Take greater advantage of internal links through a complete internal linking strategy

Anna says: “Take full advantage of internal links and build a full, complete internal linking strategy.

It is important to create an internal link strategy once, build a framework, and then constantly refresh it.

There are also a few elements that can help you incorporate that strategy, like sharing with your team and automating internal links. However, the groundwork needs to be done, and then you need to continuously add to it.”

How often do you need to add to your linking strategy?

“You need to add to your linking strategy every time you launch an important page that you want to rank. If you launch a page that targets a high-priority business value keyword, you need to add it to the cheat sheet (which I will talk more about later) and the system.

Then, once you have launched the page, you need to optimize your internal links straight away, if you want that page to be lifted up and served.”

How important is having your target keyword phrase within each internal link?

“It is very important. It’s a well-known fact that anchor text needs to be descriptive, but we sometimes forget that there can be two, three, or even four variations of the same keyword. All of them are semantically relevant, and they are all equally important.

Don't stop at just selecting one keyword. Select those four combinations and go the extra mile to introduce those variations in your internal linking strategy.

You should even link to your homepage using optimized anchor text that contains those relevant keywords. Use ‘homepage’ where it is relevant for user experience – in breadcrumbs, navigation, etc. However, within the text and even the rich text on the footer, then link to your homepage using that optimized anchor text.”

Is the footer the best place to start your internal link strategy or do you get better value by having those links within the body content?

“Both are very important. A common obstacle for SEOs is that you can’t link pages that are very important, SEO-wise, from the top navigation. However, the footer element is your own SEO-owned asset that you can use to make those pages discoverable. Take full advantage of it.

Make sure that footer is as descriptive as possible, by adding rich text describing what your company does. It is also very relevant for the user, who will land on different pages of your site and can always find that snippet of information about what the company does and why they are there.

Also, make sure that you structure the footer nicely. Group the pages and make sure that the groupings make sense. Group your assets in a comprehensive way, but don't be shy about linking your SEO assets there. Sometimes, that’s one of the only opportunities you will have to make those assets discoverable from the high-traffic pages.”

Is there a maximum number of internal links that you'd want to have on a page?

“I try not to exceed 100-150 links on the page in total, including all the footer links, nav links, body links, internal links, and external links.”

Should you change your footer internal links to incorporate the sub-links within the category of certain pages or should they be consistent?

“The footer should be consistent across the whole site. Don’t change the footer on specific pages.

Whether or not you choose to include subsections within that footer will depend on how important the subsection is for you. If you specialise in selling specific dotted cushions for blue sofas, and they're something you want to rank for because they are a key product, you may want to include them.

Think logically about how to incorporate that category into the footer in a way that makes sense. You wouldn’t want to have ‘homepage’, ‘blue sofas’, ‘dotted cushions’, then ‘help centre’, etc. You could structure it logically by putting ‘most popular products’, ‘most popular cushions’, or ‘types of cushions’. There is a range of ways you can approach it.

If it is important for you to rank for that business-crucial keyword, and you think it will drive sales, then add it.”

How do you select the key pages to focus on as part of your internal link strategy?

“You want to be looking at both the pages that already bring in a lot of traffic and the pages where you want to increase their chances of ranking. There will be pages that are already ranking number one that you should still include, because the SERP is so competitive that you can't lose out on any aspect of your SEO strategy. You should still have that link there if it is number one and it is driving the business.

You should also include high-business-value keywords that are not ranking yet, but you know that they are core to the business and are going to bring in sales.

However, don't focus solely on traffic. Whether it is a high-volume keyword or a low-volume keyword that will drive sales, it is going to be important. They need to be very business-focused and business-oriented.”

Which links do you incorporate within blog posts as part of your strategy?

“A complete internal linking strategy is about first designing the footer, the navigation, and the links that are populated throughout the site in a templated manner. The next stage is more creative and requires a little bit more groundwork.

Start by creating a list of the top pages that drive traffic and conversions. Then, identify a few variations of the keywords that are driving traffic to those pages. You can easily see those in Google Search Console, by clicking on the page that drives traffic and conversions, and looking at the top four keywords (obviously those that are non-branded). These will be your variations.

Document everything as a cheat sheet, and then follow through with it. Share that list with the team and constantly refer to it when you create new content and new pages. You can also use this list for automating your internal link-building strategy”

How do you incorporate automation into your strategy?

“There are so many new types of software that are being developed right now, particularly regarding AI. I'm currently using some software called Letterdrop for automating internal links on Webflow. It helps to determine the levels of certainty you can have for your internal link optimization, and I am aiming for the highest level of certainty. I have manually created that cheat sheet list of relevant keywords, uploaded it, and then I can select the number one keyword that the tool suggests for me. It will also suggest other anchor text that will be semantically relevant.

That high level of certainty means that I'm not just relying on Google Search Console. If you only rely on Google Search Console, you might get recommendations of anchor texts that are internally competing with each other – especially if your business focuses on one niche.

If your whole product is about one specific type of software, then that will obviously be mentioned on multiple pages, which is where the confusion might start. For example, ‘video creation’ can be linked to ‘video creation guide’, ‘video creation feature’, and ‘video creation help article’. You need to avoid that, and you need to be very consistent that you link ‘video creation’ to the page that you want to rank.”

Can you use these tools to automatically generate links every time relevant keywords are used in your content?

“I wouldn't recommend building links automatically without manual approval, but there are two awesome features of Letterdrop that I have been using recently.

First, you can fix links in bulk. You have a list, you have a page, you have an anchor text and where it can link to, you just click the box and accept 100 links. However, by hovering over those items, you can verify whether each link is in the right place, where you want it to be embedded.

The second feature is that you can replace the text. For example, if you search for the keyword ‘AI video editing’, but there are only 3 anchor texts like this on the website, you can select the option to replace ‘AI video editing’ with ‘editing’ and get 50 more internal links built at the click of a button.

There are many plugins for WordPress that you can start with but it’s definitely worth looking into new emerging solutions. They can build custom features for you, you can request things, and they are constantly evolving. That's what I love about SEO: you can always find new exciting things that solve your daily problems.”

How do you measure the success of your internal link strategy?

“It's hard to attribute SEO success to one specific thing that you did, but I have conducted specific internal link optimization campaigns and I have seen an increase in rankings for the keywords I optimized.

In one case, we had a single anchor text that linked to several different pages, which caused inconsistencies for a highly competitive keyword with a search volume of over 100,000. We fixed that, replaced the other anchor texts, added new internal links, and optimized the footer, and we moved from position four to position two for that keyword. We didn't do anything else with the page; there were no other changes.

That was just one example. I can't 100% say that the ranking change was directly a result of our linking strategy, but it clearly had an impact. That's how I measure it. I look at the rankings for the anchor text that I have optimized.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Stop going after irrelevant traffic. You might think that it is super relevant traffic for you, but look at the SERP, analyse the search results, and identify the intent. Don't follow the recommendations for commercial, informational, navigational, and transactional intent identifiers that you get from the tools, because they can be too generic.

Look for yourself. Look at the pages that rank, drop things that won't bring value to your business, and focus on things that convert and bring users down the pipeline.”

Anna Uss is SEO Lead at Synthesia, and you can find her over at AnnaUss.com.