Site structure
Internal Linking: Build Paths Readers and Search Engines Can Follow
Give the next question a destination.
An internal link connects one page of your website to another. It can help a visitor continue a task and help a search engine discover and understand the destination.
Start with a question the current page creates. If a guide explains fabric choices, a reader may next need to see the fabrics you offer. Link there at the point where the choice becomes relevant.
- Main navigation: gives access to the main parts of the site.
- Breadcrumbs: show where a page belongs in a hierarchy.
- Links within the text: answer the next question in context.
- Related resources: offer a small set of useful alternatives.
- Footer links: make recurring reference pages easy to find.
These links serve different jobs. A large footer list cannot explain every relationship between your pages.
Plan a route through three useful pages.
Fabric guide
In this hypothetical upholstery site, a reader compares fabrics for a frequently used chair. Beside the discussion of samples, link to the provider’s upholstery fabric options. The destination should show the actual options and how to request samples.
Upholstery service
A visitor who knows which chair needs work may need an assessment. Beside the explanation of the process, link to photos needed for an upholstery quote. Do not send them back to a general homepage to find the instructions.
Quote instructions
Explain which photos and details to send, then link to the enquiry form. Also offer a route back to the fabric guide for visitors who still need help choosing. People should be able to move in either direction as their questions change.
Write link text that names the destination.
Compare “Click here to learn more” with “See the photos needed for an upholstery quote.” The second version tells the reader what they will get before they leave the page.
Keep the wording natural within its sentence. You do not need to repeat a long search phrase in every link. Avoid linking several adjacent words to different pages when the reader cannot easily distinguish the choices.
For a real example on this site, the guide to finding missing answers in your content helps you decide whether the destination is useful enough to recommend.
Use the normal link control in your editor. Google recommends links with an <a> element and an href address; a clickable object alone does not prove that a crawler can follow it. See Google’s link guidance.
Find pages the site does not lead to.
An orphan page has no incoming internal links. A page with one weak or hard-to-find link is poorly connected, but it is not the same condition.
A crawl from the homepage cannot by itself list every orphan: a page with no path from that starting point may never be discovered. Compare the crawl with an independent list of pages from your website’s content system.
- List the public service pages, guides, products and other resources that should be reachable.
- Compare that list with the pages found by following the site’s internal links.
- For each missing page, check whether it is still useful and intended for public discovery.
- Find an existing page where a reader would reasonably need that resource.
- Add a descriptive link there, then follow the route yourself.
A sitemap can help search discovery, but it does not give a visitor a useful route through the site.
Fix the route, not just the broken URL.
The link leads to an error
Find the resource the sentence actually needs. Update the link if an equivalent replacement exists; remove or rewrite the reference if it no longer makes sense. Sending every broken link to the homepage hides the missing answer.
The page has moved
Update the source link to the current address and check that the new page still answers the same question. A working redirect can preserve access while old links are being corrected.
The label promises too much
If “Compare all fabrics” opens a page about one fabric, narrow the label or choose a better destination. A successful page load does not make a misleading link useful.
An old post lacks a newer answer
Add the new resource where it helps the original discussion. Preserve relevant historical context and make it clear when the linked information describes today’s service or product.
Every paragraph has several links
Read the page as a visitor with one task. Keep the links that explain a term, support a claim or offer a needed next step. Remove repeated invitations that distract from the answer.
Check one complete path on a phone.
- Start on a page that receives relevant visitors, without using the site search.
- State the next question a visitor is likely to ask.
- Find the link that should answer it. Check whether the label predicts the destination.
- Open it and confirm that the answer is present, current and readable.
- Follow the next action, and check that a visitor can return to supporting information if needed.
Ask someone unfamiliar with the site to repeat the task without coaching. Record where they hesitate and which destination they expected.
Use a crawl to check technical access and link reports to find missing support. If you measure link clicks, also check what visitors do on the destination. More clicks can mean a useful route or a confusing one; a ranking change alone does not establish the effect of an individual link.
There is no fixed link quota to fill. Which important page on your site is currently hardest to reach from a relevant article?