Internal linking guide for growing websites

What internal links do

An internal link is any link from one page on your site to another. They do three jobs:

• Help people. Visitors find related services, prices and answers without hunting.
• Help discovery. Google finds pages mainly by following links. A page with no internal links pointing to it may be found late or not at all.
• Signal importance. Pages that many other pages link to look more important than pages buried deep in the site.

Google's guidance on crawlable links explains what it can follow. The short version: use ordinary HTML links with an `href` and descriptive text.

The three kinds of internal link

Navigation links

Your main menu, footer and breadcrumbs. They appear on every page, so whatever they link to gets a lot of internal links. Use them for your most important pages, such as main services, pricing and contact. Keep menus short and clear.

Contextual links

Links within the body text of a page. They're the most useful kind for both readers and search engines, because the surrounding text explains why the pages are related. A guide on "how to stop condensation" linking to your "damp survey" service page is a natural contextual link.

Related links

Lists of related articles or services at the end of a page. Helpful, but less informative than contextual links, especially when generated automatically.

Write descriptive link text

The clickable words, called anchor text, tell people and search engines what to expect. Compare:

• "Click here to learn more."
• "See our guide to damp surveys."

The second is clearer for everyone, including people using screen readers who may skim a list of links out of context. Avoid stuffing exact-match keywords into every link, though. Natural variation reads better.

Link from strong pages to important ones

Your home page and popular guides tend to collect the most links from elsewhere. Linking from them to your key service pages passes that attention on. Look in Search Console's Links report under "Top linked pages" to see which of your pages are most linked externally, then make sure those pages link to the places you want customers to go.

Find and fix orphan pages

An orphan page has no internal links pointing to it. Common causes:

• Pages created for a campaign and never linked from the menu.
• Old services removed from navigation but left live.
• Blog posts that drop off the archive after the first page.

To find them, compare the pages in your XML sitemap with the pages a crawler tool can reach by following links from the home page. Any page in the first list but not the second is an orphan. Either link to it from somewhere sensible, merge it into another page, or remove it with a redirect.

Don't overdo it

More isn't always better. A page with a hundred links in the body is hard to read, and the important links get lost. Link where it genuinely helps the reader take the next step. A few well-placed contextual links usually beat a long list.

A practical audit for a small site

Set aside an hour and work through this:

1. List your five most important pages. Usually your main services or product categories. 2. Check how they're linked. Are they in the main menu? Are they linked from the home page? From related guides? 3. Search your site for mentions. Use Google with `site:yourdomain.co.uk "service name"` to find pages that mention a service but don't link to it. 4. Add contextual links where they help the reader. 5. Fix broken internal links. A crawler tool or Search Console's indexing report will show 404s. Update the link rather than relying on a redirect.

An example

A small accountancy firm had a guide on "Self Assessment deadlines" that attracted plenty of visits each January. But the guide didn't link to the firm's Self Assessment service page. Readers learned the deadlines and left.

The firm added a short paragraph near the top: "If you'd rather we handled your return, see our Self Assessment service and fixed fees." It also linked the guide from the service page, and the service page from the home page. Visitors now had a clear next step, and the service page benefited from links on a popular page.

Internal links during a redesign

Redesigns often change URLs and menus. Before launch, check that:

• Every important page is still linked from the new menu or somewhere prominent.
• Links in body text point to new URLs, not old ones that redirect.
• Breadcrumbs reflect the new structure.

Redirects catch visitors following old links, but updating internal links directly is cleaner and faster.

Questions