15 Best Internal Link Building Tools for SEO of 2024

In this article you'll find the 15 best internal link building tools on the market, fully ranked and reviewed plus recommendations to find out which one is best suited to your needs.

But first, here are our editor's top 10 internal link building tools:

What Are the Best Internal Link Building Tools?

One of the most prominent signals search engines use to rank results is the number of external links from good quality sites that point to your pages. This is a widely known SEO fact.

Every time a site with high domain authority external links to one of your pages, your site’s domain score goes up helping you rank higher, which increases your overall traffic. 

But something that's often overlooked, especially by beginners, are internal links. These are the links you create between your own pages and they happen to be as important as external links.

The problem is, creating internal links manually is an extremely tedious and slow process.

Basically, for every new blog post you put out, you’ll have to go through your older posts and place anchor internal links pointing to the newer one.

Fortunately, there are great tools out there that automate this process, so that instead of spending hours on end on this task, you end up spending minutes. Below you’ll find the best internal linking tools on the market.

1. Link Whisper

Internal link building plugins are relatively new and therefore not too numerous, but over the last couple of years, Link Whisper has begun to get noticed.

In essence, this plugin crawls your entire website making an index of all existing internal links and then it creates a report showing you the internal link gaps so you can fill them.

Internal Linking Report

For example, if you have a post with a passage that mentions “SEO best practices” Link Whisper will then point you to any other posts that are related but that are not being linked to.

If you agree with its suggestions, all you have to do then is to click on a check box next to each suggestion and the link will be added to your post automatically.

Another great Link Whisper feature is “orphan” posts, i.e. posts that have no incoming or outgoing internal links. Once you zero in on one of these posts, the plugin will then make suggestions showing you the anchor text to add to other posts in order to create the missing internal links.

Orphan Posts

Finally, and perhaps my favorite feature: when you finish editing a new post, if you scroll to the bottom of the post editor in WordPress you’ll see Link Whisper's suggestions highlighting the suggested anchor text to use to link to other posts.

Automated Suggestions

If you agree with the suggestions, all you have to do then is to click on a check box and the anchor link will be automatically added to your new post. It’s that easy!

Link Whisper's Main Benefits

• Builds internal links fast, saving you hours of tedious work
• Super intuitive to use (ideal for beginners)
• Allows you to customize anchor internal links on the fly
• Allows you to easily add internal links from your latest content to older content and vice versa

Now Some Drawbacks...

• As Link Whisper gets more and more sophisticated, they keep increasing the price. While this may be acceptable for some people in light of the time it saves you and the benefits of automated internal linking, it may price some beginners out of the market
  

Latest Improvements

• Internal linking between external sites (provided you own them)
  
• Google Search Console integration
  

Pricing

Link Whisper has three license bundles:

The Single Site License costs $77 renewable annually.

The 3 Site License costs $177 renewable annually, at a discount of 50% per site.

Finally, the 10 site license costs $167 renewable annually, at a discount of 78% per site.

All bundles include email support and their support team is very responsive, usually getting back to you within a few hours, depending on your time zone.

Finally, here's my take...

I've selected Link Whisper as my top pick because of their perfect mix of link automation and link customization.

Many internal linking tools are so automated that they end up "overlinking," that is, creating so many connections that your site will be more bound to confuse Google than assist you in your SEO efforts.

Link Whisper strikes the right balance, which makes it my favorite choice not only for my site but also for many of my clients' websites as well.

2. Internal Link Juicer Pro

Internal Link Juicer Pro takes the automation of internal links to a whole new level. While most internal link managers are keyword based, this plugin takes a novel approach.

For each post, you have to not only choose the anchor keyword and the internal link associated with it, but also select a "keyword gap" measured in words.

Let me illustrate this feature with an example:

If your blog post talks about how to choose the best web hosting for a site, a keyword you could target as an anchor keyword in Internal Link Juicer could be “choose hosting.” Now, if you select a keyword gap of 2 words, then any mention of the following keywords will be assigned anchor internal links to your post:

• “choose the best hosting”
• “choose your ideal hosting”
• “choose your web hosting”
• etc.

But “choose hosting” and “choose web hosting” will not result in anchor internal links because the keyword gap in this case is only 1 word.

In this way, Internal Link Juicer creates varied links with different content instead of a proliferation of exact-keyword internal links everywhere, which search engines don’t like to see.

