Internal linking is one of Google’s SEO ranking factors. You can implement internal linking on your website manually, which is more difficult.
So what should you do?
As everything is treated by AI, we might consider an alternative to the manual linking process.
That’s why, you can use Link Whisper.
Link Whisper uses artificial intelligence to scan site content and identify appropriate pages for interlinking, completely automating internal link building. It saves time on manual linking and improves site structure for better rankings.
Prices start at $52 per year. Its main advantages include time savings, optimized on-site linking, and SEO improvements.
In this post, I will talk about my experiences with Link Whisper during the last few months. Continue watching to see my entire thoughts! Let us get started.
What is Link Whisper?
Link Whisper is a WordPress plugin that helps website owners and bloggers automate the process of internal linking.
The plugin was developed by Spencer Haws, an internet marketer and the founder of the Niche Pursuits blog.
The plugin is specifically built for the internal link-building process. It analyzes website content and structure using artificial intelligence, and then it identifies strategic opportunities for internal page links.
The plugin improves on-page SEO by proposing proper internal linking with other metrics. It has many important features, including a simple dashboard, the ability to create and prioritize links, analytics to track internal linking progress, and more.
Key Features of Link Whisper:
All in all, the main goal of Link Whisper is to save time and effort with internal linking.
- AI-powered content analysis: Link Whisper scans your website’s content to understand the purpose of each page. This contextual analysis allows it to match related pages that should be linked.
- Automated link recommendations: It suggests pages to interlink by evaluating content similarity and topical relevance. You can simply review and add the recommended links.
- Automated Custom link anchor text: For each recommended link, it provides optimized anchor text so you don’t have to create it manually.
- Configuration of linking rules: The algorithm is customized based on your goals for internal linking. For example, you can set rules only to suggest links to high-authority pages.
- Integration with SEO platforms: You can seamlessly integrate the plugin with many popular SEO tools and content management systems.
Update:
In the latest version of Link Whisper, you will get a related posts feature, which will automatically be added at the end of the post. So you will not have to use a related post plugin separately from now.
Why Does Internal Linking Matter?
See why internal linking is so crucial for your SEO and website optimization:
1) Impact on SEO and Search Engine Rankings
An excellent internal link structure can help your web pages rank for their target keywords. It works by correctly distributing link equity throughout a website.
Specifically, intentional internal linking does 3 key things for SEO:
- Direct link authority: Links give authority to other related pages. This allows you to focus authority on your most essential pages.
- Provides crawlability: Links that connect to other pages boost the ability of search bots (such as Google and Bing) to crawl and index your entire website.
- Shows topical relevance: Links between pages indicate to search engines that the linked pages have relevant content.
As a result, an organized site architecture helps the ranking of target pages for focus keywords.
2) Enhanced User Experience and Navigation
Beyond SEO, effective internal linking improves the user experience of a website. Links allow visitors to browse between similar content more efficiently.
The UX benefits of internal links include:
- Increased time on site: More linking provides more content rabbit holes for users to explore. So, viewers take time before leaving your website.
- Simplified content discovery: Internal links allow readers to easily find similar or in-depth content. As a result, customers spend more time on your website searching for the exact content they are looking for.
- Stronger on-site navigation: Linking pages allows viewers to navigate the site more easily. Google values this type of ease of navigation.
All of this leads to higher viewer engagement and conversion rates.
Setup Process of Link Whisper Plugin & Customization
Installation Process
I already mentioned that Link Whisper is a WordPress plugin, and I tested it on my WordPress site, which has a simple installation process.
The plugin is not free to use, thus you must purchase its one pro plan from their website in order to download it (in ZIP format).
After that like any other plugin, just simply upload and activate the plugin.
I have passed 4 steps, I think you can do these.
That’s it! Installation takes just a few minutes.
Initial Configuration and Settings
Once installed, you can modify the plugin’s settings to decide how it should evaluate your site’s content.
Step #1: After you activate Link Whisper, you will see a new menu item on your WordPress dashboard called Link Whisper.
Click on it, and you will see the Link Whisper dashboard. Here, you can access the link suggestions and link reports features.
