Internal links: what they do for your SEO and how to place them automatically

Internal links are links from one page on your website to another page on the same website. They do two things for your SEO. Google finds your pages through them. And the anchor text tells Google and your visitor what the page is about.

A link in your menu is an internal link, and so is a link in the text of a blog post. This article is mainly about that second kind. You place those yourself, with the words you choose. It is part of our WordPress SEO guide.

What do internal links do for your SEO?

Internal links help Google find and understand your pages. They also send visitors to the pages that bring you customers. Google is clear about it in its explanation of links: every page you care about should get a link from at least one other page on your site.

The anchor text, the clickable words, does the rest. Say your blog post “What does a new fence cost?” links to your service page with the words “fence installation in Charlotte”. Then Google and your reader know what they will find there. If it links with “click here”, they know nothing.

A third effect: with internal links you decide which pages get attention. Backlinks from other sites are only partly in your control. Your own links are.

A link has to be a real link

Google can only reliably follow links that are in the HTML as an <a> element with an href. A button that jumps to another page with JavaScript may be missed. Was your menu built with a page builder? Have your web developer check that they are real links.

How to build an internal link structure

At the top is one main page that covers a topic broadly. Below it are pages that each go deep on one sub-question. The main page and the pages below link to each other, both ways. Between the pages below, you only add a link when the reader really benefits.

For a landscaper in Charlotte it looks like this:

• Landscaping in Charlotte (the main page)
  • Patios and pavers in Charlotte (service page)
  • Fence installation in Charlotte (service page)
  • What does a new yard cost per square foot? (blog post)
  • Pavers or grass: what fits a small city yard? (blog post)

Every page below links to the main page, with anchor text such as “backyard landscaping in Charlotte”. The main page links to every page below, at the spot where that topic comes up. The cost post links to “Pavers or grass”, because that choice drives the price. And the main page links to the quote page, because that is where the reader should go.

Yoast calls that top page cornerstone content. Yoast’s advice is the same: link from every article on the topic to the main page, and from the main page back to each article.

This article is an example itself. It sits under our main page on WordPress SEO, next to the articles on alt text and the meta description.

How many internal links per page?

There is no fixed number. Google says there is no ideal number of links per page. It adds: if you think it is too many, it probably is. Our rule of thumb:

Type of page	Links in the body text	Where to
Blog post of about 1,500 words	3 to 8	The topic’s main page, 1 or 2 related articles, 1 service or product page
Service page	2 to 5	Articles that answer the customer’s doubts, the quote or contact page
Category page in an online store	2 to 4	A buying guide, related categories
Main page of a topic	To every page on that topic	Plus the most important service page

Watch two things. Link to the same target page only once per article. A second link with different text only adds noise. And do not put links right next to each other. Google advises against it, and a row of links tells the reader nothing.

Anchor text: right and wrong

Good anchor text describes the target page, is reasonably short and fits the sentence it sits in. That is how Google describes it. For the landscaper in Charlotte:

Wrong	Right	Why
Click here	fence installation in Charlotte	Says what is behind the link
Read more	what a new yard costs per square foot	The reader knows why they click
/services/driveway-pavers-charlotte/	pavers for your driveway	Nobody reads a URL aloud
The whole sentence “With every new yard we also build the patio, with pavers you choose in our display garden”	patio installation	Only the part that describes the target page
cheap landscaper Charlotte yard install best	landscaper in Charlotte	Google advises against stacking keywords
This page	our prices for yard maintenance	Descriptive, also out of context
“pavers” pointing to two different pages	One fixed target page per topic	Otherwise Google does not know which page is about pavers
A logo or photo as a link without alt text	Alt text that says where the link goes	For an image link, Google uses the alt as anchor text

Vary, but keep the core. Yoast advises natural variations, and that is right. “Fence installation”, “getting a new fence put in” and “fence installation in Charlotte” all point to the same page. Ten times the exact same phrase reads like a robot.

Finding orphan pages

An orphan page is a page no internal link points to. You find them by putting two lists side by side: all your pages, and the pages that links point to. According to Yoast, such a page becomes almost invisible to search engines. On a WordPress site they appear by themselves. Think of an old promotion page, a landing page for an ad or a post without a category.

How to deliberately connect pages about one topic is in topic clusters.