Use Case Example

Content Settings

This is the settings panel where you can:

• Select whether you're going to create automated internal links between posts, pages or both (first red arrow shown below)
  
• Set the maximum number of internal links per post or select unlimited internal linking by entering a zero instead (second arrow)
  
• Set the linking frequency (third arrow)
  
• Exclude specific HTML tags from the internal link automation, e.g. you may not want to allow anchors inside an H2 tag (fourth arrow)
  

Link Statistics Dashboard

This  dashboard gives you a summary view of the top 10 incoming and outgoing internal links, plus the top 10 anchor text occurrences:

Internal Link Juicer Pro's Main Benefits

• Set custom URL targets in addition to automated internal links
• Exclude part of your text from the creation of internal links (any HTML tag, like H1, H2, etc, plus any shortcode)
• Role-based editing (set up the plugins for specific WordPress user roles, e.g. editors)
• Statistics dashboard that shows the number of internal links for each post so you can target posts with very few links
• Ability to whitelist and blacklist specific posts, pages, tags and categories (e.g. checkout pages)
• Email support

Now Some Drawbacks...

• Internal Link Juicer doesn't handle broken internal backlinks
  
• Also, it doesn't integrate with the Google Search Console
  

Latest Improvements

• Dramatic performance improvement achieved through top-to-bottom plugin redesign
• Improved matching of sub-keywords by implementing broader keyword definitions
  

Pricing

Internal Link Juicer has a free Basic package with limited functionality and a paid Pro package that costs $69.99 annually for a single site, $149.99 annually for 5 sites, or $189.99 annually for 10 sites.

Alternatively, you can pay $209.99 for a single-site lifetime license, $349.99 for a 5-site lifetime license, or $549.99 for a 10-site lifetime license.

Finally, here's my take...

Although not as feature-rich as Link Whisper, Internal Link Juicer is a solid runner up because of their unique keyword-gap feature (explained in detail earlier.)

Another useful feature is their implementation of role-based editing, where you can assign link-building duties to different WordPress user roles so that not everything needs to fall on the shoulders of your web admin.

3. Interlinks Manager

This plugin takes a slightly different approach to internal linking.

Instead of making suggestions individually, you define specific keywords inside each post and then the tool automatically adds internal links to your post from any other post that contains those keywords (note: version 1.29 added a link suggestion feature.)

Interlinks Manager is not as intuitive or easy to use as Internal Link Juicer, but what it lacks in their user interface it makes up for in analytics.

The plugin tracks clicks from visitors to your internal links so you can assess which ones are effective and which ones are not. You can then use this information to make adjustments to your anchor text or the positioning of your internal links.

Interlinks Manager also provides you with information about the flow of “link juice” on the URLs of your website.

Example of Internal Link Suggestions (New Feature)

Example of Internal Inbound Links to a Post

Interlinks Manager's Main Benefits

• A lower price if you’re on a budget
• Provides you with link juice statistics for a given URL
• Automatic internal linking based on keywords
• Tracks clicks to internal links from visitors and it allows you to export this data for further analysis

Now Some Drawbacks...

• Not as intuitive as Link Whisper or Internal Link Juicer
• Can't identify orphan posts

Latest Improvements

• Internal link suggestions
• User data export to an external spreadsheet
  

Pricing

Interlinks Manager is priced at just $39 for a lifetime license, with an optional $12.75 to cover 12 months of customer support.

Finally, here's my take...

Interlinks Manager is a great link building tool if you're on a budget. Having a lower price point, you won't find as many bells and whistles as in the above two options, plus their customer support is nowhere as responsive.

But, for a fraction of the cost, at least you don't have to do all your internal link building manually, which can get quite tedious if you have a lot of webpages on your site.

4. Yoast SEO

Best Internal Linking for Orphaned Content

Yoast SEO's internal linking tool is a helpful addition to this super-popular WordPress SEO plugin (note: this functionality is only available in the Premium version.)

This tool allows you to improve your website crawling and navigation by identifying the best internal linking structure required to maximize your on-page SEO, which is a critical search engine ranking signal.

Yoast SEO Internal Linking Features that Stand Out

• Text link counter
  
• Orphaned content filter
  
• Related post suggestions
  
• Child and sibling linking
  

Finally, here's my take

As a Yoast SEO user, I appreciate how this plugin provides a solid foundation for on-page SEO metrics. I find the readability and SEO analysis features to be quite useful in optimizing my content for both search engines and users.

