Mastering Internal Linking - Search 'n Stuff Antalya Conference 2025

Internal linking isn’t a byproduct of your SEO efforts. It’s vital and deserves its place in your skillset.

This workshop is for SEOs of all levels, especially those working with bigger websites and struggling with problems such as:

- optimised content that's still not performing well

- high performing blog posts but less visible products

- low visibility gain of new products or pages.

After this workshop of just 30 minutes, you will be able to unlock the power of internal linking and:

- conduct a simple, but effective internal linking audit

- take the appropriate steps to prioritize and optimize internal linking for money pages

- incorporate internal linking into the content production process.

Transcript

1. Gabi Troxler SEO Consultant Mastering Internal Linking
2. AGENDA "The secret to getting ahead is getting started." PROBABLY NOT MARK TWAIN 1. How internal links work & why they're important 2. Debugging internal linking 3. Finding linking opportunities 4. Placing internal links
3. HTTPS://DRIVE.GOOGLE.COM/DRIVE/FOLDERS/ 1HOW_ABHTQWKC2FUXQN7NLD5ZJC70A2T-
4. OPTIONAL DOWNLOADS https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/search_analytics_for _sheets/1035646374811?hl=en
5. {GABI} consultant | trainer content strategy | technical seo | brand building https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriela-jennifer-troxler/
6. DO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SOUND FAMILIAR? ★ Your content is ✨optimized✨, but still not performing well. ★ You have high performing blog posts, but your product pages seem to take the downside. ★ New products take a long time or never fully reach the visibility of older ones.
7. HOW INTERNAL LINKS WORK • (Google) Bots and crawlers visit websites and follow links • Crawlers read anchor text (link text) and learn what is to be found on the target page • Internal links distribute authority across your web pages (pagerank) • The «deeper» a page is hidden, the less important it is deemed. The more links a page receives, the more importance it gains.
8. HOW INTERNAL LINKS BENEFIT SEO • Internal links help search engines and users to navigate a site efficiently and purposefully • Internal links provide (semantic) structure • Links improve performance (visibility, session duration, lower bounce rate etc.) improved crawling & indexing improved user experience keyword/topic/entity optimization
9. BUT WHERE'S THE EVIDENCE? ... we have strong correlations. https://zyppy.com/seo/seo-study/ Other strong cases by Inlinks, internallinking.io etc.
10. "LINK JUICE" SOME RULES 1. Only connect semantically related pages and pay attention to context. 2. Generally, make sure to link to all your pages. 3. The pages that get more links will perform better on average. 4. Regularly review your internal linking strategy and adapt as your site evolves.
11. BASIL PRODUCT CARE INSTRUCTIONS
12. ROSEMARY CARE INSTRUCTIONS
13. LINK PATHS Herb Light & watering conditions BASIL PRODUCT Cooking process BASIL PAGE
14. DEBUGGING INTERNAL LINKING
15. WHAT YOU CAN LOOK FOR IN A LINK AUDIT • Underperforming and/or buried pages
16. UNDERPERFORMING PAGES IN SEARCH CONSOLE
17. UNDERPERFORMING PAGES IN SEARCH CONSOLE Search Analytics for Sheets
19. ACTION • Make pages more accessible by “lifting” them out of the depths. • Consider adding them to the main navigation or other "shortcuts". • Keep your site architecture neat, your sitemap(s) up to date and your URLs under control.
20. WHAT YOU CAN LOOK FOR IN A LINK AUDIT • Underperforming and/or buried pages • Poorly linked pages
22. ACTION • Find linking opportunitites (up shortly)
23. WHAT YOU CAN LOOK FOR IN A LINK AUDIT • Underperforming and/or buried pages • Poorly linked pages • Orphan pages
24. ORPHAN URL • cannot be reached by following the internal links of a website. • can't be seen unless users land on the URL directly via other sources (external links, newsletters, bookmarks, sitemap etc.). • is way less likely to be found, crawled, indexed and ranked well by search engines & LLMs.
25. HOW CAN A CRAWLER (THAT FOLLOWS INTERNAL LINKS) FIND ORPHAN PAGES?
29. ACTION • Delete and 410 or 301 redirect these pages • OR make them more accessible, integrate them, fill them with life and links.
30. WHAT YOU CAN LOOK FOR IN A LINK AUDIT • Underperforming and/or buried pages • Poorly linked pages • Orphan pages • Non-descriptive anchor text • Nofollow links • JavaScript links • Backlinks
31. FINDING INTERNAL LINKING OPPORTUNITIES
32. WHEN YOU PUBLISH A NEW PRODUCT AND REALIZE YOU HAVE TO BUILD INTERNAL LINKS FOR PEOPLE TO FIND IT
33. WHERE TO FIND LINK OPPORTUNITIES • site: Operator vs. Internal Search • Threshold keywords in Google Search Console • Custom search in Screaming Frog • Using embeddings • Using n-grams
34. 1 result
37. up to 100
41. USING SCREAMING FROG AND EMBEDDINGS TO FIND INTERNAL LINKING OPPORTUNITIES HTTPS://MOZ.COM/BLOG/INTERNAL-LIN KING-OPPORTUNITIES-WITH-VECTOR-EMB EDDINGS Everett Sizemore Gus Pelogia Britney Muller Tory Gray
42. Target URL 5 Related URLs (calculated with vector embeddings) Do these 5 link to target URL or not? (calculated with inlinks data from SF)
47. ACTION • Set those links with keyword-rich anchor text.
48. PLACING THOSE INTERNAL LINKS
49. WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR WHEN PLACING INTERNAL LINKS • "Speaking" anchor text • Semantically & user journey related • Highlight important links (bold, italics, teaser boxes, buttons etc.) • Within the body, links that come first are more important • Only link to a given page once
50. (PARTLY) AUTOMATE THE PROCESS • Recurring elements (breadcrumbs, sidebars, related products, ...) • Dev work • Give a tool a try - but choose one with maximum manual control
51. WORDPRESS, FOR EXAMPLE Plugins • Internal Links Manager (free) set up keyphrases those will trigger an automatic link to a given page • Link Whisper Pro will make suggestions while writing find orphan pages set up keyphrases and automate internal linking
52. LET'S CONNECT. @gabriela-jennifer-troxler
53. DOWNLOAD THE SLIDES. @gabriela-jennifer-troxler