Step #2: On the Link Whisper dashboard, you will also see a button “Run a Link Scan” click on the button and wait for Link Whisper to analyze your content and generate link suggestions for your posts.
This may take a few minutes, depending on the size and complexity of your site.
Step #3: You can also customize settings and preferences of the plugin by clicking on the Settings tab.
How Link Whisper Works for Internal Linking?
After completing the setup, let me share my experience with using Link Whisper for automated link creation.
Automation of Link Suggestions
The feature that I enjoy about Link Whisper is that it discovers internal link opportunities.
So you will not have to do it manually. The technology automatically scans information to identify similar pages. Furthermore, it generates suggested link opportunities, filled with contextual anchor text.
This tool also recommends interlinking directly in the post editor before posting the post. This makes it very straightforward to interlink from the start.
The single post editor provides an automatically produced list of potential links. Then simply click to approve whatever you want to add.
Adding Links to Existing Content Effortlessly
Before Link Whisper, you need to manually alter the content to insert and optimize anchor text. However, with Link Whisper, you can now add internal links to existing text without having to code or change it.
For example, if your blog needs more topical links within posts, Link Whisper identifies opportunities and allows you to quickly insert suggested links. This “set and forget” technique saves a lot of effort.
Strategic Internal Linking With Link Whisper
Here’s how I configured Link Whisper for strategic internal link building:
Keyword Targeting
Ensure relevant keywords are included in the automated anchor text. This helps pages link together for your focus terms.
For example, I target the keyword “content marketing strategy” throughout my website. Link Whisper intelligently detects this and adds it to the suggested anchor text for my content strategy posts.
Topical Clustering
The plugin specializes in detecting similar content around specified topics that should be linked. I looked for opportunities to cross-link posts on the same topic. This increases authority for my content clusters.
Funnel Linking
By selecting certain pages as higher priority targets, the plugin helps direct more links to your key pages (such as homepage). This helps build a “funnel” approach to internal linking to maximize authority passing to your most important pages.
The option to set up unique linking rules guarantees that the site’s automation aligns with the SEO strategy.
Link Whisper’s User Interface
Link Whisper has a user-friendly interface designed for both site admins and end users.
Clean Menu Layout
The left sidebar menu has a clean, simple appearance. Here you will find logical report segmentation, an inbound internal linking part, an auto-linking area, a keyword targeting section, a URL changer, and Settings.
Its intuitiveness allows you to rapidly navigate to find the internal link info.
Insightful Dashboard
The Dashboard gives an at-a-glance overview of key link metrics, including
- Number of posts crawled
- Links found
- Orphaned posts
- Top linked domains
- 404 errors, etc.
Moreover, handy graphs show the internal vs external links ratio and break down the top linking domains. This provides a helpful snapshot of the health of a site’s overall link profile.
Link Whisper’s Insightful Dashboard
Powerful Link Reports
The Reports section allows you to run a complete study of a site’s link structure. There are separate reports for Links, Domains, Clicks, and Errors.
Links Report
This report includes both outbound and inbound links, divided into internal and external categories. You can sort and search for specific URLs to determine where links are coming from or pointing to.
Exporting the raw data as a CSV is also great for further manipulation.
Domains Report
The Domains report provides aggregated metrics for all referring domains, including:
- Domain name
- Applied attributes
- Number of posts
- Number of links
The plugin automatically applies nofollow or sponsored attributes to domains based on the settings you set up. The data can then be exported for further study.
Clicks Report
To monitor user behavior, all Clicks reports track link clicks by post and URL. A headline chart shows total clicks over time. Old click data can be removed to keep the report focused on current developments.
Errors Report
The Errors report shows broken links throughout the website. It includes both the type of issue and the status code. Links are flagged based on their severity level, allowing for easy discovery of serious concerns.
So, running bulk scans regularly helps you catch new problems as they emerge.
With one click, Link Whisper can fix broken links sitewide by replacing them with the correct URL. This automates a typically manual process.
Customizable Settings
General Settings
The General Settings provide advanced control over Link Whisper’s core behavior. You can configure internal links to open new tabs, allowing users to stay on your site while viewing relevant content. I like that external links open in the same tab to keep people focused.