I also like the snippet preview functionality, that shows you how the meta title and description will present in search results.

However, the internal linking suggestions offered by Yoast SEO are not as comprehensive as those provided by some of its competitors, like LinkWhisper.

The plugin does a decent job of suggesting links, but I sometimes find myself wanting more advanced features to help better manage and automate my internal linking process.

Having said that, Yoast SEO is a valuable tool for technical on-page optimization.

Find out More About Yoast SEO.

5. SEO Smart Links Premium

Best Internal Linking for Affiliate Link Creation

SEO Smart Links is an easy-to use WordPress plugin that automates tedious internal linking tasks.

This program inserts internal links into posts where keyword rich anchors are found based on your post titles, linking your articles to other relevant pages on your site in order to improve your page's SEO.

SEO Smart Links Premium Features that Stand Out

• Set up a list of keywords and corresponding set of matching URLs
  
• Set nofollow link attributes
  
• Set up internal links to open either on the same page or in a new tab
  
• Can be used for mass-creation of affiliate links
  

Finally, here's my take

SEO Smart Links Premium offers a solid the level of control over the internal linking process. The ability to define custom keyword lists and link destinations allows you to create highly targeted and relevant internal links.

However, the plugin can be resource-intensive, causing a slight decrease in your site's performance. This is especially noticeable on larger websites with extensive content.

Users with limited server resources might want to consider alternative solutions.

Find out More About SEO Smart Links Premium Here.

6. Internal Link Finder

Best Internal Linking for Large Websites

A good internal linking structure is crucial for search engine optimization, but if you’ve got a large website it can be very time consuming to find anchor texts that point back to the most relevant pages.

This is exactly what Internal Link Finder was designed to do: search your entire site for internal linking opportunities you missed without having to manually scan you posts one by one, saving you countless hours of work.

Internal Link Finder Features that Stand Out

• Can check if there are too many pages linking back to the target page with the same anchor
  
• Can identify orphan pages and pages with no internal links for a particular phrase
  
• Can check for important keywords that are missing from your content
  

Finally, here's my take

What I really like about Internal Link Finder is that makes it easy to identify potential internal links for your content by using real-time suggestions while you're write, and not after the fact like many of its competitors.

However, I find that the plugin lacks some of the advanced features found in the other tools, which might limit its usefulness for more experienced users or those with complex linking requirements.

Find out More About Internal Link Finder Here.

7. Keywords to Links Converter

Best Internal Linking With Autocomplete

Keywords to Links Converter allows you to link any keyword on a blog post to another page on your website by presenting you with an autocomplete list of choices, all managed from a single dashboard

In addition you can also use this WordPress plugin to add cloaked (shortened) nofollow affiliate links automatically without having to do manual inserts every time you write a blog post.

Keywords to Links Converter Features that Stand Out

• Can assign either dofollow or nofollow attributes
  
• Ability to cloak links via shortening
  
• Supports 8 linking types
  
• Supports linking to custom taxonomies
  

Finally, here's my take

Links Converter is a simple tool that automates the process of converting specific keywords into internal links. I find it particularly useful for adding internal links to older content and the ability to define custom link attributes, such as 'nofollow' or 'dofollow'.

Having said that, the plugin can occasionally create excessive or unnatural links within your content, which can negatively affect user experience and SEO.

This requires you to manually review and adjust the generated links, somewhat diminishing the convenience of the plugin's automation.

Overall, Keywords to Links Converter is a useful tool for certain tasks, but it could benefit from improvements to its automation algorithms.

Find out More About Keywords to Links Converter Here.

8. Rankmath

Best Internal Linking for Pillar Posts

RankMath is a Swiss army of SEO tools, with internal linking being one of its many features.

Once you define what your cornerstone or pillar posts are for each category in your blog, RankMath will then automatically make link suggestions to other posts in the same category.

Rankmath Features that Stand Out

• Easy to follow setup wizard
  
• Advanced link builder
  
• Advanced schema generator
  

Finally, here's my take

Rankmath offers a comprehensive suite of SEO features, which includes internal linking capabilities. I like that it suggests relevant internal links based on keywords and context.

I also like that this plugin combines internal linking features with other useful SEO tools, like XML sitemaps and schema markup, which makes it a solid general solution for site optimization.

