Link Whisper: Improve Your Internal Linking Strategy

Internal linking is key to building up your site’s page views and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). However, especially when it comes to large sites with many posts, it can be hard to find the best connections between your pieces.

Fortunately, with Link Whisper, you can easily find posts related to other content on your site. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI), the plugin suggests links for both new and old pieces, helping you guide readers throughout your site.

In this article, we’ll introduce you to Link Whisper and its key features. Then we’ll discuss three ways you can use it to improve your site’s internal linking strategy. Let’s get to it!

An Introduction to Link Whisper and Its Benefits

Link Whisper is a contextual internal linking plugin.

The Link Whisper homepage.

Using AI, it finds existing content on your site that is relevant to particular phrases within other posts and pages. It then makes suggestions for linking between these pieces, and supplies recommended anchor text as well.

This is helpful not only while you’re writing new posts for your site, but also for updating older content. Link Whisper saves you countless hours you would otherwise have to spend analyzing your posts and searching for opportunities to connect them.

By making it easier to create internal links, this plugin can boost the overall success of your website as well. Readers will be able to find related content faster and with less effort, encouraging them to stay on your site and increase your page view count and conversion rates.

Plus, search engine crawlers use internal links to establish the structure of your site. By incorporating more of them in your content, you can improve your SEO and therefore your visibility on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

How to Improve Your Internal Linking Strategy With Link Whisper (3 Key Methods)

Link Whisper includes multiple features you can use to significantly improve your internal linking strategy. By taking all your content into consideration – not just the post you’re currently editing – it provides as many opportunities as possible for finding and adding new connections. Here’s how.

1. Add Internal Links from the WordPress Editor

First, Link Whisper helps you create outbound internal links for new posts you’re writing. In the WordPress editor, simply scroll down to find the Link Whisper Suggested Links section:

Adding outbound internal links in the WordPress editor using Link Whisper suggestions.

Here, you’ll see a list of potential outbound links related to the content you’re currently working on. In the lefthand column, you’ll see a sentence from the WordPress editor with the plugin’s suggested anchor text applied. You can simply click on any word to add or remove it from the link.

In the righthand column, you’ll see the title and slug for the post the plugin is suggesting you link to. To add the link, simply select the checkbox to the left of the suggestion, then click on the Update Links button. There’s no need for copying and pasting URLs or switching back and forth between tabs to search for potential link sources.

2. Manage Your Links from the Internal Links Report

In addition to the suggestions it provides in the editor, Link Whisper also gives you a big-picture view of your site’s links. Once you have the plugin installed, you can navigate to Link Whisper > Report:

The Link Whisper Internal Links Report.

Here, each post and page on your site is listed along with information regarding three types of links:

Inbound internal links: Links within other posts on your site that are pointing towards this one.
Outbound internal links: Links in this post that are pointing towards other content on your site.
Outbound external links: Links within this post that are pointing towards content on other sites.

You can click on the plus (+) sign next to any number listed in the report to see the URLs of each link in that particular cell. The information you can find here is useful for seeking out content that is lacking in links. The table is sortable and searchable, making it easy to quickly pinpoint posts with no inbound or outbound internal links.

Once you’ve located such as post, you can open in it the editor to incorporate outbound internal links using Link Whisper’s suggestions. Alternatively, you can take advantage of the plugin’s other link building method to create internal inbound links.

3. Incorporate Inbound Internal Links into Old Posts

Linking to older posts on your WordPress site can help renew interest in them, as visitors will have more opportunities to find them via your other content. However, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to recall posts you published months or even years ago and know offhand what other pieces might relate to them.

Link Whisper can help with this by suggesting inbound internal links for any post on your site. In the Internal Links Report, simply click on the Add button under Inbound internal links:

The outbound internal links add button in the Internal Links Report.

This will take you to the Inbound Links Suggestions list. It will show you sentences from posts and pages throughout your site that may be relevant to the content you’re currently viewing suggestions for:

Link Whisper outbound internal links suggestions.

You can edit the proposed anchor text just as you would for outbound internal links suggestions in the editor. The other two columns here will list the post or page on which the link will appear, and the date on which that post was published.

To add the suggested links, simply select the checkbox to the left and click on the Add links button. They’ll be incorporated without you having to open each post, saving you hours of editing and updating.

Conclusion

With a solid internal linking strategy, you can guide your readers and search engine crawlers to additional content throughout your site. However, finding the right posts to link to can be tricky.

Using Link Whisper, you can take advantage of the benefits internal linking provides in three key ways: