Internal Linking And Anchor Text Best Practices

Internal Linking is the process of adding <a href> links to a piece of content, a landing page, or any valuable page on your website to point to pages on your site that are related. These can be other pieces of content, service or product pages, collections pages, or anything, and the key is that they are related and that relation is highlighted with concise keyworded anchor text.

Why Is Internal Linking Important?

Internal linking is one of the most effective and controllable signals we have as SEOs to influence a search engine’s perception of a page and its purpose. Just like <title>, <h1>, and other meta tags, a link is a powerful signal to search engines that a semantic and thematic relationship between two pages exists. Unlike backlinking, which is full of black hat SEO traps and pitfalls, internal linking is almost always completely safe. Additionally, linking to a page (both internally and externally) indicates that the page has importance. Internal link optimization is one of the most valuable technical SEO tasks to learn.

Learn more about what technical SEO is in our Advanced Guide To Technical SEO.

Internal Link Architecture For Google

Google has, from the very beginning, touted the importance of links and equated links to “votes” for your page. It goes well beyond simply the number of links and is very much a complex calculation of relevancy and position. Internal links may also not weigh as heavily as links from reputable 3rd party websites or Backlinks, but due to our ability to design and create internal link structures, they play a massive role in technical SEO strategies. Along with this, knowing how to find and fix broken internal links is one of the best tools in a technical SEO’s toolkit.

Anatomy of a Good Internal Link

There are 3 primary factors we look to optimize when setting up internal links and planning out your internal link architecture.

1. Link Relevance

2. Anchor Text

3. Referring Page Link Equity

Internal Link Relevance

The most important factor in selecting where to internally link to and from is the relevance the content on the page you’re linking to has to the page you’re linking from. This factor holds true across all linking but is most controllable when setting up internal link maps and optimizing internal links.

Thinking about the logical connections between pages, content, and themes works for Google just like it would for your users.

Internal Link Relevance Examples

Consider these two scenarios for an example site that sells cookware and which internal link makes more sense:

Link A: You link to a page on your site about how to clean a pan from a page about how to pick the best oven mitt.

Link B: You link to a collection page for non-stick pans from a page describing different types of non-stick pans.

If you selected Link B, you’re on your way to setting up a good internal link structure.

For Link B, there is likely a clear relationship and good cause to link between these pages. The relationships don’t always have to be perfectly aligned, and the themes of the pages linking to each other don’t need to overlap totally, but the stronger the relationship, the better and stronger the internal link.

The issue with Link A in this instance is there is very little, if any, relationship between the two topics, so it's unlikely an internal link between the two will help either page.

Anchor Text Relevance

Anchor text or link text is the word, words, or phrase that is visible and clickable on the page and is set up within the HTML code of a page as a part of the link. Anchor text is vital to providing both users and search engines context and relevant clues as to what content is going to be delivered when that link is clicked. Good anchor text can help the chances of both the host page and the target page ranking for the term being used as the anchor text.

There are two main types of anchor text we want to focus on for optimizing internal links:

1. Exact-Match Anchor Text- When the anchor text is one of the exact keywords the target page (page being linked to) is trying to rank for.

2. Partial-Match Anchor Text- When the anchor text is near to or a variant of one of the target keywords for the target page.

Anchor Text Relevance Examples

Consider which of these two examples from our made-up cookware site would make the better anchor text:

Link A: A link from a page that explains how to use a double boiler to a product page for a double boiler with the anchor text of “double boiler.”

Link B: A link from a page that explains how to clean cast iron to a product page for a cast iron skillet with the anchor text “Look at this.”

Hopefully, the first example, Link A, is the one that appeals to you, because an internal link with this anchor text is the better choice.

Link A has the best chance to positively influence the ranking and positioning of both pages for this term and related concepts using succinct and exact match keywording to guide both users and Google.

By contrast, Link B likely has great relevance between the pages, but unfortunately, unless either page is trying to rank for the generic anchor text phrase “Look at this,” that anchor text works instead to muddle the relevance between those pages.

Referring Page Link Equity

The notion of a page’s strength is a concept that comes from Google’s original “Page Rank” algorithm that sought to quantify the value and authority of a page relative to others. It was even at one point visible as part of the Google Toolbar until, of course, SEOs manipulated and used it so much Google had to retire it.

