Some pages on your website are more powerful than others. They attract more traffic, earn more backlinks, and carry more authority with search engines. A common mistake is letting that authority sit isolated on just a few pages. Internal linking is the strategy you use to distribute that power across your entire site, giving a lift to other important pages that need more visibility. By strategically linking from your high-authority content to other relevant pages, you signal to Google which content is important and how it all connects. This guide provides a practical walkthrough of how to use SEMrush for internal linking? You’ll learn to identify your most authoritative pages with the Organic Research tool and use the Site Audit feature to build a network of links that shares their strength, improving your site’s overall performance.
Key Takeaways
- Begin with a Site Audit: Use the SEMrush Site Audit tool to get a clear picture of your current link structure. This helps you find and fix foundational issues like broken links and orphaned pages before you start building new links.
- Use Your Strongest Pages Strategically: Identify your top-performing content with the Organic Research tool and use it to link to other important pages. This practice distributes authority throughout your site and can improve the search rankings of the linked content.
- Focus on Quality and Consistency: Create a logical site structure with descriptive anchor text and relevant links that help your visitors. Regularly review your linking strategy to ensure it continues to support your SEO goals as your site grows.
What Is Internal Linking and Why Does It Matter for SEO?
Internal linking is the practice of connecting one page on your website to another page on the same domain. Think of it as creating pathways that guide both your visitors and search engines through your site. Unlike external links that send users to other websites, internal links keep everyone within your own digital space. This strategy is a core part of both user experience and search engine optimization.
So, why is this so important for your site’s performance? A solid internal linking strategy helps search engines crawl your site more effectively, which allows them to find and index all of your content. For your visitors, it makes your site easier to use by pointing them toward other relevant articles and pages, which can keep them engaged longer.
Beyond just navigation, internal links are critical for establishing your site’s structure and hierarchy. They help distribute what’s known as “link equity,” or authority, across your website. When a page with high authority links to another page, it passes some of that authority along. This can significantly boost the ranking of the linked page. This process helps search engines understand which pages are your most important pieces of content and how different topics on your site are related. Automating this process with an SEO tool can ensure your link equity is distributed effectively without constant manual work.
Explore SEMrush’s Internal Linking Tools
SEMrush offers a powerful suite of tools within its Site Audit feature specifically for analyzing and improving your internal links. By understanding these tools, you can get a clear picture of your site’s architecture and identify exactly where to make changes. This data is the foundation for building a stronger, more logical website structure that both users and search engines will appreciate. While manually managing this process with SEMrush is effective, for startups and agencies looking to scale, automating your internal linking strategy can save significant time and ensure consistent optimization.
Key Features
The Internal Linking Report within the Site Audit tool gives you several key metrics to work with. The tool identifies problems with your website’s internal links, categorizing them as errors, warnings, or notices, and provides clear solutions for each. You can see a page’s Internal LinkRank (ILR), a score from 0-100 that shows its importance based on internal links. The report also visualizes Pages’ Crawl Depth, showing how many clicks it takes to reach pages from your homepage. Pages that require four or more clicks can be difficult for search engines to index effectively. Additionally, graphs show the distribution of incoming and outgoing links, helping you spot pages that are either hoarding or starved for link equity.
How These Tools Improve Your Site
The quality and structure of your internal links directly impact your site’s search rankings and user experience. Using the Semrush Site Audit tool helps you analyze your website’s link architecture and find actionable ways to improve it. By fixing broken links, addressing orphaned pages, and ensuring important content receives enough link equity, you make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site. A well-organized site also helps users find what they need, which can lead to longer session durations and lower bounce rates—both positive signals for SEO. Regularly checking your internal links is key to maintaining a healthy site structure as you add new content.
How to Run a Site Audit with SEMrush
Before you can improve your internal linking, you need a clear picture of your site’s current state. The SEMrush Site Audit tool is your starting point for this process. It crawls your website just like a search engine would, giving you a comprehensive health report. This audit is the foundation for identifying technical issues, finding linking opportunities, and building a strategy that gets results. Running this audit regularly helps you maintain a healthy site structure and ensures both users and search engines can find your most important content.
