Link building is crucial for any good SEO plan. Links help pages and websites rank better in search engines. Links also help people find new content and bring referral traffic. For big websites with hundreds or thousands of pages, managing internal and external links can take up a lot of time. This article talks about tools and ideas to help manage links better.

Check Current Links

First, get a clear view of the website’s current internal and external links. Tools like Ahrefs, Majestic, and Moz show all the pages linking to the site. They also share metrics like domain authority and referral traffic. Site crawlers like Screaming Frog make maps of connections between pages. This shows any pages without many links. Look for pages with lots of external links but few internal links, and vice versa. Checking current links sets a starting point to evaluate future work.

Streamline Internal Links

Manually adding relevant links between hundreds of pages takes too much time. Thankfully, automation tools can recommend and create contextual internal links fast. Plugins like Yoast SEO, SEOPress, and Slim SEO automatically suggest related posts to link to. Other software like Link Whisper, Linkboss, and Deeplink Juggernaut crawl sites to spot good link opportunities between content. These save a lot of time versus manual linking.

Make Link Maps

For big websites, link maps give a top-level view of internal connections to see missing links. Make basic maps in Excel using crawled site data. Or get interactive maps from Linkio, Serpstat, or WebMechanix that use AI to recommend connections. Strategically link separated topics and ensure all top pages eventually link deeper into the site.

Focus on Quality External Links

While automation helps manage internal links, getting editorial external links from trustworthy sites still takes manual outreach. Focus on getting impactful links from reputable, relevant websites in the industry. Ten great contextual external links will help a site more than a hundred low-quality links from irrelevant sites. Tools like Pitchbox, Buzzstream, and GroupHigh simplify finding prospects and managing outreach.

Diversify External Link Sources

All links build domain authority, but search engines like links from diverse quality sources. Avoid over-optimizing anchor text, which can seem fake. Build links naturally by making great, shareable content. Enable easy social media sharing. Seek relevant guest posting spots to get contextual external links to the best content. Establish domain expertise.

Monitor New Links

Link building is ongoing. Regularly monitor new internal and external links with alerts in tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Majestic. Check links use varied anchor text and go to relevant pages. Evaluate new link domains and referrer sites. Remove bad links to avoid penalties. Link audits should guide continuous efforts.

Good link building combines automation and manual outreach for relevant links at scale. Audit links, enable automated internal links, get authoritative external links manually, and monitor results. This helps connect content internally and externally to improve discoverability and rankings.