The SEO Strategy Most Clinic Websites Are Missing: Internal Linking

Looking for an easy way to strengthen your clinic's SEO without constantly creating new content?

Internal linking is one of the most overlooked SEO strategies, yet it can have a significant impact on how Google, AI search platforms, and potential patients navigate and understand your website.

In this episode, you'll learn why internal links matter, how they improve your website's structure, and simple ways to use them to strengthen your service pages, condition pages, blog posts, and other important content.

Episode webpage and show notes: https://propelyourcompany.com/internal-linking/

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What internal linking is and why it matters for SEO
• How internal links help Google and AI search better understand your website
• The biggest internal linking mistakes clinic websites make
• Which pages should receive the most internal links
• Simple strategies you can implement without creating new content
• How internal linking improves both search rankings and the patient experience

Whether you're a chiropractor, physical therapist, dentist, med spa, or another healthcare provider, this episode will show you one of the simplest ways to improve your website's SEO and help patients find the information they need.

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Transcript

Why Internal Linking Matters

Speaker 0:00

Welcome back to the Clinic Marketing Podcast, the go-to resource for clinic owners who want to simplify SDO boost visibility and attract more patients online. I'm your host, Darcy Sullivan from Propel Marketing and Design. Today we're diving into a topic that doesn't get nearly enough attention, but has the power to move the needle on your website's performance. It's internal linking, and if you dunno what internal linking is, don't worry, we're gonna get into it. But whether you're a chiropractor, physical therapist, acupuncturist, or run any kind of clinic, this episode is going to be a very simple one that is gonna help you strengthen your SEO and improve your website's user experience without spending a dime. Let's get into it. Internal linking is the practice of linking one page of your website or your blog post to another page or blog posts on your website. That's it. Sounds simple. It could be as simple as linking a blog post to a related services page or connecting your frequently asked questions page to a contact form. I. But even though it sounds basic, it plays a critical role in SEO and website usability. Internal links help search engines like Google. Understand the structure of your website, the relationship between pages on your website and content on your website, and it helps it understand which website pages are most important at the same time they act as guides for your users to connect to relevant information throughout your website and encourage them

Internal Linking Explained Simply

Speaker 1:56

to stay on your website longer. Let's look at internal links and how they actually help your SEO. They help Google crawl your site more effectively. Search engines discover and index your content by following links. If a page on your site doesn't have any internal links pointing to it, it might not get crawled or ranked. This is extremely important for those new pages that you are adding to your website. So let me give you an example. Let's say you are a chiropractor and you've just added a new service of adding shockwave as a service that you offer. Well, while you would wanna build out a page dedicated to this new service, you would also want to go to your general services page that talks about all of your services.

How Links Help Google And Users

Speaker 3:01

A page that's probably already ranking really well on Google, and you would want to include a section on that page about shockwave and then link to it. You would also want to go to your specific conditions pages, and when you're talking about the conditions. That you offer, let's say shoulder pain or that you treat, let's say you have a built out shoulder pain page and you mention on that page how you help alleviate shoulder pain, and you mentioned chiropractic care and you mention a couple other services that you offer, you would then wanna mention. The service that you're now offering of shockwave if it relates to that condition and linked to that page. And again, what you're doing here is you are aiding that brand new page by giving it a little extra Google love and showing how it connects to the other pages and the other content on your website. They pass link equity. When one page on your website is strong, let's say it ranks really well, it can share some of that authority with the pages that it links to. So again, this helps the other pages rank better over time, and we've already honed it on some of these elements, but let's revisit it. They build topical relevance linking related pages together, helps search engine understand what your website's about. So if you have a blog post, again, if you're a chiropractor, maybe about sciatic pain relief tips, well, you're gonna wanna link that to a page that you have that's probably dedicated to sciatica or to some of the treatments that you offer to help. Relieve sciatica. It reinforces the topics in the eyes of Google. It also improves user experience. From a visitor's perspective, internal links make it easier to understand how to navigate throughout your website. Right? So if I was on your website, and let's go back to that example of your chiropractor and you just decided that you're going to start pushing a new service of shockwave, and I'm on your shoulder pain page and it mentions shockwave as a treatment for shoulder pain. If it has that link, it makes sense for me to wanna click through and learn more about that service. So again, you can start to see how internal links make sense from a user perspective, but also can help with SEO. So if you're trying to rank for a local search term like chiropractor near me or. Sports rehab, injury and name of city internal links can really help make that happen. But let's talk about some mistakes that can happen because if you're just like, okay, let me just go to the website and do this, or let me just not do it because I don't have time, these all can lead to mistakes. So let's go over some mistakes. Mistake number one. Not having a strategy. Most internal links are just thrown in at random if they even exist at all. They're not based on keywords that you're trying to target or understanding Page importance. Mistake number two, only linking to your homepage while your homepage is important, your services page and specific content on your website to serve attention to. Mistake number three, orphan pages. These are pages that that no other page links to. If you have them, search engines might ignore them.

Common Internal Linking Mistakes

Speaker 6:54

Mistake number four, using phrases like, click here or learn more. That doesn't help. We wanna use descriptors when we're using anchor text Links like chiropractic care for neck pain is better when you're linking to the neck pain page now. If you are using a button, sometimes it does make sense to use the words, learn more, so descriptors when it's anchor text when you're linking and using a link with intext. But it's okay for buttons to use the word learn more, but we still want to make sure that we're including links in actual text. Let's walk through a simple framework for any clinic to follow. On how to build an internal linking strategy. Step one, identify your key pages. These are your high value pages. They include your services and specific services that you're trying to highlight. Your about page, and some of your top performing content, whether it's specific conditions, pages, general conditions, pages or top performing blog posts. Next, you wanna map out supporting content. Think of your blog post at or FAQs as supporting pages that can point back to these key pages. For example, a blog post on posture tips could link to a posture correction treatment page, right? Step three, use key word, rich anchor text. Again, this is text that's in your website

A Five Step Linking Framework

Speaker 8:35

that you're hyperlinking to. Other key pages in your website. Link naturally within your sentences and use phrases that reflect what pages you're linking to. Add links contextually. That's step four. Don't force it. Add links where they naturally support the reader. Such as after related point or recommendation. Step five, review and update periodically. You have to do this with anything, right? As you add new content, look for opportunities to link both from and to it. This keeps your structure dynamic and SEO friendly. Now, I know some people can get overwhelmed when it comes to tools, but I do wanna give you a couple tools that you can use here. That can help you. When it comes to internal linking, you have Google Search Console, screaming Frog, Yost, SEO. If you're a WordPress user or there's Airtable or Notion to help you map out internal links, start small. You don't need these tools to go about this process. You can do this by just taking a look at your website. You don't need to overhaul. Your entire website, you can begin by updating one blog post or one service page a week and build from there. Internal linking isn't glamorous. It's not as exciting as social media or video content, but it's an empower. It's an very powerful tool.

Tools And A Start Small Plan

Speaker 10:19

Internal linking is not glamorous. It's not exciting like social media or video content, but it's an important and powerful free SEO strategy that you can implement. It helps Google understand your website, boost your rankings across multiple pages, improves user experience and can directly impact how many patients find and trust your clinic online. So if you haven't thought about internal links for a while, now's the time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you found it helpful. Don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review, and check out the blog version of this episode@propelyourcompany.com where you'll find even more tips for optimizing your clinic's website for local SEO, you can also book a discovery call or check out one of our free trainings. Until next time, keep showing up, keep optimizing and keep growing. Thanks for listening.