How to Improve Internal Linking on Your Blog

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For most bloggers, internal linking is a “let’s wing it” process.  Think of the recent posts you’ve made, and where they fit, and insert them into the post. This isn’t an efficient process, and more than likely, you’re missing plenty of good opportunities to link out!

The thing is, our brains are generally more preoccupied with things like the post itself to be too concerned over where we can throw in links to our own posts. However, there are probably many spots that you’re missing where you could throw in a few more links and get some more pageviews out of your visitor.

The best way to do this is by creating a spreadsheet to catalog your recent entries. In it, you should sort by each major category on your blog. With each category, create a column for post titles, tags, and the URL of the posts. URLs should be last, so you can see the most important “brain trigger” parts – the title and post tags – together.

Here’s an example from my personal blog, recently started:

Fill out this spreadsheet for every entry of your blog. Hopefully, you haven’t created too many pieces of content, but even if you have, the effort is worth the payout.

When you start working on a post, open up your text editor and split the windows. You’ll have the dictation of every post on the left or right, whichever you prefer, and the post you’re creating on the opposite side. Have the category page open for the most relevant part of your blog.

The bigger and more impressive your blog, the more creative you can get with this spreadsheet process. I suggest creating a master tab for all of your posts. If you’re blog is shallow, you can have this open. You can search and sort by various tags for better ideas of what to throw in a post, or find posts that mention certain people or subjects.

The possibilities are endless. The point, though, is to organize the posts you’ve created in a way that you can best manage their content in an efficient manner, and use it to better insert them in your new posts and create an optimal internal linking process.

Ross is a Senior SEO Analyst who runs an Authentic Marketing blog. You should follow him on Twitter here.