Internal Linking Case Studies
Internal Linking Case Studies
9 public internal linking case studies to help you drive SEO traffic.
To receive articles like this, please subscribe to The SEO Sprint 👇.
Internal linking is a superpower in SEO.
Internal linking tactics have been found to increase SEO traffic from anywhere between 50% - 200% across different industries. It’s one of the most powerful tactics to drive SEO traffic and revenue.
Yet, what internal linking methods drive the most traffic?
It can be difficult to identify opportunities in a sea of information on Google or Twitter. Which ones do you trust?
Don't worry because I'm here to help.
I’ve gone through the SEO case study database to identify 9 public internal linking case studies. All these case studies show the tactics used and the impact of the work. They can all help you generate new ideas for your own SEO campaign.
Here is what I want you to do:
Bookmark this newsletter
When you need to generate new internal linking ideas
Return to this newsletter and start identifying new opportunities
Are you like me and busy? Don’t worry because if you scroll down you can see I’ve summarised some key takeaways from all 9 case studies.
⚡ 9 Takeaways from SEO Case Studies
Low on time? No problem.
I’ve identified 9 key takeaways from the internal linking case studies and studies which can help you generate new ideas:
🔗 Adding internal links drives SEO traffic - (No surprise) Both studies and case studies show that increasing internal links to important pages is a powerful tactic to drive more SEO traffic to pages.
🧠 Link with purpose - It is important to link with purpose; SEO case studies show companies don’t just increase the number of internal links to important pages without a plan.
🔢 Anchor text variation - Studies of millions of internal links show that pages with anchor text variations correlate with more Google search traffic.
🖱️ Reduce click-depth - Reducing click-depth from popular pages (e.g. homepage) on a website is key to helping drive more SEO traffic to pages.
🎈 Reducing internal link bloat - It’s important to reduce the number of unnecessary and low-value internal links on each page template.
🧑💻 Server-side render internal links - Many case studies show the importance of ensuring internal links can be found in the raw HTML on large websites (and not just rendered client-side).
📈 Internal links from popular pages - Studies have shown that it is important to add relevant internal links to popular pages that are getting traffic and external links.
⚔️ Cross-linking between relevant pages - Many case studies have shown that cross-linking between relevant pages and hubs is a quick win to drive SEO traffic to destination and donor pages.
📃 Combining internal linking with content strategy - Integrating templates into your content strategy to automatically use internal link best practices is a powerful way to link with purpose at scale.
Note: As with any website change, I highly recommend testing any changes you make using SEO split testing to look, like SEOTesting.com, Big Metrics and SearchPilot.com.
15 Tips for Site Architecture SEO
Result: +175% in SEO traffic and conversions in 2 months
Author: Cyrus Shepard
Topic: Website architecture
Website: E-commerce
Cyrus Shepard provides a great case study on how he optimised the website architecture of an e-commerce website by making simple, smart and powerful link architecture changes.
Tactics used to help boost SEO traffic and conversions included:
Optimising the main navigation for user intent
Reduce click depth of key pages through internal linking
Cross-linking contextually between relevant pages
Optimising pagination link design to reduce click depth
Leveraging HTML sitemaps
Optimising breadcrumb navigation
Reducing link bloat across the website
Varying anchor text in the link architecture of the website
Maximising first link priority of important pages
I’d highly recommend checking out Cyru’s post for ideas on optimising the internal link architecture of an e-commerce website 👇.
What Data Says About 1 Million Internal Links And How You Can Use It To Improve Your Rankings
Result: Plenty of insights into what internal link factors make pages rank in the top 1-3
Author: Michal Ugor
Topic: Website architecture
Website: Study of 1 million internal links
The team at Authority Hacker studied 1 million internal links to understand better how to improve internal links on a website.
Many insights stood out from this study, but some of the ones that jumped out for me were:
Top-ranking pages have more internal links (or variety in the anchor text)
Top-ranking pages get internal links from pages that get a lot of external links
Top-ranking pages have a great number of partial match anchor text
What is fascinating about these findings is that many were found in a much larger internal link study by Cyrus Shepard: 23 Million Internal Links – SEO Case Study.
I’d highly recommend checking out Michal’s internal link study for insights on what internal link methods help drive SEO traffic 👇.
How an Overlooked SEO Tactic Delivered 33% Traffic Growth
Result: 33% Y/Y organic traffic
Author: Griffin Roer
Topic: Website architecture
Website: SaaS
This is one of my favourite case studies. The team at UpRoer explained the impact of making simple internal link changes on IFTT.com. The changes they made are clearly explained with examples, AND they provide insights from the client's perspective.
Simple changes they made included:
Moving JavaScript internal links to server-side
HTML Sitemaps
Redesign pages to include internal links
Combine content plan with internal linking strategy
Remove nofollow from important internal links
I’d highly recommend checking out Griffin’s internal link case study if you’re working in a SaaS business and want to spot opportunities 👇.
