New SEO Plugin for WordPress: Internal Link Building

Update 1 : The plugin has been downloaded 22,000 + times! And many webmasters use it on multiple sites, so it’s probably being used on closer to 25-30,000 sites!

22,000 downloads of Internal Link Building

(Click to enlarge)

Update 2 : To download the plugin, you need to add my RSS feed to your reader. The download link is now in my RSS feed’s footer . That is to say you can find a link to download below any post, but only if you read via RSS.

Some folks have complained about the need to subscribe. And I understand where you’re coming from – it feels a little pushy and you probably already have a bunch of subscriptions.

But there are good reasons to subscribe to my rss feed (besides it being free):

1) To hear about updates to the plugin or new plugins and SEO tools I release.

2) To learn new SEO techniques. If you like my plugin, aren’t my other SEO ideas worth your attention?

Internal Link Building gives you an admin panel to assign keywords to given destination URLs. The point being that your website will link within itself a la Wikipedia – every time a keyword occurs, it links to the page you defined.

Internal Link Building plugin admin panel

So: You can rank like Wikipedia, without being Wikipedia. Ok, that’s exaggeration, but the tool improves your internal navigation / link structure a lot.

I got the idea from Jim Boykin’s Internet Marketing Ninjas, which includes a similar tool.

Also note: Marios Alexandrou of All Thing SEM updated the plugin for WP 2.9+ and currently handles tech support.

Functionality Specifics:

To use the plugin, the settings page is under the Posts menu -> Keywords in 2.7+. It’s under Manage -> Keywords, in older versions of WP (up to 2.5 or 2.6) .

Edit Keywords From The Posts Menu

1. This plugin allows you to mass-upload keywords. So you just need to prepare a CSV file in Excel and then copy-paste it into the mass-upload box in your admin panel and then click upload! This is great for larger sites targeting multiple keywords that want to speed things up.

2. It’s up to you whether you make cAsE ReLeVaNT to your links. Check the “Exact Match” checkbox for it to only match when the case is the same as you typed the word into the admin panel. Leave it unchecked to have all cases link to your selected page.

3. Post-level overrides of globally-assigned keywords. Maki, of Dosh Dosh Internet Marketing, pointed out that similar plugins exist. True, but they don’t allow post-level overriding of a given keyword. This plugin does. So if I can link to my homepage every time the words SEO or internet marketing appear, but then link to, Tad Chef’s SEO 2.0 blog with the word SEO, or Joy’s internet marketing.

Internal Link Building plugin post-level override

4. Link to sources or affiliate links whom you reference a lot. That, for me, would be useful so I could cite Maki, SEOmoz, XMCP, and others more easily.

5. Build internal links automatically to pages you regularly reference. For instance, I can just say add my rss feed to your reader and the phrase gets linked on its own.

6. Make a link nofollow. For example, if you link to particular Wikipedia pages a lot then set the nofollow to be automatic.

Click to expand:

Add lots of keywords, have them link once or more times, use exact match if wanted, nofollow some links etc.

Add multiple keywords to one page, or one keyword to multiple pages, have it nofollow, have it link numerous instances on the page, use exact matching or not etc.

7. Link multiple keywords to a single URL. Target all a page’s keywords at once! Just put a space, a  pipe (eg |) and a space between the multiple keywords. E.g. affiliate | affiliate marketing. More efficiency! More time savings!

8. Link a single keyword to multiple URLs. I’m not quite sure why you’d want to do this, but some people asked for it, so there you go!

9. Pick the number of times a keyword will link to a particular URL. If you only want the words social media to link to your social media category once, you can do that. Notice that social gets linked next, since I also have that keyword assigned to link to the same page.

FAQ:

1. Will this plugin overwrite links in older posts using keywords I set to link to particular pages?

– Where a post already links out using given keywords, the plugin will NOT overwrite it.

2. Can we make this link out in a post only a set number of times?

– Yes, this is possible with the new version of the plugin.

3. Can we make a set of URLs to link to, and have it link at random?

– Yes, this is possible. The plugin has been updated, so if you downloaded it on the first or second day it was live, you might want to get the new one. You just need to separate the URLs with | symbols in the URL field.

4. How is this plugin different from other similar plugins?

– They do not have the post-level override functionality. They also don’t have mass upload through a CSV copy-paste functionality. A third difference is that multiple keywords can link to a given URL, or one keyword can link to multiple URLs (see #6 and #7 for more).

6. Where is the post-level override?

– It’s in a box below the main content area in /wp-admin/post.php (or post-new.php). I.e. When you write/edit individual posts, scroll down and you’ll see it.

7. How do I link multiple keywords to URL, or one keyword to multiple URLs?

– Type the different keywords or URLs out with a pipe symbol ( | ) in between them. It’s found just above the enter key on most qwerty keyboards; you press shift+| to make it appear (without shift you’ll get a backslash: \ ) .

8. How do I install this?

– Download the file. Upload it to the wp-content/plugins/ . Login to WordPress. Activate it within the plugins admin page.

Like this plugin idea? Be the first to hear about future releases: Get my RSS feed.

Plugin Bug Fixes

1) Apostrophes within keywords can now be used. So if your friend O’harra is always getting links from you, just set up O’harra and don’t worry about it.

2) URLs that are just being shown, e.g. http://seoroi.com/seo-consulting-services/ are no longer having keywords within them linking out. E.g. services won’t link to a page you’ve set.

3) Posts and pages that are set as link-love destinations won’t link to themselves. Yay! Better aesthetics :) .

4) Blockquotes and lists can now feature links within them. So go ahead and cite this:

Internal Link Building is awesome!

5) Simple Tags can now work with ILB, with a little ‘child’s play’ hacking on your part, per my awesome developer Aaron.

7) Image tags with keywords in them (e.g. in the alt or title) are no longer breaking.

8 ) Jeff and John of SEO Design Solutions got the plugin up to date for WP 2.7 and removed the bug on the new post / post editing admin panels.

9) Chris Balicki of Web Systems helped out earlier as did Matt Longley of Site Source 101.

This is something I’ve noticed since installing the plugin: My average pageviews seen per visitor has gone up from 1.4-1.5 to 1.9-2.0. Woohoo! Go extra frequency/repetition and brand recall!