Internallinks (also called anchor text optimization) are used in onpage optimization specifically to improve keyword rankings. This is es a deliberately placed reference from one URL to another URL of the same domain. This link can be made in the form of navigation elements and further reading recommendations (for example, "similar articles").
If the internal links are integrated into the body text, they are referred to as clickable anchor texts. Via these, visitors are redirected to thematically related content. From the perspective of the search engine bots, the internal links are understood as crawl instructions - we also like to call es directions. As soon as the bot misses the link, it follows it to the specified target URL. Internal links affect both usability and search engine rankings. They should therefore always be included as part of strategies for targeted search engine optimization (SEO).
By the way, backlinks from external websites are not counted as internal links.
Links of all kinds are among the important levers to influence SEO and especially the keyword ranking of a website. In the case of internal links, sparsely visited subpages are made traceable for the search engine. In addition, the number of internal links provides information about which pages of a particular domain are given the greatest importance. This also has a positive effect on the ranking and indexing of URLs. Internal links can also be used to further distribute the "link juice" inherited from external domains from main pages to sub-pages. An obvious advantage over backlinks is that they can be set autonomously.
Targeted optimization of anchor texts maximizes the benefits of internal linking. A meaningful anchor text contains clear information about the topic to which the linked URL is dedicated. If this information is systematically enriched with selected keywords, it communicates to the search engine for which terms the page is preferentially ranked. Such optimized anchor texts are therefore much more useful from an SEO point of view than unspecific formulations (for example, "read more here"). In general, the keywords should be placed at the beginning of the anchor text.
Apart from anchor text optimization, there are other ways to improve the structure of internal links. For example, the number of internal links on a page should not be driven up excessively. On the one hand, the user experience suffers, on the other hand, the webbot no longer knows which target URLs are prioritized. It should also be noted that if there are several consecutive internal links to the same page, the first of them is weighted the highest and therefore has priority in the optimization. Important internal links should also be inserted as prominently as possible and not placed at the edge of the website.