How to Build an Internal Linking Plan From Topical Gaps

By Jim Huang, SEO Digital Marketing Consultant and AI Enthusiast · Last updated · Effort: Medium

What is an internal linking plan?

An internal linking plan decides which pages link to which, and with what anchor text, so authority and discovery flow to the pages that matter. Topics are organised as a hub page with supporting pages around it.

Pages on your site cover related topics but do not link to each other in a deliberate way, so authority and discovery are left to chance.

Why it matters

Google uses internal links to find pages and anchor text to understand them, and Google staff describe internal linking as critical. Strengthening internal links to priority content without restructuring URLs is a high-impact, low-effort move, and a hub-based structure keeps key pages within two to three clicks of the homepage.

Value and limits

  • Practical value: Google uses internal links to find pages and anchor text to understand them; the topic map tells you which pages should link to which.
  • Limitation: Descriptive anchors help; keyword-stuffed or overly long anchors do not. Links help Google find and understand a page, but they cannot make a weak page rank.
  • Effort and payoff: Medium effort. High payoff, especially for orphaned or deep pages.
  • Evidence: Confirmed · 2+ sources

How to test it with SERP01

Issue: Without a plan, internal links grow by accident: key pages are orphaned or buried and anchors repeat. We start from the topic structure, then check the crawl.

  1. Run Site Topical Mapper on your domain and read the topic and subtopic tree with the pages mapped to each.
  2. Pick one topic and write down its hub page and the supporting pages that belong to it.
  3. Run Site Monitor and look at the pages in that topic for orphaned pages, broken links and weak titles.
  4. Draft the link plan: supporting pages link up to the hub, the hub links down, related supporting pages link sideways.

Actionable items

  • Strengthen the hub - make it the strongest page on its topic and give it a clear title.
  • Vary the anchors - use descriptive anchor text and avoid repeating the same anchor everywhere.
  • Link both ways - link every supporting page to its hub and to two or three related pages.
  • Clean up - fix broken or redirected internal links found in the crawl.

How SERP01 addresses this

The topic map and the crawl for the same site are available together, so the plan is built from your actual topic structure and cleaned against the actual state of the site.

Next step

Want to run this on your own site? Request a code and run the Site Topical Mapper and Site Monitor yourself.

Related resources: How to Map Topical Authority and Spot Pages to Merge, How to Find Keyword Cannibalization on Your Site, How to Run a Technical SEO Crawl and Prioritise the Fixes

About the author. Jim Huang is an established SEO Digital Marketing Consultant, SEO Director and AI enthusiast based in Arlington, Virginia. He specializes in search engine optimization strategy, digital growth, and building custom toolsets that leverage artificial intelligence.