There are four ways to track them down:

1. Yoast SEO Premium has an orphaned content filter on the overview of your posts and pages.
2. Rank Math PRO has an Orphan Posts tab in AI Link Genius, listing pages with no incoming internal links.
3. Link Whisper shows a report with orphan pages and your link distribution, also in the free version.
4. You can do it by hand. Put the URLs from your XML sitemap, the list of all your pages for Google, in a spreadsheet. Next to it, put the export of internally linked pages from Search Console. Whatever is only in the first column is a candidate.

What do you do with an orphan page? If it is useful, link to it from the main page or a related article. If it is an old promotion from 2023, remove it or redirect it to a page that is correct. We advise against keeping a useless page alive with links just because it exists.

Checking internal links in Search Console

Search Console’s Links report shows which pages of your site are internally linked most often. Click a URL in that list and you see which pages link to it. That is in Google’s explanation of the Links report.

Keep the limits in mind. Google names three. The report is a sample, so it does not show every link. Tables show at most 1,000 rows. And the report includes links Google found over time, so a link you removed last week may still show for a while.

What to look for? Check whether your most important service pages are at the top. For the landscaper those are Landscaping, Patios and pavers, and Fence installation. Are your tag pages, privacy policy and contact page leading the list? That happens easily, because they sit in the menu and footer. Then you know links in the body text are missing. Have not connected Search Console yet? First read how to connect Search Console.

Internal links in WordPress: by hand or with a plugin?

By hand for a small site, with help for a larger one. These are the best-known options, with what they do according to their own documentation.

Option	What it does	Price (October 2026)
By hand	You choose every link and every anchor text	Free, costs time
Yoast SEO Premium	Shows suggestions in the editor based on the main words in your text; you drag or copy the link in yourself. Plus the orphaned content filter	$118.80 a year
Rank Math PRO with AI Link Genius	AI suggestions in the editor, automatic links per keyword (approve yourself or automatic), bulk link edits with preview and undo, orphan pages and link status	From $7.99 a month, billed yearly
Link Whisper	Free: suggestions in the editor and an orphan report. Premium: add incoming links to old or orphaned pages, automatic links per keyword, find broken links	Free version, Premium paid

Our advice per situation:

• Fewer than 30 pages? Do it by hand. You know your site and you are done in an afternoon.
• Using Yoast and writing regularly? The suggestions in Yoast SEO Premium fit your workflow well, because you keep choosing.
• Using Rank Math with many old articles? AI Link Genius is strong for bulk cleanup. Start with the suggestions. Only turn on automatic links once you have checked the keyword list.
• Hundreds of old articles that no longer get incoming links? Link Whisper Premium is built for that.

Still choosing a plugin? Read our overview of WordPress SEO plugins.

What goes wrong with automatic linking?

Automatic linking goes wrong as soon as a tool links on words instead of meaning. A tool does not know that “the city’s sidewalk pavers” is different from “getting pavers for your driveway”. These are the mistakes you then see.

Wrong anchors

A rule “pavers links to /pavers” places a link in a sentence about the city working on the street. Or the word “fence” in a paragraph about maintenance links to your quote for a new fence.

Too many links

Every occurrence of a keyword becomes a link. A 1,200-word article suddenly fills up with blue words. Rank Math lets you set a maximum per post. Set it to one.

Links to pages that do not deserve attention

Think of an old promotion page, a tag page without content or a service you no longer offer. Or a page you deliberately keep out of Google. A tool that links on words links there just as happily.

Two pages for the same topic

Have a blog post and a service page about pavers? Then the tool splits the word “pavers” across both. Google gets no clear signal about which page matters most. Pick one.

Links that stay after the page is gone

Delete a page and automatic links to it sometimes stay. Visitors then hit an error page. Check your link status after every cleanup round.

So arrange four things before you turn on automatic linking:

1. A list of pages that may receive extra links.
2. At most one link per target page per article.
3. A sample of twenty links after the first round.
4. A way to undo.

How GreatCompany places internal links for you

With Automatic, GreatCompany prepares up to 5 improvements for your WordPress site every Monday and applies them. Internal links are part of that, next to titles, descriptions and alt text. Take the landscaper in Charlotte. The post “What does a new fence cost?” does not link to the service page anywhere. After the Monday round, the paragraph about price has a link with the text “fence installation in Charlotte”.

Also read what you can automate besides internal links.

A link somewhere you do not want it? You remove it with one click. Want to see every link first? Then every proposal arrives by email and you choose Yes or No. You connect with the GreatCompany plugin for WordPress, without handing over your WordPress password.

Want to know where your whole site is leaving points on the table? Read how to improve your SEO step by step.