone content or key product pages should have multiple internal links pointing to them to boost their visibility.
• Ensure a Logical Structure: Organize your site with a clear hierarchy, linking from top-level pages to related subpages and vice versa.
• Fix Broken Links: Regularly audit your site for broken internal links, as these can hinder user experience and SEO.
• Use Internal Links in Contextual Content: Place links in the body of blog posts or on product pages where they naturally fit, rather than stuffing them solely into sidebars or footers.
• Implement a UX Breadcrumb Bar: UX breadcrumb bars provide essential, automated internal links that give contextual clues to both search engines and site visitors, helping them understand your site's structure and content hierarchy. Breadcrumbs should exist on every page of your site except the homepage.

Don’ts:

• Avoid Overstuffing Links: Don’t overload a page with too many links, as it can overwhelm users and reduce the impact of each link. Be thoughtful and strategic with your internal linking.
• Don’t Link Irrelevant Content: Each link should have a clear, contextual connection from the current page to the linked content.
• Don't Forget Mobile & Accessibility Experience: Ensure your internal links are easy to tap and navigate on mobile devices.
• Don’t Rely Solely on Navigation Menus: While primary, secondary, and tertiary navigation menus are useful and important, contextual links within your content are more impactful for both SEO and user experience.

Scaling Internal Linking with AI and Tools

At scale, manually building and maintaining an internal linking structure can be time-consuming, especially for enterprise sites. Fortunately, generative AI and other SEO tools can help streamline this process:

• AI-Powered Content Auditors: Tools like Clearscope or SurferSEO can identify opportunities to insert relevant internal links in existing content, improving the structure and relevance of your website.
• Generative AI: AI can assist in writing content optimized for internal linking, suggesting places where you can naturally link to other pages within your site. For example, OpenAI-powered tools can analyze your site's structure and suggest appropriate anchor text and destinations for internal links.
• Internal Link Audit Tools: Use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs to regularly audit your website's internal links, identifying broken links or pages with few or no internal links pointing to them.

By integrating these tools into your strategy, you can efficiently build a robust internal linking structure, even as your site grows.

Internal Links Make Your Site More Friendly for Search Engines & Users

Internal linking is much more than just an SEO tactic; it’s a way to make your website more user-friendly and accessible to search engines and site visitors. By treating it like organizing your storage space—placing important pages where they’re easily reachable and linking to them from relevant places—you improve your site's usability, relevancy, crawlability, and accessibility. Following these best practices and leveraging modern tools will help you create a dynamic, user-friendly website that performs well in search engine rankings.