While building AllInOneTools, I added a “Most Popular Tools” section on the homepage.
At first, the goal was simple:
Help users start quickly.
But later I realized something interesting.
That section also creates a lot of internal links.
Each popular tool links directly to its tool page.
So now the homepage connects to:
• Image Compressor
• PDF Merge
• Text Converter
• SEO Analyzer
• And other frequently used tools
From a search engine perspective, this seems useful.
Because internal links help search engines:
• Discover pages faster
• Understand which pages are important
• Crawl deeper into the website
• Pass authority from the homepage
In other words, the Popular Tools section may act like a strong internal linking hub.
Not just for users.
But for search engines too.
Now I’m curious how others see this.
Do you think a “Popular Tools” section helps SEO…
• because of internal linking?
• because it highlights important pages?
• or is it mainly useful only for users?
Would love to hear how others approach this.
Top comments (7)
For me, the Popular Tools section does two things at the same time.
It helps users start quickly, and it also creates strong internal links from the homepage to important tool pages.
So instead of only helping UX, it also helps search engines understand which pages matter most.
Short answer: yes, but the why matters more than the pattern itself.
I run a 100k+ page programmatic SEO site (stock analysis across 12 languages), and internal linking is probably the single biggest lever I have for getting Google to actually crawl and index pages at scale. When you have tens of thousands of pages, Google's crawl budget becomes a real constraint — they won't discover deep pages unless something links to them from a page they already trust.
Your "Popular Tools" section works because it does two things simultaneously: it concentrates link equity from your highest-authority page (homepage) into your most important conversion pages, and it gives Google a clear signal about your site's hierarchy.
A few things I've learned the hard way:
Make it dynamic based on actual usage data, not just what you think is popular. Google can tell when a "popular" section is just static marketing. If the links change based on real engagement signals, it looks more natural.
Don't stop at the homepage. The real power comes from contextual internal links on every page — "Related Tools" widgets, "Popular in this Category" sections. That's what turns a flat site into a proper content cluster.
Watch your crawl stats in GSC. After I added cross-linking widgets between related pages (stock → sector → ETF), my crawl rate for those sections went up noticeably within a couple weeks.
The pattern you're describing is basically a lightweight version of what the big sites (Amazon, Wikipedia) do with their navigation. It works.
This is a really helpful perspective, especially the crawl budget point. My site is much smaller than that, but even at this stage I can see how internal links from the homepage help important tool pages get discovered faster. I like the idea of making the “Popular Tools” section dynamic based on real usage — that makes it more honest for users and probably more natural for search engines too. Also agree on contextual linking between tools; that’s something I’m starting to experiment with now.
Bhavin, i'm loving this series of posts on "Popular Tools." Your focus on UX and SEO is great...I'm learning a lot. Keep it up, my friend. 💯
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate that.
I started this series while building AllInOneTools and noticing small things about how users actually behave on a homepage.
The “Popular Tools” section looked like just a UX decision at first, but it also created strong internal links from the homepage. That made me think about the SEO side too.
Glad the posts are useful — I’m learning a lot while building and sharing these observations.
Good coverage. For devs automating this: you can inject XMP keywords directly into image files before upload via API. Built a webhook for exactly this use case → prometadata.com/inject
Good point 👀
I haven’t gone that deep into XMP yet, but your webhook idea sounds really useful for teams handling lots of images.
For my case (AllInOneTools), most gains came from simple stuff — compressing images, using WebP, and keeping everything fast + clean. That alone improved load time and indexing.
But yeah, metadata at scale like this feels like the next level 👍