But sometimes Rankmath makes internal linking suggestions that are less accurate than those provided by specialized plugins. While this tool does a good job overall, it could benefit from further refinement in this area.

Regardless, Rankmath is a good choice for users who want a comprehensive SEO solution that happens to include internal linking functionality (e.g. like Yoast.)

Find out More About Rankmath Here.

9. Internal Link Building

Best Internal Linking With WordPress Dashboard Integration

Internal Link Building is a free WordPress plugin that lets you add either internal or external links to keywords in your blog posts, and control those links from your WordPress dashboard.

You can also add nofollow links to keywords intended for affiliate blog posts, assign different keywords to the same link and use case-sensitive internal links to improve brand recognition.

Internal Link Building Features that Stand Out

• Mass keyword uploading via csv file
  
• Allows article level overrides of globally assigned keywords
  
• Link multiple keywords to a single URL
  

Finally, here's my take

Internal Link Building plugin is easy to use and can definitely help you create an effective internal linking structure fairly quickly.

Especially, I like its ability to add relevant internal links to your content automatically based on your chosen keywords, the control over link attributes, such as 'nofollow' and 'dofollow,' and the option to exclude specific posts or pages from the linking process.

However, the plugin lacks some of the advanced features found in other internal linking tools. If would really benefit from more customization options and better link suggestions.

While Internal Link Building does a decent job as a basic linking solution, it might not be the best choice for users with complex internal linking requirements.

Find out More About Internal Link Building Here.

10. Internal Link Juicer (Free Version)

Best Internal Linking Tool for Beginners

The free version of this plugin is a great choice is you're bootstrapping or if you just want to try it out before fully committing.

With the free version you'll be able to generate internal links as well as with the pro version, but you'll come across a number of limitations:

• First of all, there's no support. You'll have to rely on Google searches for usage questions or troubleshooting
  
• You won't be able to set custom URL targets for your anchor internal links
  
• You'll only be able to exclude headlines and bold words from automatically creating internal links
  
• You'll only be able to whitelist and blacklist certain posts and pages, but not categories or tags
  
• There's no role-based editing, so anyone with access to the WordPress dashboard will be able to create internal links
  
• The internal link statistics dashboard will only show you stats for the top 10 posts, not for all of them

Finally, here's my take

Internal Link Juicer automatically generates internal links for your content based on your predefined keywords. This helps you maintain a consistent internal linking structure and can save you a lot of time.

Having said that, this free version lacks some of the more advanced features offered by the pro version, such as link categories and detailed link statistics.

The free version of Internal Link Juicer is a good starting point for users who have a website with a simple structure.

But if you have more complex needs or manage a large website, you'll either need to invest in the paid version or explore alternative solutions.

Find out More About Internal Link Juicer Here.

11. SEO Press

Best Statistics-Based Internal Linking Tool

SEOPress is an all-purpose SEO plugin for WordPress with internal linking functionality that uses a more scientific approach that its competitors.

Instead of letting you choose which keywords you want to link to other posts on your site, they use a statistical weighting method that calculates the importance of a keyword within a document compared to all other articles.

Based on this information, it then suggests up to five internal links per post.

SEO Press Features that Stand Out

• Uses the Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency semantic technique to identify rich anchor text
  
• Allows the use of stop words in 38 languages
  
• Provides a universal SEO metabox that works with all page builders
  

Finally, here's my take

SEO Press provides link suggestions based on your content to help you streamline your internal linking process and combines this with content analysis and sitemap generation, which I find useful for optimizing a website for search engines.

But the internal linking suggestions can sometimes be less accurate than those from other competitors on this list and it could benefit from a redesign of its internal linking algorithm.

Find out More About SEO Press Here.

12. Internal Linking of Related Contents

Best Internal Linking Tool for Automatic Link Insertion

Internal Linking of Related Contents is a plugin that allows you to automatically insert links to related articles inside your WordPress posts based of categories, tags or post titles.

In order to make this process more powerful, you can also pre-select categories and tags to automatically exclude from the search for related content.

Internal Linking of Related Contents Features that Stand Out

• Choose the order of related articles
  
• Display related article content on select device types
  
• Display related posts in AMP pages
  

Finally, here's my take

Internal Linking of Related Contents helps you create contextual internal links by automatically linking related content.

