Do you need help choosing your WordPress internal links?
By the time you are done reading this guide, you will know how to find relevant WordPress internal links to boost your Google rankings in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Google keeps having CORE updates and many bloggers see traffic drops. This guide to WordPress internal links teaches you to boost your rankings of newer posts with the help of older posts that are already doing well in Google’s SERPs.
These are powerful, actionable, free tips designed to take your best links and transfer the Page Authority to your new posts.
Let’s get started learning how to pick relevant WordPress internal links that will boost your rankings in the SERPs.
What Are WordPress Internal Links?
WordPress internal links are links from one page to another on the same WordPress website.
Internal links help pass Page Rank around your site. Internal links give power to other pages. Page Rank is a mathematical formula that tries to determine the value of a page.
Internal links help Google discover new pages to rank. Also, internal links help search engines understand what your page is about. Google does this by looking at anchor text.
In sum, internal links are important due to crawlability, authority, and relevance.
Why are WordPress Internal Links important?
You don’t need to ask anyone to link to you
According to Ahrefs Sam Oh, internal linking has a 100% success rate.
Internal links can help you rank higher in Google.
How to Boost Your Rankings with WordPress Internal Links
Create a logical hierarchy in your site structure.
Branches of information are formed when you use this hierarchy.
This shows the hierarchy I have on my site:
You need a hierarchy, categories with branches of information. This structure gives Google information about the relationship between your pages.
Use the Content Hubs Internal Linking Strategy
What are Content Hubs?
Content Hubs are networks of links on a similar topic or subtopic.
An effective strategy is to link your posts to each other.
For instance, I can link my advantages and disadvantages of Instagram post to my post about Instagram secrets. Conversely, I can then link my Instagram secrets post to my advantages and disadvantages of Instagram post.
In other words, since they are on the same topic, I can put the link in the other post and vice versa.
This strategy creates relevance between pages. The backlinks will help Page Rank flow to and from each page within the Hub helping each page rank higher on Google.
Let’s look at another example:
I put the link to my post about guaranteed search engine rankings in my post about how to get your keywords a rank boost at Google. Then, I switched them. Both links ended up in the other post.
How to Find Opportunities to Place WordPress Internal Links
Method 1: Use the Google Operator
Let’s say I want to place internal links in this post about WordPress internal links.
I go to Google and in the search bar type Site:MostlyBlogging.com and add my keyword “WordPress internal links” in quotation marks.
Look:
Google displays my related posts. All the posts that appear have the phrase “internal links.” Since I never published a post containing “WordPress internal links,” the Google Operator shows me the closest results.
Any of these links, if relevant, could become internal links in my article.
Method 2: Use the Link Opportunities Report in Ahrefs Site Audit.
According to Ahrefs Sam Oh, you can sign up for a free Ahrefs account, verify your site, and run a free site audit. Then, go to the Link Opportunities Report and click “Link Opportunities.”
You’ll see internal link opportunities based on keywords you rank for.
It’s true: Ahrefs actually suggests internal linking opportunities for you. The site suggests pages you should link from and pages you should link to. Ahrefs even shows you where you should link on the page.
Note: The more pages you have on your site, the longer the crawl will take. Fourteen minutes later, my crawl still wasn’t finished.
Seeing all these pages can be overwhelming and confusing.
Good news: Ahrefs lets you filter by keyword so you can narrow down your choices of where to put your WordPress internal links.
Unlike Method 1, the Google Operator Method, Ahrefs doesn’t even care about exactly matching the keyword.
Method 3: Ahrefs Best By Links Report
Good news: Ahrefs Sam Oh guarantees these are free strategies even though Ahrefs is a premium tool.
Go to Site Explorer and put in the name of your website. Click “Best by links.”
You will see your pages listed in order of strength determined by the incoming links, the backlink profile of the page.
Here’s mine:
Pick links to put in your post, but make sure the internal links you pick are relevant.
Both posts #8 and #12 are relevant. I want to pass the link juice, the Page Authority, in these posts to my new relevant post. Therefore, I’d be wise to link to one or both in this SEO post on WordPress internal links.
For instance, I could write, “If you want to see if your WordPress internal links strategy was successful, use SERPRobot after publication to check your rankings.”
It’s important to remember natural-sounding language is important. Don’t try to force your internal links in an unnatural way into your posts. Google prioritizes User Experience (UX), so the unnatural-sounding language could actually hurt your rankings.
WordPress Internal Links: Frequently Asked Questions
What is an internal link in WordPress?
A link from one page to the other on the same WordPress website.
Do internal links affect SEO?
Yes. If chosen according to these guidelines, internal links can boost SEO. Not having internal links or properly chosen internal links can hurt SEO.
Wrapping Up: WordPress Internal Links
In closing, this guide to choosing WordPress internal links gave you powerful, actionable, free tips to boost your rankings in the SERPs.
These on-page SEO methods are recommended by Sam Oh from Ahrefs (Source).
Readers, please share so bloggers and search engine marketers seeking to boost their keyword rankings in the Search Engine Results pages discover this guide to best practices for choosing WordPress internal links.
If you need more intensive training on how to boost your rankings, consider the Mostly Blogging Academy Blogging on the First Page of Google course.
I look forward to your views in the comments section. Do you have any additional WordPress internal links best practices you can suggest?
Janice Wald is the founder of MostlyBlogging.com. She is an ebook author, blogger, blogging coach, blogging judge, freelance writer, and speaker. She was nominated as the 2021 and 2019 Best Internet Marketer by the Infinity Blog Awards and in 2017 as the Most Informative Blogger by the London Bloggers Bash. She’s been featured on Small Business Trends, the Huffington Post, and Lifehack.
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