Internal linking for WordPress: a practical strategy

Why internal links matter

An internal link is any link from one page on your site to another. Your menu, footer, breadcrumbs and the links inside your content are all internal links. They do three jobs for SEO:

• Discovery. Search engines find pages by following links. A page with no links pointing to it may be found late, or not at all, even if it's in your sitemap.
• Context. The words you link with, and the page you link from, tell search engines what the linked page is about and which topics belong together.
• Priority. Pages with more internal links pointing to them, especially from strong pages, are treated as more important. You're telling search engines where to focus.

They also help readers, which matters just as much. A good link takes someone to the next thing they want to know, keeps them on your site and moves them closer to buying, signing up or getting in touch.

Menu links aren't enough

Your navigation links every page to a handful of top-level pages, and that's useful. But navigation is the same on every page, so it says little about how individual pages relate. The links inside your content carry far more context, because they sit in sentences about a specific topic. That's where most of your internal linking work should go.

Plan with topic clusters

The most reliable structure for internal links is the topic cluster.

1. Choose a cornerstone page for each topic. It's your most complete, most important page on a subject, such as a full guide or a main service or category page. In Rilea SEO, mark it as cornerstone content in the editor.
2. Write supporting posts around it. Each one covers a narrower question in depth: one aspect, one problem, one comparison.
3. Link every supporting post to the cornerstone. Use anchor text that describes the cornerstone's topic.
4. Link the cornerstone to every supporting post. The cornerstone becomes a hub that sends readers to the detail.
5. Link related supporting posts to each other where it genuinely helps the reader.

The result is a clear signal: this is our main page on the topic, and here's everything that supports it. It also stops your own pages competing with each other for the same searches, because each has a clear role.

An example

A garden centre might have a cornerstone guide called "How to grow tomatoes". Supporting posts cover choosing a variety, growing from seed, feeding, common diseases and growing in pots. Each links back to the main guide, and the guide links out to each one at the relevant section.

Writing good anchor text

Anchor text is the clickable text of a link. It's one of the strongest hints you can give about the linked page.

• Describe the destination. "our guide to fixing duplicate content on Shopify" is far more useful than "read more here".
• Keep it natural. Write the sentence for the reader first, then link the words that describe the page.
• Vary it a little. Linking with exactly the same keyword phrase every time looks unnatural. Use variations that still describe the page.
• Keep it short. A few words is usually enough. Linking a whole sentence dilutes the signal.

Where to place links

Links near the top of the main content tend to be seen and clicked more than links buried at the end. Place your most important links where they make sense early in the text, and add a related reading section at the end for anything else.

There's no fixed number of links per page. Add a link wherever it genuinely helps the reader take the next step. On a 1,500-word post, that's often somewhere between five and fifteen contextual links, but the right number is whatever makes the page more useful.

Find and fix the gaps

Most established sites don't need a new strategy as much as a clean-up. Three problems are worth looking for.

Orphaned pages

An orphaned page has no internal links pointing to it. Search engines may struggle to find it, and readers can't reach it except through search or the sitemap. Orphans are common on older sites: posts written once and never linked again, landing pages from old campaigns, products added after a category was set up.

Fix orphans first. For each one, decide whether it deserves to exist. If it does, link to it from its cornerstone page and from two or three related posts. If it doesn't, redirect it to the closest relevant page.

Stale pages

Stale pages are old pages that haven't been updated in a long time but still matter. They often have links pointing to them but carry out-of-date information. Updating them and linking them to your newer content can lift both.

Pages with too few links

Your cornerstone pages should be among the most linked pages on your site. If a key page has only one or two internal links, it's not getting the signal it deserves.

Finding gaps in WordPress

Checking links by hand is impractical beyond a few dozen pages. Rilea SEO does the counting for you:

• Link counts for every post show how many internal links point in and out, so you can spot weakly linked pages at a glance.
• Link Insights lists orphaned content and stale content, so you know exactly what to fix first.
• Suggestions as you write show related posts you could link to while you're editing, using your existing content.

Combine those with cornerstone flags and you can see whether your most important pages are actually the best linked.

Mistakes to avoid

• Linking to redirects. If a page has moved, update your internal links to point straight to the new URL instead of relying on the redirect.
• Linking to noindexed or deleted pages. It wastes the link and frustrates readers.
• Automatic links everywhere. Plugins that turn every mention of a keyword into a link create cluttered, unnatural pages. Choose links deliberately.
• Exact-match anchors on every link. Natural variation reads better and looks more trustworthy.
• Forgetting products and categories. On a store, link from guides and posts to the categories and products they mention.

A simple monthly routine

1. Check the orphaned content list and link or redirect anything new on it.
2. For each post published that month, add links to it from two or three older related posts.
3. Check that each cornerstone page links to its newest supporting posts.
4. Review one stale page: update it and refresh its links.

Half an hour a month keeps your site well connected, and the benefits compound over time.

The bottom line

Internal linking isn't complicated. Group your content into topics, make one page the hub of each, link with descriptive words and keep checking for pages you've left behind. Rilea SEO's internal linking tools show you where the gaps are, free.