I find the linking algorithm to be accurate in identifying related content and I especially like the plugin's ability to display a list of related posts at the end of your content.

However, the tool lacks some customization options, such as the ability to define custom link attributes or exclude specific posts or pages from the linking process.

While this might work OK for simple websites, it won't work for users with more advanced internal linking needs.

Find out More About Internal Linking of Related Contents Here.

13. Inlinks for WP

Best Topic-Driven Internal Linking Tool

Inlinks for WP uses an algorithm that analyzes the entities and topical content of your posts and then uses this information to automate your internal linking.

This plugin also uses the above analysis to automatically create About Schema, Mentions Schema, and FAQ Schema for your content.

Inlinks for WP Features that Stand Out

• Automatically generates internal links based on topic associations
  
• Injects FAQ Schemas when questions appear in H tags
  
• Injects About Schemas and Mentions Schemas through JSON-LD
  

Finally, here's my take

I like that this plugin focuses on providing relevant internal link suggestions based on semantic analysis. This helps you create a more natural and user-friendly internal linking structure for your website.

I also value the plugin's ability to add schema markup to your content, which can enhance its appearance in search engine results.

But I found it lacks important customization options found in other internal linking tools, such as the ability to define custom link attributes or exclude specific posts or pages, which is a critical feature for internal linking.

Find out More About Inlinks for WP Here.

14. Inline Related Posts

Best Internal Linking Tool for Related Posts

Inline Related Posts is not an internal linking tool in the traditional sense, like the other ones on this list. Instead, it places boxes with links to related articles inside your posts and lets you design them to match your style.

Inline Related Posts Features that Stand Out

• Automatically place multiple boxes in all your posts
  
• Automatically detect line breaks
  
• Choose over 20 combinations of design themes and colors
  

Finally, here's my take

Inline Related Posts helps you increase reader engagement by automatically inserting related post links within your content. I find this to be a more effective approach than passively listing related posts at the end of your articles.

However, this plugin can sometimes be resource-intensive, especially on larger websites, which may be a concern for users with maxed out server resources.

Find out More About Inline Related Posts Here.

15. Mentionable

Best Internal Linking Tool for Adding @Mentions

Mentionable is a handy plugin that adds @mentions to your WordPress visual editor with autocomplete for any content published on your posts, saving you a lot of time on internal linking.

Mentionable Features that Stand Out

• Select post types that auto completion will match against
  
• Settings panel for specifying the active post types
  
• Customize plugin by replacing mentionable tag with custom mentionable.php template
  

Finally, here's my take

What I like about this plugin is that it integrates seamlessly with the WordPress editor, making it easy to search for and insert internal links directly within your content as you write.

What I don't like is that it lacks many of the more advanced features and automation capabilities found in other internal linking plugins. For this reason, I would only use for simple website setups.

Find out More About Mentionable Here.

What Is Internal Linking?

Internal linking is a type of contextual linking that enables search engine spiders to crawl your site more effectively.

If you use internal links to create a topical cluster of articles that support your main post, you'll be helping search engines understand your expertise on your subject, increasing your site's ranking on search results.

How Many Different Types of Internal Links Are There?

There are four main types of internal links: anchor links, related posts, navigational links and footer links.

Anchor links are used to provide contextual links to other articles on your site that expand on your post's content.

Related posts are typically found on the sidebar or below your post and typically display other articles in the same category.

Navigational links, usually found on your page header, are used to help your visitors navigate through your site.

Finally, footer links are typically used to provide access to additional pages of interest that are not accessible through your header links.

How Do You Create Internal Links in Your Content?

At its most basic level, the process for creating internal links is pretty simple.

First, you need to decide which page on your site you want to link to. Then, find a relevant keyword or phrase within the text of the page you want to link from.

Finally, add an anchor tag around the keyword or phrase, like this:

<a href="http://www.example.com/target-page">keyword or phrase</a>

Make sure the URL you use in the anchor tag is the exact URL of the page you're linking to.

Once you've added the anchor tag, save your changes and test the link to make sure it works properly.

That's it!

What to Do Next

Internal link building is a must-do SEO technique for easily boosting your website traffic.

Now, you could build these types of internal links the hard way (manually) or you can automate the entire process and save multiple hours of work (or days, if you have a lot of posts).

In the end, the cost of these plugins is very reasonable when you take into consideration the many hours of tedious work they'll be saving you from.