What Is an Internal Link? The Cheapest SEO Work There Is

In plain English

Internal links do three jobs: they help visitors move to what they need next, they help crawlers discover pages, and they distribute authority around the site.

Because they cost nothing and require nobody's permission, they are consistently the highest-return SEO work available and the most neglected.

What to know

Discovery

A page with no internal links pointing at it may never be crawled.

Authority flow

Links pass value, so the pages you link to most are the ones you are prioritising.

Context

Anchor text tells search engines what the target page is about.

Depth

Important pages should be a few clicks from the homepage, not buried.

Why it matters

Most sites have pages that deserve to rank and receive almost no internal links. Fixing that requires no new content, no outreach and no budget, which makes it the first thing to look at when a good page underperforms.

Common mistakes

×Linking only from the navigation and never from within content.

×Using generic phrases like click here as anchor text.

×Leaving new pages orphaned with no links pointing at them.

×Adding links mechanically rather than where a reader would want one.

FAQs

How many internal links per page?

As many as genuinely help the reader. There is no target number worth chasing.

Should anchor text always be the exact keyword?

It should describe the destination. Natural and descriptive beats repetitive and exact.

WRITTEN BY TARIQ SALLAM

Marketing Consultant. Entrepreneur. Content Creator.

I'm a marketing consultant, entrepreneur and content creator. I help businesses grow through practical marketing, websites, SEO, content and AI.

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