My 5 Golden Rules for Internal Linking

Internal links are one of the best tools in your SEO arsenal. Did you know that 3 internal links are as good as one backlink? Think how much money you can save this way!

Before you go to your website and start creating random internal links you should know that when used incorrectly, they could do more harm than good.

Here is the strategy I use every single time to make sure that I create high-quality internal links that help push my websites, and my clients’ websites, higher up the SERPs.

You just have to follow these 5 rules.

First, let’s explain what internal links are.

What Are Internal Links?

Internal links are hyperlinks that point from one page to another on the same website. Internal links are useful because they help Google and other search engines understand your website’s structure and hierarchy. Internal links also pass authority from one page to another, which can help improve the ranking of important pages.

Lastly, internal links help users navigate your website more easily and find the content they are looking for. They navigate your potential customers through every step of the buyer’s journey, no matter where they start from.

Internal links are different from backlinks, although they are both hyperlinks. Let’s see how exactly.

What’s the difference between Internal links vs Backlinks

The main difference between internal links and backlinks is that internal links point between pages on the same website while backlinks point from one website to another.

They are considered to be one of the most important ranking factors for search engines. Backlinks are a vote of confidence from other websites, and they show that a particular website is authoritative and trustworthy.

However, when used correctly, internal links can be just as effective as backlinks. Three internal links are just as strong as a backlink. The big advantage is that it’s cheaper and easier to build internal links rather than backlinks.

Now let’s see how to use them properly.

My 5 Rules for Building Internal Links

To be honest, I hate building backlinks. Because of my background in journalism, always felt more attracted to on-page SEO rather than off-page.

Some of the following rules I came up with myself, others I “stole,” but not before testing them on my sites.

They work best in combination with content silos. However, not all pages can be included in a silo. For pages outside silos, I try to stick to all of them, but sometimes it’s just impossible.

These are my 5 rules:

· Never have more than 5 links

· Make sure they are relevant

· Each link has its own subheading

· Pay attention to anchor text

· Place them in the second half of the text

·Let’s expand on each.

Never Have More Than 5 Links

There are 2 main reasons why you shouldn’t use too many links on a page:

1. The PageRank power they are passing diminished with each link

2. Too many links can cause crawlability issues (wasted crawl budget, crawlers ignoring some links, etc)

You also want to link to the most important page first. So, if you’re doing this within a silo, you want the first link to be to the page above. Or, if you’re selling a product or a service that is relevant to the topic of this page (we’ll get to relevancy later) you can begin with a link to that page.

Make Sure They Are Relevant

This one is super important. Don’t force links. If the article is about dog food, why would you link it to cat carriers, for example.

Links must be relevant to have value. If you can’t connect the topics of 2 pages, don’t link them together. Those links will be just as useful as those 100 backlinks you buy on Fiverr for $5.

However, if you are using the silo structure, all of your links within the silo will be 100% relevant.

Each Link Has Its Own Subheading

Google doesn’t take into account just the anchor text, but the text around it as well. So, before I link to another page, I like to add as much context around it as possible.

In other words, I connect the topic of the page that I am linking to with the one of the page that I am linking from. The best way to do that is to create another section. I like to create either an H2 or H3 and write about the topic of that page. I also place the link in the middle or at the end of that paragraph. That way, the Googlebot has read enough information to understand the context of that link.

Place Internal Links in the Second Part of the Page

According to people at Google, it’s not important where you place your internal links. However, we all know that from time to time Google says one thing and does the opposite.

I prefer to put all my internal links towards the end of the article. This is more like a necessity based on my previous rule. Since I create a subheading for each internal link, I don’t want to break the flow and structure of the text to add an internal link. But if it makes sense, I will add it to the middle of the text.

Pay Attention to Anchor Text

My last rule is about the anchor text. First of all, always use descriptive and relevant anchor text. Stop using “here”, “click here,” or “on this page”. For a link to be effective, you need an anchor text that is descriptive.

As anchor text, I generally use:

· A keyword I want that page to rank for (the page that I am linking to)

· A more descriptive anchor text that also contains all the words inside a keyword (if it’s a long tail, for example)

But there’s more. You also need to make sure that you aren’t overusing the same anchor text. This can easily become a problem if you’re using keywords. If used too much, Google might start considering them spammy. Don’t use the same keyword more than 3 times.

This is why it’s important to keep track of all your anchor texts. I try to pick all my anchor texts before I write the page and keep track of them using a spreadsheet.

These rules are good to implement if you’re just starting out a new website or if you have one with few pages.

If you’re the owner of a website that already has hundreds or thousands of pages, just focus on implementing these rules on the most important ones.