Entity-Based Internal Linking

Entity-based internal linking means planning links around how your topics relate to each other. An entity is a distinct thing: a concept, product, person, or place. Instead of adding links at random, you map which topics are parents, children, and siblings, then link pages to match. This helps search engines understand what your site covers and sends more internal links to the pages that matter most.

How it works

Search engines try to understand the things a page is about and how they connect. Your internal links are one of the clearest signals you control. A link from an “email deliverability” page to an “SPF records” page, with anchor text like “SPF authentication,” states that the two topics are related. Done consistently, this builds a clear topic structure. Pages that receive many relevant internal links are easier to find and are treated as more central to your site.

How to do it

List every major topic and subtopic on your site in a spreadsheet.
Mark each relationship: parent-child (CRM software → contact management), sibling (contact management ↔ pipeline tracking), or related (CRM ↔ email marketing).
Crawl the site with a tool such as Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs Site Audit and export internal link data.
Find orphan pages (no internal links in), pages with weak or generic anchor text, and important pages buried deep in the site.
Link parents to all their children. Link children back to their parent and to closely related siblings.
Use descriptive anchor text that names the target topic. Avoid “click here” and “read more.”
Add links from your most-linked content (pages with the most external backlinks) to the commercial pages you want to rank.
When you publish a new page, add links to it from existing related pages, not only links out of it.
Re-crawl every quarter and update the topic map.

What to measure

Orphan pages: count of indexable pages with zero internal links pointing to them, from a site crawl. The target is zero.
Descriptive anchor share: percentage of internal links with topic-specific anchor text, from the crawl export.
Click depth: number of clicks from the homepage to each key page. Keep important pages within three clicks.

Best practices

Link from pages with strong external backlinks to pages you want to rank.
Vary anchor text naturally. Use the target topic, but not the identical phrase every time.
Create a hub page for each major topic that links to all related pages, and link the hub from navigation.

Common pitfalls

Linking everything to everything. Too many links on a page weakens each one and confuses readers. Keep links relevant.
Using identical anchor text on every link to a page. Vary the wording to read naturally.
Forgetting new pages. A new page is an orphan until you link to it from existing content, so make this part of publishing.