Using Ahrefs to Find High Authority Topically Relevant Internal Link Opportunities

Internal linking is one of the fastest and most overlooked ways to improve keyword rankings. However, manually finding internal link opportunities can be time-consuming and overwhelming. Thankfully, Ahrefs has a tool that can help you find loads of high authority, topically relevant internal link opportunities for both new and existing assets on your site in just minutes. In this article, we'll show you step-by-step how to use Ahrefs to find these internal link opportunities.

Step 1: Run a Site Audit

The first thing you need to do is run a site audit in Ahrefs. This tool will walk you through the different steps to set it up, which should only take a few minutes depending on the size of your site. Once the audit finishes running, come back to the site audit dashboard and click on your site. Then click the "Crawl completed" tab and go to the "Tools" section on the left sidebar. Under "Tools," you'll see the "Internal link opportunities" link. Click on it, and you'll be taken to a report that displays all the internal link opportunities for your site.

Step 2: Understand the Internal Link Opportunities Report

The report displays 190 internal link opportunities for the author's personal blog, but the number of opportunities will vary depending on your site. The report is generated by identifying the ten best keywords by traffic for each ranking page on your site and then looking for where those keywords are mentioned on other pages on your site. The report only returns opportunities where the target URL is not already linked to from the source URL. This eliminates the time spent manually checking content to see if you've already internally linked from an asset.

The report contains several columns:

Page Rating Score

This metric shows the strength of the source page's overall internal link profile on a 100-point scale. The higher the page rating score, the more link equity it can pass to a target page.

Traffic

This metric displays how much traffic is going to each source page.

Keyword

This column displays the keyword for which the target page is ranking.

Keyword Context

This column displays the context in which the keyword is mentioned on the source page. It's essential to ensure that you're only building internal links from topically relevant sources on your site.

Position and Estimated Organic Traffic

These columns show the position and estimated organic traffic a target page is getting from a keyword.

Step 3: Prioritize Your Efforts with Advanced Filters

If you're working with a site that's returning hundreds or even thousands of internal link opportunities, you'll need to prioritize your efforts. Ahrefs' advanced filters can save you a ton of time. Here are a few filters the author recommends:

Source Is Canonical Yes and Source Is No Index No

These are the default values when you trigger the drop-down.

Target Page

Set this to find internal link opportunities for a specific existing or new asset.

Minimum Page Rating Score

This filter lets you filter out URLs that can pass the most link equity to your target page. In this example, the author sets anything greater than or equal to 20.

Source Traffic

This filter lets you find source pages that are highly linked from across your site and are also already getting organic traffic. In this example, the author sets a minimum traffic of 50.

Target Page Position

Filter for internal link opportunities from source pages that are already ranking on the first page.

Grouping Your Opportunities

If you want to work through one page at a time and find all the opportunities to embed internal links to other assets rather than jumping around from one article to another, consider grouping all internal link opportunities together.

With these advanced filters, it's possible to find specific internal link opportunities that can accelerate ranking improvements, especially if it's done with a content refresh.

Conclusion

Using Ahrefs' internal link opportunities tool can help you quickly uncover high authority, topically relevant internal link opportunities. With advanced filters, it's possible to prioritize your initial set of targets and find specific internal link opportunities that can accelerate ranking improvements. Play around with the filters to find what works best for you. If you found this article helpful, consider liking and subscribing to our channel for more bite-sized SEO tutorials.