An internal link is any link from one page of your website to another page on the same website. Your menu, your footer, a "related products" box and a link inside a paragraph are all internal links. They do two jobs at once: they help a visitor move to the next useful page, and they help Google discover your pages and understand which ones matter most. If no other page links to a page, both people and search engines will struggle to find it.

Google finds most pages by following links, much as a visitor does. When it crawls your home page, it follows the links there to other pages, then follows the links on those pages, and so on. A sitemap helps too, but links carry more meaning: they show how your pages relate to each other.

Internal links also send a quiet signal about priority. A page linked from your home page, your menu and several related articles looks more important than a page buried five clicks deep with a single link. And the clickable words in a link, called anchor text, tell Google what the linked page is about.

For visitors, the benefit is simpler. Someone reading about AC servicing on your site probably wants to know which areas you cover or how booking works. A well-placed link saves them from going back to Google, or to a competitor.

Your main menu, footer and breadcrumbs. They appear on every page, so keep them for your most important pages: services, key product categories, about and contact. A menu with forty items helps nobody.

Links inside the body text of a page, pointing to a related page. These carry the most meaning, because the surrounding sentence explains why the link is there. For example, an article about choosing a solar inverter might link to your installation service page in the sentence where installation comes up.

A hub page brings together everything on one subject. Imagine a "Fish farming guides" page that links to every article on pond care, feed and water quality, with each article linking back to the hub. "Related posts" and "related products" blocks work in a similar way, as long as the items really are related.

Anchor text: say where the link goes

Anchor text should describe the destination in natural words.

Weak anchor text Better anchor text
click here our delivery areas in Rajshahi division
read more how we install rooftop water tanks
this page our return and exchange policy
the same keyword on every link a natural phrase that fits each sentence

Two cautions. First, don't force the same keyword into every link pointing at a page; vary the wording as you would in normal writing. Second, on a bilingual site, link Bangla pages to Bangla pages and English pages to English pages, so a reader isn't suddenly switched to the other language.

A small site needs no special software. A spreadsheet and an hour are enough to start.

  1. List your important pages. Usually your service or category pages, your best products, and the articles that bring enquiries.
  2. See how many links point to each one. Open your pages and note which ones link to each important page. Google Search Console's Links report also shows internal link counts.
  3. Find orphan pages. These are pages no other page links to. Either link to them from a relevant place, or ask whether they should exist at all.
  4. Check click depth. Key pages should be reachable within a few clicks of the home page. If a top service sits under several layers of menus, bring it closer.
  5. Add contextual links where they help. Reread your popular articles and add a link wherever a reader would naturally want the next step.
  6. Fix broken links. A link to a deleted page wastes the visitor's time. Point it to the right page or remove it.

On a large site, or if you suspect deeper problems, this is one part of a technical SEO audit. How your URLs and sections are organised also shapes your linking; see site structure and URLs for SEO.

Common mistakes

  • Linking everything to everything. A paragraph with eight links is hard to read, and each link means less.
  • Relying only on the menu. Navigation is useful, but contextual links do the work of explaining how pages relate.
  • Leaving blog posts isolated. Many small business blogs publish posts that never link to a service page, so readers have nowhere to go next. A plan that connects posts to services, like a content plan built on search intent, fixes that.
  • Links hidden behind scripts. If a link only appears after a tap, or isn't a normal HTML link (<a href>), Google may not follow it.
  • Changing URLs without updating links. After a redesign, old internal links can point to redirects or, worse, to error pages.

A short checklist to finish

  • Each important page has several relevant internal links pointing to it.
  • No important page is an orphan.
  • Anchor text describes the destination in plain words.
  • Every article links to at least one related service or product page.
  • Broken internal links get fixed after any redesign or URL change.

Internal linking is one of the few SEO tasks that is entirely in your hands and costs only time. If you'd like a second pair of eyes on your site's structure, my SEO, AEO and GEO service covers it.

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