SEO · 1 Oct 2021 · 4 min read
Internal links and backlinks: what actually moves your rankings
Most people looking after a website know backlinks matter. Internal links — links between pages on your own site — get far less attention and do a surprising amount of the same work, for both search engines and the visitor trying to find their way around.
Both are worth doing deliberately. Here is what each is for.
Internal linking
Internal linking is hyperlinking from one page on your site to another on the same domain. A page can carry several, as long as each sits on relevant, natural anchor text rather than being wedged in. Three or four per page is usually enough — past that it starts to look like manipulation rather than navigation.
It spreads authority. External backlinks build a domain’s overall standing; internal links are what move it to the pages that need it. A well-linked page passes some of its own strength to the pages it points at.
It explains your structure. A clear internal linking structure tells crawlers which pages matter and how they relate. The more a page is linked to from elsewhere on the site, the more likely a search engine is to treat it as important.
It lifts your key pages. A page frequently linked to from elsewhere on your own site outperforms one buried with nothing pointing at it. If a landing page converts well, make sure it is part of the linking structure rather than isolated.
It helps the reader. Good anchor text sends someone to genuinely related content — the article that already answers the question they are forming — rather than a generic “click here”.
It increases pageviews. Useful internal links keep visitors moving through the site instead of leaving after one page. If a page already gets strong search traffic, linking it to related pages is one of the more reliable ways to pass some of that on.
It speeds up indexing. Crawlers follow internal links to find pages that would otherwise sit buried. A strong structure means those pages get found and indexed faster.
Backlinks: quality over quantity
A backlink is a link from someone else’s page into yours. Search engines use them both to discover content and to judge how to rank it.
They count how many point at you — one signal of authority on a topic — but they weigh where those links come from just as heavily. One link from a site your industry respects says more than a dozen from sites nobody does. A pile of poor-quality backlinks actively signals that your site keeps bad company.
Where quality links actually come from
For a local business, these categories consistently produce links worth having:
- Directories relevant to your niche and your locality
- Major social networks
- Professional associations in your industry
- Government directories (
.gov), especially if you supply or contract for government work - Educational sites (
.edu) — alumni pages and similar - Non-profit sites (
.org), where your business supports community projects - Local community websites
- Established blogs in your niche
- Complementary businesses — a golf coach linking to a golf equipment retailer
- Your own clients’ websites, blogs and social accounts
- Online newspapers, magazines, trade publications and professional journals covering your business or your location
- Article directories, provided the author bio carries a real link
Who should write the content that earns them
Links are earned by content people want to pass on, and that is where most blog programmes come apart. Generic advice does not build a returning readership. First-hand experience does.
Consider a logistics company where a driver wants advice on delivery and inventory systems. Another driver is not the best source. Somebody from the project-handling side, who understands the systems, has far more useful input.
The same applies to any business trying to build an audience. Competitors who have been publishing for years already have a relationship with the readers you want, and the only way to compete for them is with genuinely specialised advice. Compelling content and the right keywords drive traffic, but the phrases that do it come from someone who knows the subject well enough to write about it convincingly.
The short version
Fix internal linking first — it is entirely within your control and costs nothing. Then earn external links with content worth linking to, and stop counting them.
For more on what else decides whether a page ranks, see why your website is not ranking on Google.