Internal Linking for Modern SEO: Best Practices to Boost Results

As search engines continue to evolve and force marketers to adapt, so too should your internal linking strategy.

Internal linking is often one of the more underutilized SEO tools in a digital marketer’s arsenal, and building a strong internal linking system can play a pivotal role in supporting your overall content marketing strategy. Let’s look at the importance of internal linking, how to approach it, and what steps you can take to improve your website’s link authority.

Table of Contents

• What is Internal Linking?
• Why Internal Linking Matters
• 6 Internal Linking Best Practices
• Need Help with Your Internal Linking Strategy?

What is Internal Linking?

Internal links are hyperlinks that point to another page on the same website, allowing both users and search engines to find additional content on your website. External links, by contrast, are links that point to other websites. Both Google and site visitors use internal links to navigate through your website, learning more about your services and offerings.

There are typically two types of internal links – structural and contextual. These two types of links work together to allow users to navigate a website and help spread link equity.

• Contextual links are embedded within your content and provide additional context or information for both your audience and Google.
• Structural links are foundational hyperlinks that include the links found in your website navigation, footer, headers, and sidebars. These links generally remain consistent across all website pages and serve as the pathways that allow users and crawlers to navigate your site.

A good internal linking strategy includes both types of internal links. These links allow search engines to determine what content on your site is related and how valuable that content is. The more links a significant page receives, the more important it will seem to search engines. That connection is why good internal link mapping is crucial to your SEO strategy.

Why Internal Linking Matters

Internal links are an essential factor for improving both the user experience as well as your SERP rankings. Google has used internal links as a key ranking factor for a long time. While the basics haven’t changed, its role has evolved.

If you haven’t heard yet, the rise of AI and zero-click search has changed digital marketing as we know it. Google is focused on semantic search, user intent, and helpful content, and your use of internal links can help you signal your content as an essential or high-value article.

What’s also great about internal links is that you’re in complete control of your strategy. You can prioritize the most important pages on your website with the correct internal links and create new content to support your strategy. These endeavors can turn internal links into a strategic tool for:

• Enhancing topical authority and content relevance
• Supporting content hubs and topic clusters
• Distributing link equity across key pages
• Simplifying the user experience and guiding them along more streamlined conversion paths 
• Improving indexation of deeper pages via structured crawl paths
• Establishing site hierarchy for search engine algorithms and AI-driven SERPs

6 Best Practices for Internal Linking

While creating an internal linking strategy may seem as simple as clicking a button to create a hyperlink, there are several factors you’ll want to consider to truly optimize your internal linking strategy. Let’s take a look at some of the best practices and how they can improve your website.

1. Use Descriptive, Intent-Focused Anchor Text

Once you have decided which links should be on which page, you’ll need to write anchor text. This is the visible text that visitors see when clicking on a link, and the copy you choose to highlight makes a difference.

Anchor text should clearly set expectations for the destination readers will reach when they click a link. According to Google, good anchor text is descriptive, concise, and relevant to your content to align their expectations with searcher intent. That means you should avoid vague phrases like "click here" and instead opt for intent-rich descriptions:

❌ Rather Than: Click here to learn more

✅ Go with: Explore our small business local SEO checklist

2. Prioritize Strategic Link Placement

In general, internal links placed near the top of the page tend to get more visibility. However, you want to balance high-value placement and natural writing, as shoving a lot of anchor text at the beginning of a page won’t look good to both humans and robots. The next time you’re adding internal links, try:

• Adding contextual links in the first few paragraphs where they add value to the reader.
• Spreading out links with context instead of bunching them together.
• Including above-the-fold calls to action for users with transactional intent.
• Incorporating sidebars or inline “related resources” sections to make links more notable and less likely to be lost in footers or long blocks of text.
• Build conversion paths with links to relevant products, services, and contact pages to drive leads

3. Support Topic Clusters with Content Hubs

Building topical authority is one of the best ways to help your business combat Google’s volatile search rankings. Creating hubs of content allows you to support customers throughout the digital marketing funnel, while helping search engines better understand how your site can help users. For example:

• Pillar: Local SEO Strategy
• Clusters: Google Business Profile Optimization, Review Management, Location-Based Landing Pages, Local Link Building, Etc.

By creating multiple pages, posts, and other pieces of content aligned with this pillar, you set yourself up as an expert in that field. Furthermore, these pieces of content can link back to the main pillar page and other related pages both inside and out of that hub, allowing you to build authority, spread link equity, and keep users on your site.

4. Avoid Excessive Linking

While adding internal links is immensely important, you also need to show some restraint. Too many internal links on a single page can overwhelm readers and send mixed messages about your page’s priorities. Here are a few ways that you can maintain balance:

• Focus on relevance and value over quantity
• Avoid repeating links to the same destination
• Don’t overload navigation bars, sidebars, or footers
• Use internal links to support the user journey, not disrupt it

While there is no hard cap for how many links you should include, the goal should always be clarity and utility over volume. If you ever think “is this too many?” the answer is probably yes.

5. Audit and Fix Broken Links Regularly

Broken links happen for several reasons, so you need to ensure that no page is left behind. A recurring audit and help you identify the following issues:

• Internal links with that lead to pages that no longer exist
• Broken redirects
• Orphaned pages that aren’t linked from anywhere
• Excessively deep pages that are more than three clicks away from the homepage

Finding and fixing these links create a smoother experience for users and crawlers. A quarterly audit can help you capture and address issues in a timely fashion, while tools like Screaming Frog and Ahrefs can help streamline the process.

6. Optimize Content for Voice Search and AI Assistants

AI has forced digital marketers to adapt their methods, and internal linking is no stranger. All content must be made with the rise of AI-generated answers and voice search in mind, which means structuring content and links to be easy to crawl and skim for robots and humans alike.

• Use short sentences and bullet points to improve readability and highlight key information
• Apply schema markup to enhance search engine understanding
• Add FAQs with linked content

Quick Internal Linking Checklist: Dos and Don’ts

✅ Do This

• Use anchor text that matches searcher intent
• Link related content early in the post
• Group content around topical clusters
• Run audits quarterly for link health
• Guide users to conversion pages
• Structure content and links to be easy to read and crawl

❌ Avoid This

• Using "click here" or vague phrases
• Burying links in footers or long text blocks
• Linking randomly without structure
• Ignoring orphaned or broken pages
• Leaving high-traffic posts unoptimized
• Overload pages with internal links

Need Help with Your Internal Linking Strategy?

Internal linking isn’t just about improving rankings – it’s about crafting a connected, useful experience for your audience. With the user-focused strategies and AI-driven best practices, you can transform your internal links into a high-impact tool for digital success.

Need some help taking your SEO strategies to the next level? Contact Aztek to learn how we can elevate your SEO and content marketing efforts.