Internal links are links from one page on your site to another page on the same site. They help Google find and understand your pages, and they're one of the few SEO factors entirely under your control. This guide explains what internal links do, what good anchor text looks like, and a simple internal linking routine for WordPress.
What internal links do for SEO
- Help Google find pages. Google discovers pages mostly by following links. A page that no other page links to, an "orphan page", may be crawled rarely or not at all.
- Show which pages matter. A page that many of your other pages link to looks more important than one linked from a single place. Links also pass some ranking value from page to page, which SEO people often call "link equity".
- Explain what a page is about. The clickable text, called anchor text, tells Google and readers what to expect on the other side.
- Help visitors keep going. A reader who finishes an article and sees a relevant next step can carry on to a related guide or a product page instead of leaving.
What good internal links look like
Use descriptive anchor text. Say what the reader will get.
- Good: "see our guide to speeding up WordPress with server caching"
- Weak: "click here", "read more", "this article"
Link where the topic comes up. Put the link inside the sentence that mentions the subject, rather than in a block of "worth reading" links dropped into the middle of an article.
Make the link match the anchor. If the text says "WordPress security plugins", the page it opens should be about WordPress security plugins. A mismatch confuses readers and weakens what the anchor tells Google.
Vary anchors naturally. You don't need the same exact keyword every time. "Security plugins for WordPress" and "how to choose a security plugin" can point to the same page.
Don't overdo it. There's no magic number, but if every other sentence is a link, none of them stands out. Two to four relevant links in a typical blog post is plenty.
Build a structure, not just links
Think in topic groups. One main "pillar" page covers a subject broadly, and supporting posts cover parts of it in depth. Each supporting post links to the pillar, and the pillar links to each supporting post.
For example, a pillar page on WordPress performance could link to separate articles on caching, images and hosting, and each of those would link back to it.
On a shop, blog posts should link to the products they discuss, and each product page should link to its setup documentation. Your main menu and footer are internal links too, so make sure they reach your most important pages. Website design principles for local business sites covers simple navigation.
An internal linking routine for WordPress
Each time you publish:
- Link out from the new post to two to four related posts, products or docs. In the WordPress block editor, select some text, press Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac), and start typing a post title to search your own site.
- Link in to the new post from two or three older, related posts that already get traffic. Most people skip this step, and it's the one that gets a new page found quickly.
- Check your menus and footer still point at your key pages: main categories, top products, contact.
Every few months:
- Find orphan pages. Several SEO plugins report pages with no internal links pointing at them. A crawler such as Screaming Frog (free for up to 500 URLs) does the same.
- Fix broken internal links after you delete or merge posts, and make sure redirects are in place.
- Open the Links report in Google Search Console and look at the internal links table to see which pages get the most internal links. Your most important pages should be near the top.
If your structure is a mess and you're planning bigger changes anyway, 13 reasons you need a website redesign will help you decide whether it's time to rebuild.
Tools that help
- Your SEO plugin. Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO all offer some form of internal link suggestions or reports, though some of these features are only in the paid versions. All in One SEO is one of the picks in our WooCommerce plugin shortlist.
- Google Search Console. Free, and it shows internal links as Google sees them.
- Ahrefs and Semrush. Paid site audits that flag orphan pages, broken links and pages buried too many clicks deep.
Start with the routine above on your next post, then spend half an hour adding links to your three most important pages from older content.
Written by
Entrepreneur and content marketer, Catalyst For Business
Ryan Khoja is a New York-based entrepreneur and content marketer, and chief executive of Catalyst For Business. He works in writing and editing, with a focus on copywriting, marketing strategy and customer relationship management. He holds a bachelor's degree in business from the City University of New York.
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