Set Up and Run the Site Audit Tool
Getting started with the Site Audit tool is straightforward. First, you’ll create a project for your domain in SEMrush. From there, you can configure the audit settings, such as the crawl scope and schedule. Once you run the audit, the tool gets to work, scanning your site for over 140 common SEO issues. It specifically identifies pages with too few or too many internal links and flags any broken links that could be hurting your user experience and SEO. This initial scan gives you a prioritized list of issues to address, making it easy to know where to focus your efforts first.
Read the Internal Linking Report
After the audit completes, head to the Thematic Reports section and find the Internal Linking report. This is where you’ll get a detailed analysis of your site’s link architecture. The report features a key metric called Internal LinkRank (ILR), which scores your pages from 0 to 100 to show how important they are based on their internal links. A higher ILR score indicates a page receives more link equity and is perceived as more authoritative within your site. This data helps you understand which pages are well-connected and which ones need more attention.
Find and Fix Common Linking Issues
The Site Audit tool makes it easy to spot and resolve common problems. The report will highlight issues like broken internal links, which you should fix or remove immediately. It also flags other problems that can weaken your SEO, such as having too many links on one page, using nofollow attributes on internal links, discovering orphaned pages with no links pointing to them, and dealing with an excessive crawl depth that makes important pages hard for search engines to find. Regularly checking for these issues is crucial, and you can simplify this process with an SEO automation platform that handles the maintenance for you.
Find Internal Linking Opportunities with SEMrush
After running a site audit, SEMrush gives you the data you need to start making strategic improvements. The platform’s reports are designed to turn complex data into clear action items, showing you exactly where to focus your efforts. Instead of guessing which pages need attention, you can use these tools to pinpoint specific opportunities for better internal linking, from fixing broken links to strengthening your site’s overall architecture. This data-driven approach helps you make changes that have a real impact on your SEO performance.
Use the Internal Linking Report
The Internal Linking Report within the Site Audit tool is your command center for analyzing your link structure. This report doesn’t just list links; it helps you understand and fix problems. It includes features like Internal LinkRank (ILR), which scores a page’s importance based on its internal links. The report also organizes issues into errors, warnings, and notices, so you can prioritize what to fix first. By starting with the most critical errors, you can efficiently address the problems that are most likely holding your site back. This systematic approach ensures you’re spending your time on the fixes that matter most.
Find and Address Orphaned Pages
Orphaned pages are pages on your site that have no internal links pointing to them. Because search engine crawlers follow links to discover content, these pages are often invisible and unindexed. The Site Audit tool makes it easy to find these hidden pages. You should regularly check for orphaned pages, as fixing them can significantly improve your website’s SEO performance. Once you identify an orphaned page, the solution is straightforward: find one or more relevant, authoritative pages on your site and add a link to the orphaned content. This brings the page back into your site structure, allowing it to be crawled, indexed, and pass authority.
Find Pages That Need More Links
Some pages are part of your site structure but don’t have enough internal links to signal their importance to search engines. SEMrush’s Internal Linking report helps you analyze how links are distributed across your site. It shows you which pages have too few internal links and highlights content that needs more support to improve its visibility and authority. To fix this, identify your high-performing pages—like your homepage or popular blog posts—and add links from them to the pages that need a lift. For a more automated approach, MEGA AI’s SEO tools can automatically build internal links to ensure your most important content gets the attention it deserves.
Use Your Top Content for Internal Links
Not all pages on your website are created equal. Some pages attract significantly more traffic and backlinks than others, making them your site’s most valuable assets. A smart internal linking strategy involves using these high-authority pages to share their strength with other important pages on your site. Think of it as getting a helpful recommendation from your most trusted source.
By strategically adding links from your top-performing content to other relevant pages, you can pass along “link equity” and help that content rank higher in search results. This method helps search engines understand which of your pages are most important and how they relate to one another, creating a clear hierarchy for crawlers to follow. It’s a powerful way to show Google that you have a deep well of related content, which can improve your topical authority on key subjects. Manually identifying these pages and adding links can be time-consuming, but tools like SEMrush streamline the process. For businesses looking to put this on autopilot, platforms like MEGA AI’s SEO tool can automate the entire workflow, from identifying top pages to building the links for you, ensuring your site’s authority is always working for you.
