Instantly Turn Keywords Into SEO Links: This SmartCrawl Tool Automates It For You

SmartCrawl‘s Automatic Linking feature allows you to automatically turn specific keywords or phrases into internal or external links within your site’s content, saving you time and effort, making interlinking a breeze, and boosting your website’s overall SEO.

Interlinking web pages is essentially what makes the web the web. Smart and effective interlinking of web pages will improve your site’s SEO and play a crucial role in increasing the visibility and success of your website.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover practical uses of the SmartCrawl plugin’s Automatic Linking feature and how it can help automate an important aspect of your website’s SEO.

We’ll cover the following:

The Importance of Linking Web Content For Improved SEO
What is SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking and How Does It Work?
Step-By-Step Guide to Using SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking
Practical Examples of SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking Usage

The Importance of Linking Web Content For Improved SEO

Internal and external linking are essential components of SEO that help to improve your site’s visibility and ranking on search engines and user navigation.

Internal linking refers to the practice of linking pages within the same website. It is an effective way to guide users through your website, make it easier for search engines to crawl and index pages, and establish a hierarchical page structure.

Internal linking can also help distribute link equity throughout a website, which can improve the ranking of individual pages.

For more details, see our comprehensive guide to internal link building.

External linking, on the other hand, involves linking to other websites or pages that are not within the same domain.

External linking can provide additional information or resources for users, and can also help establish your website’s authority and relevance in your particular field or industry.

What is SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking and How Does It Work?

SmartCrawl’s powerful Automatic Linking feature automates your site’s internal and external page linking and improves your site’s SEO.

It works by allowing you to select the post types for which you want to enable auto-linking and the post types or taxonomies that can be linked to.

This means that you can choose which areas of your website you want to apply the automatic linking feature and select exactly which post type(s) the plugin should automatically insert links in. Every post type active on your site will then be available for keyword linking.

For example, let’s say you run a web development business and you offer a website building, web hosting, and web maintenance package called “Total Business Care Service” which has an information page where clients can purchase the service.

Additionally, let’s say you run a blog on your site where you post articles about topics related to WordPress information and want to link to the WordPress news blog any time you type the words “WordPress news.”

Without the SmartCrawl plugin, you would have to manually create these links each time you write the text in your pages and posts.

With SmartCrawl, you can enable and set up automatic linking in a few simple steps, and save yourself a bunch of time by letting the plugin do the work of linking the text to your internal and external pages automatically.

Let SmartCrawl automatically link to the internal and external pages you specify for certain keywords.

Step-By-Step Guide to Using SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking

Using SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking feature is super easy.

First, make sure that you have installed and activated SmartCrawl Pro.  Automatic linking is not available on the free version of the plugin.

Next, go to SmartCrawl > Settings > Advanced Tools. Here is where you’ll find the Automatic Links section.

Note: If this is the first time you are using this feature, click the Activate button.

Activate SmartCrawls’ Automatic Linking feature.

This will enable the functionality on your website and display the Automatic Linking screen.

SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking Screen.

The feature has four main tabs that let you configure exactly how you want the plugin to handle the automatic linking of keywords on your site.

Let’s go briefly through each tab:

Post Types

This tab lets you choose which areas of your website to apply the automatic linking feature. Use this tab to select the post types that you want to insert links from.

Every active post type on your site is available for keyword linking.

After selecting the post types to insert links in, a “Link to” field will display. Use the dropdown menu to select the post types or taxonomies to link to.

Select the post types or taxonomies to link to.

You have now specified the areas of your website where automatic linking will apply.

Remember to save your settings before continuing.

Custom Links

This section is where you take control of your linking strategy.

Add any keywords or key phrases that you want to automatically link to specific URLs (internal or external) here.

Specify your automatic internal and external links in the Custom Links tab.

SmartCrawl will now automatically create links throughout your site using the keywords and URLs you have specified.

SmartCrawl automatically creates the links in your content.

Exclusions

Use the Exclusions tab to ensure that certain keywords or URLs will not be linked to.

Exclude keywords and URLs from being automatically linked.

Settings

The Settings tab lets you specify global settings for your automatic linking strategy when using SmartCrawl.

For example, you can set minimum title and taxonomy lengths, maximum limits for links, allow auto-links to empty taxonomies, prevent linking in heading tags, and even process RSS feeds.

Other options include case-sensitive matching, preventing duplicate links, opening links in new tabs, adding nofollow autolinks, and preventing linking on no-index pages, image captions, and caching on autolinked content.

The Settings tab puts you in complete control of SmartCrawl’s automatic linking feature.

With all of these options, you can customize SmartCrawl to meet your specific linking needs.

Learn about all of the options and settings described above in our SmartCrawl Automatic Linking documentation.

Practical Examples of SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking Usage

So, what are some practical uses of SmartCrawl’s automatic linking feature?

Let’s go through some examples:

Example #1 – Boost Internal Linking to Blog Posts

Suppose you’ve written a great blog post about WordPress themes. You can set up an automatic linking rule in SmartCrawl to target the keyword “WordPress themes” which will automatically link this keyword on all of your existing and new posts to this article.

Example #2 – Automatically Link to Top Product Pages

If you have an eCommerce store, you can use automatic linking to turn your top-selling items’ names into links that direct users to the relevant product pages on your site.

This will help to drive more traffic to your popular and best-selling products and boost sales.

Example #3 – Increase Visibility of Pillar Content

Use automatic linking to increase the visibility and boost the rankings of your cornerstone or pillar content by turning the keywords you are targeting for this content into site wide links.

For example, suppose you have a page that contains an article about XYZ Widget with a step-by-step tutorial and detailed instructions that your customers need to follow to ensure that they use the product correctly. You can create an automatic linking rule in SmartCrawl that targets the keyword “XYZ Widget instructions” and automatically links to this important page.

Example #4 – Cross-Promote Related Content

Use automatic linking to connect topic-related blog posts, guides, or how-to articles on your site, providing users with easy access to related information and keeping them engaged longer with your content and your site.

Example #5 – Link to Useful External Resources

Have you got a relevant resource on an external site that your readers might benefit from? Turn specific keywords mentioning these resources into links that will direct users to those external pages.

Example #6 – Boost Affiliate Marketing Revenue

Similar to the previous example, if you promote affiliate products or services on your site, you can use SmartCrawl’s automatic linking feature to create anchor text links connecting specific brand names or product/service categories to their respective destination pages or sites with your embedded affiliate link.

SmartCrawl’s Automatic Linking feature is perfect for affiliate marketing!

Sitewide Automatic Linking – Faster Than Blinking

SmartCrawl’s powerful and time-saving Automatic Linking feature helps you take your linking strategy to the next level while simultaneously improving your site’s SEO and user navigation experience.

Check out our documentation section to learn more about using the automatic links feature or access SmartCrawl Pro and start boosting your traffic, search rankings, and sales conversions today by becoming a WPMU DEV member.