Also, ignoring numbers prevents non-semantic digits from influencing anchor text. In this case, you can only use English, so having Link Whisper detect other languages is disabled.
The Words to Ignore option allows you to specify which terms you do not want to inform link anchors, eliminating repetitious phrases that provide no meaning.
You can limit link building to Posts only, excluding Pages that require more manual review.
Enabling Term Types to Process allows you to use categories and tags as potential anchors. This expands your internal link phrases beyond post titles.
Only your published Posts will receive suggestions, avoiding wasting resources scanning drafts. Also, the Number of Sentences to Skip setting helps you ignore initial paragraphs when identifying targets, preventing overly early linking.
You can cap the maximum number of suggested links per post based on its length to maintain a natural flow. Also, destination titles are appended to provide clarity on where links lead without repetitive anchor text.
Content Ignoring Settings
The Content Ignoring options allow you to filter sites, posts, and items out of Link Whisper’s scope.
Given their specific purpose, you can completely exclude specific pages from any processing. Irrelevant categories may also be omitted from suggestions.
You can use settings like Ignoring Latest Posts and Comment Links when reviewing analytics to minimize fake inflation caused by manipulative linking. The tool considers your intent when optimizing other content.
In addition, you can exclude particular posts and post categories from suggestions, auto-linking, and orphan detection as needed.
Furthermore, powerful CSS, HTML, and shortcode filters allow precise control over what is ignored.
Domain Settings
The Domain Settings allow you to control how Link Whisper handles links pointing to internal and external sites.
You can set “nofollow” on all outbound links to ensure that inbound authority goes only to your content.
Domain-level rules allow you to make internal links open in the same tab while external links open in new tabs. Single domains can also be marked as sponsored or nofollow, which cascades the settings throughout the site.
The option to Mark a Domain as Internal allows you to mark any domain you own as internal for link type counts, even if it is not hosted on your main domain. This gives a more accurate representation of your real domain authority distribution.
Advanced Settings
The Advanced Settings section unlocks strong features that allow you to further customize Link Whisper’s functionality.
Settings such as Prevent Two-Way Linking avoid artificial cross-linking between posts. Relative Links preserve your site’s structure during migrations.
You can set Link Suggestions to display only on posts that contain specific high-value keywords. The generated links enhance the page’s importance for ranking your core terms.
Link text choices allow you to specify SEO titles for anchors rather than exact post titles. You can also limit Titles to the first “X” words.
When the Interlink External Sites option is activated, Link Whisper intelligently provides links to appropriate high-authority external content. This increases the overall quality of your pages.
By disabling Outbound Suggestions, Link Whisper focuses solely on the internal links between your content.
You can toggle this as needed throughout the optimization phase. The advanced controls offer crucial flexibility in matching your use cases.
Link Whisper: Integration with Other SEO Tools
A key benefit of Link Whisper is its integration capabilities with other platforms:
Compatibility with leading SEO plugins
Link Whisper is compatible with all leading SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO ,Rank Math, etc. Its feature allows you to import your focus keywords from them. You can use your focus keywords as anchor text for internal links.
This allows you to send a signal to search engines about the content of your sites and how they are related.
Integration with Google Search Console
The plugin also integrates with Google Search Console. This allows you to import Google Search Console data to your site.
You can use this data to figure out how my internal links impact impressions, clicks, and rankings. Then you can optimize the links accordingly.
So that you can uncover the most profitable links for your content.
Playing Nice with Page Builders
Link Whisper works directly with WordPress sites that use page builders like as Elementor, ensuring that no conflicts arise.
You can allow Link Whisper to analyze page builder content. As a result, it generates highly intelligent linking suggestions based on the entire text.
Working Together with Other Tools
I also use other software, like SEMrush for keyword research and Surfer SEO for technical SEO. Link Whisper complements these other tools, so my full optimization toolkit is integrated.
Troubleshooting Common Issues with Link Whisper
Fixing plugin conflicts
To resolve plugin conflicts, locate and deactivate the plugin that is causing problems with Link Whisper. You can do this by following steps:
Step #1: Deactivate all the plugins on your site, except Link Whisper. You can do this by going to Plugins > Installed Plugins on your WordPress dashboard and selecting all the plugins, except Link Whisper.