Use the Organic Research Tool
The first step is to find out which of your pages are already winning with search engines. SEMrush’s Organic Research tool is perfect for this. By entering your domain, you can quickly generate a list of your pages that receive the most organic traffic. These are your power players.
To find them, navigate to the Organic Research tool and click on the “Pages” tab. This report will show you your top pages, the keywords they rank for, and the percentage of traffic they bring in. Pay close attention to the pages at the top of this list. These are the ones with the most authority to share, making them ideal candidates for adding internal links to other relevant content you want to improve.
Identify High-Traffic Pages
Once you have a list of your high-traffic pages, you need to make sure they are optimized to share their authority effectively. A page with a lot of traffic but broken links or a poor linking structure isn’t doing you any favors. This is where the SEMrush Site Audit tool comes in handy again.
Cross-reference your list of high-traffic pages with the Site Audit report to check for issues. The report will flag pages with broken internal links, too many links, or too few. Fixing these problems on your most popular pages is a high-impact task. Ensuring every link on these pages is healthy and functional helps preserve their authority and makes them more effective at passing value to other pages on your site.
Link To and From Popular Content
Now it’s time to connect your pages. The goal is to create a flow of authority from your strongest content to pages that need more visibility. Take the high-traffic pages you identified and find natural opportunities to link to other relevant, important pages on your site. For example, if you have a popular blog post about “social media marketing,” you could link from it to your “social media management services” page.
This strategy helps distribute ranking power across your website. According to SEMrush, linking from your most authoritative pages to less authoritative ones can give them a significant push in the search rankings. This creates a web of interconnected content that supports your entire site structure, signaling to Google that your content is comprehensive and valuable.
Follow Best Practices for Internal Linking
Knowing which pages to link is only half the battle. How you create those links is just as important for both user experience and SEO. Following a few core principles ensures your internal links are effective and help search engines understand your site’s structure and content hierarchy. These practices signal to Google which pages are most important and what they are about, which can directly influence your rankings.
Write Descriptive Anchor Text
The clickable text of a link, or anchor text, should give users and search engines clear context. Vague phrases like “click here” or “read more” are missed opportunities. Instead, your anchor text should accurately describe the page you’re linking to. As the experts at Backlinko note, “The words you use to create the link should describe what the linked page is about.” Using descriptive, keyword-rich anchor text helps Google understand the topic of the destination page, which can help it rank for those terms. While you should vary your anchor text to keep it looking natural, always aim for clarity and relevance. This simple practice makes your site easier for people to use and for search engines to crawl and index.
Create a Logical Link Structure
A well-organized website is easier for everyone to understand. Think of your site’s structure like a pyramid, with your homepage at the top and more specific pages branching out below. This is where the concept of topic clusters comes in. You can identify broad, comprehensive “pillar pages” that cover a main topic and link out to more detailed “cluster pages” that explore subtopics. This structure helps establish your site’s authority on a subject and creates a logical path for users to follow, keeping them on your site longer. A clear site architecture not only improves user experience but also helps search engine crawlers efficiently discover all of your content.
Balance Your Internal Link Distribution
Your most important pages should have the most internal links pointing to them, but you also need to make sure no page is left behind. Pages buried deep within your site—more than three or four clicks from the homepage—are harder for search engines to find and may be seen as less important. You can use the SEMrush Site Audit tool’s Internal Linking Report to get a clear picture of your site’s link architecture and identify pages with too few links. While manual audits are effective, an automated tool like MEGA AI’s SEO platform can continuously monitor and suggest linking improvements, ensuring your link equity is distributed effectively across your entire site without the manual effort.
Advanced Internal Linking Strategies with SEMrush
Once you’ve handled the basics, you can move on to more advanced internal linking tactics. SEMrush provides the data you need to implement sophisticated strategies that can give your site a serious competitive edge. These methods go beyond simply adding links; they involve strategically shaping your site’s architecture to build authority and guide search engines to your most important content. Two of the most effective advanced strategies are using Internal LinkRank for targeted fixes and building topic clusters to establish topical authority. This is where you shift from reactive link fixing to proactive site structuring.