My 2021 Case Studies: Popular jewellery brand Case Study
Result: +100% increase in SEO traffic
Author: Sam Underwood
Topic: Website architecture
Website: E-commerce
Sam Wonderwood talks about a one-off project he did for a client that included making simple internal link changes to the website. Sam provides a great explanation of exactly what he does to get this result.
Simple internal link changes he and the client made included:
Fixing internal links that canonicalise
Cross-linking category pages
Optimising breadcrumb navigation
I’d highly recommend checking out Sam’s case study if you’re working on improving an e-commerce website 👇.
The real SEO impact of internal linking changes
Result: +25% uplift in SEO traffic
Author: Emily Potter
Topic: Website architecture
Website: E-commerce
The team at SearchPilot are well known for their SEO Testing case studies showing the impact of making changes to enterprise websites. Emily explains the team's cross-linking experiment on the Iceland Grocery website across level 2 and 3 category pages.
I’d highly recommend checking out Emily’s case study if you want to show the value of cross-linking between e-commerce category pages 👇.
State of Pagination in eCommerce
Result: +50% increase in SEO traffic
Author: Orit Mutznik
Topic: Website architecture
Website: E-commerce
Orit Mutznik provides one of the most in-depth case studies on pagination SEO in e-commerce I have ever read. Based on my State of Pagination SEO study, Orit did her own research and analysis and implemented it with her technical team at Silkfred.
Simple internal link changes made to the pagination link design included:
Server-side rendered pagination links
Reducing the click depth by allowing paginated pages to be crawled.
Use final destination URLs that are canonical of the page.
I’d highly recommend checking out Orit’s in-depth case study and the lessons she learned in improving pagination on an e-commerce website 👇.
The Importance of Internal Linking to Boost Site Performance and UX
Result: +116% increase in SEO revenue
Author: Seer Interactive
Topic: Website architecture
Website: E-commerce
A short and sharp case study from the Seer Interact team on the impact of making simple internal linking changes to the website. What I liked about this case study is that the team provides a breakdown of how they used a bespoke PowerBi tool to identify internal linking opportunities.
I like the tagline: Internal linking with purpose.
I’d highly recommend checking out Seer Interactive’s case study 👇.
Will increasing the number of related article links help with SEO?
Result: +11% uplift in organic traffic
Author: Rida Abidi
Topic: Website architecture
Website: E-commerce
Rida over at SearchPilot provides a great case study on what happens when you increase the number of internal article links on content hub pages. What I like about SearchPilot is that it can determine whether adding these links improves donor and recipient pages.
The test was simple, increase the number of related articles' internal links across the e-commerce website’s content hubs. The result was a positive outcome for both the donor and recipient pages.
I’d highly recommend checking out Rida’s case study if you want to show the value of related article linking on content hub pages for e-commerce websites 👇.
The tale of two internal link tweaks
Result: Increase in top 10 rankings for target keywords
Author: Dave Davies
Topic: Website architecture
Website: E-commerce
An old case study, and less in-depth than the others, but Dave Davies still shows the power of making simple internal link changes to an e-commerce website. Like the others, Dave provides an example of the change made on the website.
The simple changes included:
Linking to sub-categories from the homepage
Linking to key product pages from the homepage
Reducing link bloat to low-value subcategory pages
I’d highly recommend checking out Dave’s case study if you want to see the value of adding subcategories and product links to an e-commerce homepage 👇.
📌 Summary
I hope you find these internal link case studies useful and that they help you generate ideas to drive SEO traffic and revenue for your own website (regardless of the industry).
Reverse engineering case studies, experiments and studies of smart SEOs are a great way to help improve your SEO sense and identify new opportunities to improve your own website.
I’d also recommend testing out any internal link changes using SEO testing tools like:
SEOTesting.com
Big Metrics
SearchPilot
Note: Anyone who buys the SEO Case Study Database gets exclusive 75 days of SEO Testing tool free trials or 1:1 SEO testing consultancy with Will Critchlow.
💽 The SEO Case Study Database
Check out the SEO Case Study database if you want access to a curated list of SEO case studies, experiments, and studies. This database is for SEO professionals working in in-house, agency and freelance roles, who want to:
✅ Validate recommendations - Allow SEO professionals to validate SEO recommendations with a wide range of data-supported evidence from the largest collection of publicly accessible case studies.
✅ Get buy-in - Allow SEO professionals to have quick access to evidence that can get teams bought into recommendations and strategies based on real-world data.
✅ Generate new ideas - Allow SEO professionals to reverse engineer SEO case studies, experiments and studies to identify brand-new opportunities or tests to increase SEO traffic and revenue.
How did I do this week?
If you enjoyed reading this article, then consider the following:
📰 Share — Please share the newsletter with your network or colleagues if you think they might find it useful!
✉️ Subscribe to The SEO Sprint newsletter — if you haven’t already, then please consider subscribing to the newsletter.
Internal Linking Case Studies
We use pretty links for automated internal linking - what do you use Adam?