The link set is a claim about the business
How many internal links an article needs depends entirely on how the site makes money. Get it wrong and the page contradicts itself.
8 min read
Curious
0 XPMost SEO advice gives you one number for internal links. That is wrong, because the right number depends on something the advice never asks about: how the site makes money.
There are four models, and each one implies a different link set.
| Model | Brand appears? | CTA? | Required set |
|---|---|---|---|
| House brand | Yes, promoted | Yes | 5 blog + 2 landing + 1 CTA |
| House brand + affiliate | Yes, promoted | Yes | 5 blog + 2 landing + 1 CTA, affiliate extra |
| Affiliate / neutral | Removed | No | 5 blog, affiliate extra |
| Pure neutral | Removed | No | 5 blog |
Why the neutral models have no CTA
This is the part people get wrong, and it is not really an SEO question.
A neutral site's entire value is that it has nothing to sell you. The moment an article ends with "book a demo", the neutrality was a costume. Adding a CTA to a neutral page does not just break a formatting rule, it breaks the promise the page is built on.
Read the model, do not guess it from the name
A site's model changes. One client in the source system went from affiliate-neutral to house-brand on the day it launched a paid product. Its brand went from banned to first position. Write the model into the client notes with a date, read it every session, and leave already-published articles alone when it changes.
Set the link requirements
90 XP+23 perfectFour sites, four business models. Dial in the required internal-link set for each. This doubles as your cheat sheet: get it right once and you will not have to think about it again.
House brand
Sells its own product. The blog exists to bring people to it.
House brand + affiliate
Own product AND affiliate revenue from tools it reviews.
Affiliate / neutral
No brand in the articles at all. Revenue is affiliate only.
Pure neutral
Editorial. No product, no affiliate, no revenue from the page.
Spread them, never bunch them
Five links in the conclusion is not five internal links, it is a link block with prose above it. Spread them across the article, and pick pages that are genuinely relevant to the section they sit in.
Bunched
- All five links in a "related reading" list
- Anchors like "click here" and "this guide"
- Chosen because they were the first five in the sitemap
- Reader ignores the whole block
Placed
- One per section, where it answers a question
- Anchors of five words or fewer
- Chosen for relevance to that specific section
- Reader clicks the one they needed
Finished reading?
Mark it done to bank the XP and keep your streak alive. Any challenges on this page score separately, so you can come back for a perfect run later.