Last updated - October 6, 2022
When you are running a website, you might be trying different strategies to optimize its search engine visibility. Internal linking is one of the basic aspects that you need to focus on when it comes to on-page SEO. Though it seems a simple fact, a lot of websites miss out on ensuring good internal linking practices. There are some really good tools to help you in improving the internal linking process on your website. In this review, we will take a closer look at Link Whisper, a popular WordPress plugin that will help you ensure great internal linking on your website.
Why internal links are important?
Internal links are hyperlinks that you add on your posts to other posts or pages on your site. They will help users find more articles and information on your own site. Internal links help search engine bots to find and index other pages on your site. Moreover, they will pass link juice or page authority to some of the important content on your website. Overall, it is a significant factor in user experience and search engine optimization. Furthermore, it will help reduce bounce rate on your site.
With default WordPress settings, you can create internal links by simply selecting a section on your post, and then by clicking the ‘Insert/edit link’ option. You can type in a keyword, and WordPress will show all available posts with that keyword. This is a decent option only if you have a handful of posts or pages on your site.
When the site becomes big with huge content volume, you will need a reliable tool to ensure high quality internal linking. This is where Link Whisper comes into play. Let’s look at the features of this popular WordPress plugin in more detail:
Link Whisper is a WordPress plugin that will provide you with suggestions to improve your link building strategy. It will help you make the internal linking process faster and more efficient. As a result, there are chances of improvement for your website in search engine rankings.
How Link Whisper helps in your SEO strategy?
Here is a look at some of the major aspects of your website where this plugin can make a difference.
Suggestions enabled by Artificial Intelligence
Link Whisper suggests relevant internal linking opportunities in your posts from the time you start writing it on the WordPress editor. This is based on artificial intelligence and it depends on the availability of related articles on your site. The process itself is simple as you can simply check the suitable ones from the suggestions to create internal links. This could save a lot of time as you don’t have to browse through existing content while preparing a new post.
Audit internal links
The plugin also helps with an audit of your existing content to identify content without much internal links. Link Whisper will help you identify these articles that are lacking in internal links. More importantly, you can use this plugin to instantly add internal links to such posts or pages.
Automatic internal linking for specific keywords
Link Whisper allows you to specify keywords for internal linking, which will be done automatically. For example, you can specify a keyword for internal links and the url of a blog article. The plugin will look for mentions of that keyword in your site, and create links to the specified blog article. This could be another time saving strategy for your SEO efforts.
Extensive reporting features
You will get access to the extensive reporting features of Link Whisper. It will help you understand the overall site structure, and make required improvements. In addition, you will have a clear picture of outbound internal links, external links and broken links.
Identify and fix broken links
Broken links could a challenge to user experience on your site. Link Whisper will help you identify broken links on your site that may be causing 404 errors. You can identify external and internal broken links and instantly remove them or fix them.
Compatibility with several other tools
You may be using several different tools on your website. Link Whisper is compatible with a lot of major plugins like WooCommerce, and page builders. Also, it works well with popular themes and with both Gutenberg and Classic editors of WordPress.
Intuitive interface
Link Whisper is a simple tool that does not require any advanced technical knowledge to use it. You can install and activate the plugin, and it will start giving you link suggestions. Choosing to apply a suggestion is only a matter of a single click. Interestingly, as you add more content on your site, the link suggestions will find more internal linking opportunities with the updated content.
How to install and set up Link Whisper?
You need to purchase a license from their website to be able to use it. Link Whisper is available in three different license options. At $77, you will get a single site license, and for $117, you will get a three site license. You can also opt for a 10-site license at $167. They also have 30-day money-back guarantee, where you will get a refund within 30 days of purchase.
Once you purchase a suitable license, you will get the zip file of the plugin and the license activation key in your inbox. Installing the plugin is simple, just like any other WordPress plugin.
If you want more information on how to install a WordPress plugin, read our article detailing How to install and set up a WordPress WooCommerce plugin.
Settings
Once, you install the plugin, you can go to the Link Whisper section on your WordPress admin panel. Here the first step will be to enter the license key. Once you enter the license key correctly, you will find the different settings available with the plugin.
These settings will help you specify how you want to manage internal linking on your site. The interface is simple and quite intuitive.
You will see options to open links in a new tab, and whether you want to ignore numbers from internal linking. It also lets you select the language and the specific words that you want to be ignored while suggesting links. You can also specify the posts or categories that you want to be ignored for link suggestions, auto linking and url changer.
There is also an option to specify how many sentences to skip at the beginning of a post before suggesting links. You can enable different post types that are relevant on your site for internal link suggestions. There are also options to disable suggestions for outbound links and to count non-content links such as those to headers and footers.
You can access the settings for Reports, Auto linking and URL changer separately from the admin panel.
Now, when you create a page or post, suggestions for internal links will appear at the bottom of the page. You can simply check them to add the suggested links to the post or page.
That’s it! Configuring and using Link Whisper on your site is quite a simple process. However, it could add a great value to your search engine optimization strategy since a lot of websites does not actively focus on building internal links. With Link Whisper installed, internal link building will be a routine process that will happen along with content creation. If you have a website focusing on content, this will be definitely a great tool that you can rely on.
What we think about Link Whisper?
Link Whisper is surely a handy tool if you want to focus on your internal link building strategy. It is extremely easy to set up and use, and it will make high quality link building a part of your content creating process. Moreover, you will be able to get an overview on your current links and make easy modifications to existing content. It also has an option to create links automatically by specifying keywords.
Overall, it is an essential tool to have, if you have a content-rich website. It will help in ensuring proper internal linking for better user experience and search engine ranking. And you will find detailed video tutorials on Link Whisper to help you get the best out of the plugin.