Google Toolbar with Pagerank (image credit: Softpedia)

Despite the disappearance of the Pagerank toolbar, the fundamental idea behind it and many of the factors that play into it, along with hundreds or thousands more, are still very likely in use today.

When planning out where you’d like to build internal links from one page to another, it’s helpful to keep in mind how valuable a page is likely to be as a link source and how much a page could benefit from being a link target. That value or strength is often referred to as link equity which is how much authority flows into and out of that page from backlinks and internal links.

Referring Page Link Equity Examples

Consider which of these two examples from our cookware site is the better link:

Link A: A link from a website privacy policy page with no backlinks or search rankings to a product page for a frying pan.

Link B: A link from a blog post on how to fry shrimp that ranks highly for several terms and has earned several backlinks to another blog post about cooking seafood.

If you chose Link B in this instance, you’d be correct.

Link B comes from a page that is linked internally and externally and is performing in search giving it link equity. These clues tell us this page likely has value to the website it lives on (internal links), other websites (external/backlinks), and Google (rankings). That makes this a much better source to use to build internal links.

Link A, however, comes from a privacy policy page with little to no link equity. Foundational pages like privacy policy and “About” pages get few backlinks, if any, and rarely, if ever, rank for search — which is often by design. The pages not designed to rank search or that don’t carry much lower link equity and make poor choices to link away from.

How To Create the Best Internal Link

The best internal links from an impact perspective are going to be a blend of link relevance and good anchor text, and they come from a page with good link equity or Pagerank. It, of course, won’t always be possible to have all these factors align.

As we’ve laid out above in order of importance, we would rate them:

• Internal Link Relevance

• Anchor Text Relevance

• Referring Page Link Equity

Best Case Internal Link Examples

Finally, consider the examples below and consider which would be the best example of an internal link you’d want to use on your website that, in this example, sells frying pans.

Link A: A link from your homepage with the anchor text “Click Here” that sends you to your best-performing frying pan page.

Link B: A link to your stainless steel frying pans collection page from a high-performing blog post about stainless steel flying pan maintenance with the anchor text of “stainless steel frying pans.”

Link C: A link from a frying pan product page that gets a little organic traffic to a blog post about cleaning frying pans with the anchor text of “How to Clean Your Frying Pan.”

Link D: A link on your checkout page to a high-performing blog on stainless steel flying pan maintenance with the anchor text “How To Maintain Your Stainless Steel Frying Pan.”

All of these examples of optimized internal links have some of the pieces we like to see when crafting the best and most helpful links. Link B does the best job of pulling together all the aspects we’re looking for aligning link relevance, relevant anchor text, and good link equity to create a likely very useful internal link for both the user and Google.

Link A comes from the homepage, which likely has a lot of link equity to give, however, the generic anchor text “click here” is something Google warns us to stay away from.

Link C couples good page relevancy with anchor text relevance but comes from a page with little link equity. Overall though, this is a fine link to build, as you won’t always have incredible link equity to utilize.

Finally, Link D is missing on both page relevance and link equity but does a great job with the anchor text. However, a link coming from a checkout page is unlikely to have any value since most checkout pages are hidden from search engines using robots.txt.

Learn how to fix when pages like this are Indexed Though Blocked By robots.txt with our easy guide!

Conclusion

Internal linking can be one of the most powerful tools in your SEO arsenal, offering a controllable way to influence search engine perception of your pages. The key to effective internal linking lies in understanding and optimizing link relevance, anchor text relevance, and referring page link equity. Part of the reason we picked an eCommerce example is to illustrate how important internal linking is to an eCommerce SEO strategy which lies near the hearts of our founders Kevin Miller and Jon Zacharias!

By carefully considering these factors, you can create a robust internal link structure that benefits both your users and your search engine rankings. If you're looking for expert assistance in optimizing your website's internal linking strategy, want to take your SEO strategy to the next level? Check out our SEO Agency and get a free quote today!

Sources:

Link text | Google Developer Documentation Style Guide

RIP Google PageRank score: A retrospective on how it ruined the web | Search Engine Land

SEO Link Best Practices for Google | Google Search Central