Then, choose Deactivate from the Bulk Actions dropdown menu and click on Apply.
If your site has a lot of traffic, you can try a plugin called Health Check & Troubleshooting, which can assist you find any conflicts without breaking any plugin functions from fontend.
Step #2: Check that Link Whisper is working properly. You can do this by using its capabilities, such as link suggestions and link reports. If it functions well, the problem is due by one of the plugins you disabled.
Note: In 99.99% of situations, Link Whisper will function flawlessly.
If it still does not work properly, it is not due to a plugin conflict. In this situation, you will have to uninstall and reload the Link Whisper plugin from scratch.
Step #3: Reactivate the plugins on your site one by one, and make sure Link Whisper is still operating properly after each activation.
You can do this by navigating to Plugins > Installed Plugins in your WordPress dashboard and selecting one plugin at a time. Then, select Activate from the Bulk Actions dropdown option and click Apply.
Step #4: Repeat step #3 until you have identified the plugin causing the conflict with Link Whisper.
User Experiences and Community Feedback
Testimonials and User Reviews
Throughout their website, they feature good testimonials from users ranging from SEO agency to enterprise businesses.
The tool’s user-friendliness, quality links, and ability to significantly speed up internal linking tasks have all received positive feedback.
I found user reviews on third-party sites like ProductHunt, Capterra, and G2 . People have provided positive reviews regarding the plugin.
Community Support and Resources
I also found that the Link Whisper blog base offers useful tutorials, case studies, and guides. Furthermore, active community forums allow you to share suggestions and get troubleshooting assistance from other users.
The plugin also provides video instructions to help users solve common usability issues. They also include tips for using this tool in general.
Also, it has strong community support. The community surrounding serves as social proof of the tool’s usefulness.
Pros and Cons: A Balanced View of Link Whisper
Pros | Cons |
1) Extreme Time Savings: The automation saves me a lot of time. I simply evaluate and insert the suggested links it generates. 2) Most Logical Link Suggestions: It identifies highly relevant pages to interlink. The algorithm appears to take a comprehensive perspective on content. 3) SEO Skyrockets: You may improve the ranking of your most important pages and make them easier to index. 4) Identifies Most On-point Anchor Text: It provides contextually relevant anchor text, which helps you identify the ideal keywords to target. 5) Brings Out Forgotten Content: It can uncover previous posts that you forgot links to new content. 6) Shopify: It supports the Shopify store. | 1) Lack of Full Control: You have to rely on Link Whisper’s AI judgment. It sometimes results in links that are not very relevant. |
Link Whisper Pricing and Plans
Plan | Price Annually | Features |
1 Site License | $52/yr | AI-generated internal link suggestions. Internal link data reports. Annual billing until canceled |
3 Site License | $92/yr | Same |
10 Site License | $142/yr | Same |
Is Link Whisper Right For You?
This is definitely a worthwhile tool for you if you are in the following situations:
If your site has overbuilt internal linking: The plugin is ideal for modernizing and consolidating outdated links on existing websites.
If you manage a large website: Link Whisper’s automation saves time for sites with a large number of pages. The more pages you have, the more interlinking chances Link Whisper provides. So it simplifies the work process that you need.
If your site generates frequent new content: Maintaining links for steady content growth is easier. There is no bother with the entire process.
If your internal linking process is manual: As I’ve said before, automation can help you eliminate repetitive manual effort. Link Whisper offers the groundwork for an automatically optimized internal linking architecture.
Top Alternatives to Link Whisper
You can use any of the following alternative plugins on your WordPress site:
- Internal Link Juicer (2nd recommended)
- Linksys (1st recommended)
- Interlinks Manager
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Final Words
Link Whisper fully delivers on its promise of being the perfect tool for robust internal link growth.
Based on my hands-on experience, I strongly recommend Link Whisper for automating and establishing contextual internal links.
It will save you time, make intelligent recommendations, and offer a wide range of features. Overall, if you want to take advantage of automatic internal linking, it will be an excellent investment.