By focusing on these advanced techniques, you’re telling search engines a clearer story about your website’s expertise. You’re not just connecting pages; you’re building a logical hierarchy that highlights your most valuable content and demonstrates deep knowledge in your niche. While SEMrush is excellent for identifying these opportunities and providing the necessary data, platforms like MEGA AI can then automate the process of building out these link structures and content hubs. This combination of smart analysis and automated execution is how you can scale a high-level SEO strategy without getting bogged down in manual tasks, allowing you to focus on the bigger picture.
Use Internal LinkRank (ILR) for Targeted Fixes
Inside your Site Audit report, you’ll find a metric called Internal LinkRank (ILR). This is a score from 0 to 100 that shows how important a page is based on its internal links. Pages with higher scores are seen as more authoritative. To make the biggest impact with the least effort, focus on pages that need the most help. Look for pages with a low ILR (below 10), those with very few incoming links, or pages that have too many outgoing links (over 100). These are prime candidates for targeted fixes. Adding relevant internal links to these pages can help optimize your internal linking and improve their visibility in search results.
Build Topic Clusters to Show Authority
A topic cluster is a powerful way to show search engines that you’re an expert on a particular subject. This model involves creating a central “pillar” page that provides a comprehensive overview of a broad topic. This pillar page then links out to more specific “cluster” pages that cover subtopics in greater detail. Identifying your pillar pages is the first step; these are often your most in-depth guides targeting high-volume keywords. By creating a network of internal links between your pillar and cluster content, you demonstrate strong topical relevance. This structure helps search engines understand your site’s authority on the subject, which can improve rankings for all the pages within the cluster.
Measure and Refine Your Internal Linking Strategy
An internal linking strategy isn’t a one-and-done task. Think of it as a living part of your website that needs regular attention to stay effective. As you add new content and as search engine algorithms evolve, your linking structure will need adjustments. Measuring your efforts helps you understand what’s working and where you can make improvements to support your SEO goals. By regularly checking key metrics in SEMrush, you can ensure your site remains easy for both users and search engines to explore.
Track Site Structure and Crawl Depth
A healthy site structure ensures that search engine crawlers can find and index all your important pages. One key metric to watch is crawl depth, which is the number of clicks it takes to reach a page from your homepage. According to SEMrush, pages that require four or more clicks are less likely to be indexed and ranked. You can find this information in the SEMrush Site Audit report.
Making a habit of running a monthly audit will help you maintain a healthy linking structure. Look for pages with a high crawl depth and find ways to link to them from pages closer to the homepage, like your top-level category pages. For businesses looking to streamline this process, tools that automate technical checks can continuously monitor your site’s health and flag these issues before they become a problem.
Monitor Search Rankings and User Engagement
Ultimately, the goal of a strong internal linking strategy is to improve your site’s performance. Better internal linking helps distribute page authority across your site, which can help more of your pages rank higher in search results. After you’ve implemented changes based on your SEMrush audit, keep an eye on your keyword rankings for the pages you’ve optimized.
You should also monitor user engagement metrics in tools like Google Analytics. An effective linking structure guides visitors to relevant content, keeping them on your site longer and reducing bounce rates. When users find it easy to explore your site, they engage more deeply with your content. This improved user experience sends positive signals to Google, reinforcing that your site provides value.
Avoid These Common Internal Linking Mistakes
Building a solid internal linking structure is a huge step forward, but a few common missteps can hold back your SEO progress. Even with a powerful tool like SEMrush, it helps to know what pitfalls to look for. Avoiding these mistakes ensures your links effectively guide both users and search engine crawlers through your site, helping them understand which content is most important and how your pages relate to one another. These errors are easy to make, especially when you’re managing a large website with hundreds of pages. They can quietly undermine your hard work by creating dead ends for search engine crawlers, confusing them about your site’s structure, or creating a poor user experience for your visitors. When crawlers get stuck or confused, they may not index all your important pages, which means those pages won’t show up in search results. For users, a broken link or a link to an irrelevant page is a frustrating dead end. While smart automation, like the tools offered by MEGA AI’s SEO platform, can streamline the process of finding and fixing these issues, a final check for relevance and context is always a good idea. Think of it as the final quality check that ensures every link serves a purpose and contributes positively to your overall SEO strategy.
