# What is Internal Linking?

What is Internal Linking? Links between pages on your site. Helps SEO (passing 'authority'), navigation, and guiding visitors from content to product pages.

## How it works in practice

Internal linking is your 'road map.' An article on 'how to choose running shoes' links to the 'running shoes' category, which links to a specific shoe. The visitor moves from content to consideration to purchase. Google also follows these links to understand your site's structure.

## Related metrics

- SEO — internal links pass PageRank
- Content Marketing — articles link to products
- Funnel — internal links guide visitors through the funnel
- Bounce Rate — internal links lower bounce rate

## Common misconception

'All links are equal.' Anchor text matters. 'Click here' as a link to a running-shoes page is weak. 'Running shoes for women' as the anchor text for the same page is strong. Google reads the link text to understand the linked page's topic.

## How to fix it

Internal links not lowering bounce rate? (1) Check relevance — are the links topically connected? (2) check placement — links within the body text outperform footer links, (3) check anchor text — descriptive text containing keywords, (4) add 'related products' and 'related articles' to every page.

## Real-world example

A bookstore had 80 blog posts with no internal links to product pages. Adding 2-4 relevant product links to each post raised pages-per-session from 1.4 to 2.8. Organic-to-product-page traffic rose 67%.

## Where to start

Run an internal-link audit: check every product page — how many internal links point to it? Top-seller pages with fewer than 5 internal links need immediate attention. Tool: Screaming Frog → Internal Links Report.

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Category: SEO · From the [Jimmy OS KPI Glossary](https://jimmy-os.com/glossary/kpi.md) · Source page: https://jimmy-os.com/glossary/kpi/internal-linking