How Many Internal Links Should You Have?
You’ve built your website, uploaded your content – now you just need to add in your internal links. But how many should you add? This is something that can leave many website owners a little flummoxed. We’re providing a simple answer right here.
Can you have too many internal links on a page?
To quote Google: “More than 100 internal links on a single page is excessive.”
John Mueller clarified that having too many links dilutes their value. So, it pays to be fussy! Make sure only the best ones make the final cut.
You want to bolster each page for SEO, but you don’t want to appear too spammy. Keeping below 100 should keep search engines happy and your website rankings buoyant.
If you think you’ve overdone it a little on existing web pages, you can always perform an internal link audit. This will help identify pages that have an excessive number of links and highlight any that are pointing to less important pages.
The key takeaway here is that having over 100 internal links will dilute their value.
But how many should you use?
As a general rule of thumb, adding roughly one internal link for every 50-100 words is a safe bet.
How to prioritise your internal linking
If employed correctly, internal linking should help with SEO.
There are four main types of internal links to know about:
- Contextual links – Directs the user to related information that they are likely to want or need.
- Navigational links – Guide the user to where they want to go on your website.
- Footer links – Added to the static block at the bottom of your website. Examples include Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policies and Contact Us.
- Image links – Images can really catch the eye of your website visitors. Using them to help visitors navigate your website can pay off. Just bear in mind that search engines can read text based links more easily.
It’s all about relevancy. If the page you’re linking to isn’t relevant or won’t help to navigate the user to where they want to go, then you should question whether you need an internal link.
It’s not just the links alone that will get you the SEO boost you’re looking for. There are also an abundance of rules to follow for anchor text optimisation.