Sending Users to Dead Ends
Two of the most common issues that create a poor user experience are broken links and the incorrect use of “nofollow” attributes. Broken links lead to 404 error pages, which is a frustrating dead end for visitors and a waste of valuable crawl budget for search engines. Similarly, adding a nofollow attribute to an internal link tells search engines not to follow it or pass authority, which defeats one of the main purposes of internal linking. You want to pass link equity between your pages to show Google which ones are most important. The SEMrush Site Audit tool is excellent for flagging both broken links and internal nofollowed links, so you can fix them quickly and keep your site healthy.
Using Unclear or Repetitive Anchor Text
Your anchor text—the clickable words in a hyperlink—gives users and search engines crucial context about the destination page. Vague phrases like “click here” or “read more” offer no SEO value and are not helpful for your readers. Instead, use descriptive anchor text that includes your target keyword when it makes sense. For example, link to your page about dog training with the anchor text “positive reinforcement dog training techniques.” It is also important to avoid using the exact same anchor text to link to different pages. This can confuse search engines about which page is the primary resource for that topic. Unique, descriptive anchor text helps Google understand your site structure clearly and improves the user’s ability to find what they need.
Forgetting That Quality Beats Quantity
It can be tempting to add as many internal links as possible to a page, but this can do more harm than good. A page overloaded with links can look spammy to search engines and overwhelm your readers, diluting the value of each individual link. Instead of focusing on the number of links, prioritize their quality and relevance. Each link should serve a clear purpose, guiding the user to another helpful piece of content on their journey. A few well-placed, contextual links are far more effective than dozens of random ones. Regularly auditing your internal links helps you maintain this balance and spot pages that might have too many or too few links, ensuring your strategy remains effective.
Related Articles
- Using Internal Links to Improve Site Structure and Boost SEO: Content Optimization Strategies – MEGA SEO | Blog
- Effective Internal Linking: Boost SEO for Category Pages
- Mastering the Art of SEO-Friendly Content: Best Practices for Internal and External Linking – MEGA SEO | Blog
- Internal Links: Boost Crawling & Indexing for SEO
- Deep Linking SEO: A Complete Guide for 2024
Frequently Asked Questions
I ran the SEMrush audit and have a long list of issues. Where should I start? Start with the most critical technical errors that SEMrush flags, like broken links that lead to 404 pages. These create dead ends for both your visitors and search engine crawlers. After fixing those, your next priority should be finding and linking to your orphaned pages. Since these pages have no incoming links, they are essentially invisible to search engines. Addressing these foundational issues first ensures your site is healthy before you move on to more strategic optimizations.
How often should I be checking and updating my internal links? For most websites, running a site audit and reviewing your internal links on a monthly basis is a solid routine. If you publish a high volume of new content or are making significant changes to your site structure, you might want to check more frequently. The goal is to make this a consistent part of your site maintenance so you can catch and fix issues before they negatively impact your performance.
Is there a difference between a “pillar page” and just a popular page on my site? Yes, there’s a strategic difference. A popular page is simply one that already receives a lot of traffic, which is great. A pillar page, however, is a piece of content intentionally designed to be a comprehensive hub for a major topic. While a pillar page often becomes popular, its primary purpose is to provide a broad overview and link out to more detailed “cluster” articles on subtopics. Think of it as the foundational chapter of a book you’re writing on a specific subject.
How many internal links are too many on a single page? There is no magic number for how many links a page should have. The focus should always be on relevance and the user’s experience, not just hitting a certain count. A good rule of thumb is to only add a link if it provides genuine value and context for the reader. If a page is crowded with links, it can look spammy and dilute the authority passed by each one. A few highly relevant links are always more effective than dozens of random ones.
Should I prioritize linking from a page with high traffic or one that is more relevant? The best internal links come from pages that are both high-traffic and highly relevant. However, if you have to choose between the two, relevance should always be your primary guide. Linking from an irrelevant but popular page can confuse your visitors and send mixed signals to search engines about what your content is about. Always prioritize creating a logical, helpful path for your user first. The SEO benefits will follow.
