Every website has pages that deserve readers and do not get them. A detailed guide published two years ago, linked only from a news item that has since dropped off the home page. A service page reachable from the menu but never mentioned in any of the articles that discuss that service. An internal linking strategy fixes this by treating links as part of the structure, planned and maintained, rather than something each writer adds at the end if they remember.

Why internal links matter

For people, a link is a promise about what comes next. Good links help a reader go deeper into a topic, compare related options or take the next step in a task. WCAG 2.2 success criterion 2.4.5 Multiple Ways recognises "providing links to navigate to related web pages" as one of the techniques that give people more than one route to a page.

For search engines, links are how pages are discovered. Google's documentation says its crawler follows links only when they are <a> elements carrying an href attribute, and that each page worth finding should be linked from "at least one other page on your site". Links built with scripts that do not produce real anchor elements may not be followed at all.

What the strategy covers

Orphan and weakly linked pages. A crawl shows which pages receive no internal links, and which receive links only from pages that are themselves hard to reach.

Hubs. For each main topic, one page that introduces it and links to the detailed pages beneath. Hubs give both readers and crawlers a clear entry point.

Related links. Rules for linking sideways between pages that share a topic, audience or task. Where your content system can generate related links from the taxonomy, we specify the logic; where it cannot, we give editors a short checklist.

Anchor text. The words that form the link. Google asks for anchor text that is "descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant" to both the page holding the link and the page it points to. In practice that means no "click here" and no "read more" without context. Descriptive link text also helps screen reader users who browse a list of links out of context.

Navigation links. Menus, breadcrumbs and footers carry links too. We check that they point to the pages that matter rather than to legacy sections.

Maintenance. How to keep links working when pages are renamed, merged or deleted.

How the work runs

Crawl. We crawl the site and build a link graph: which pages link to which, with what anchor text.
Compare. We compare the graph with your priorities. Which pages should be easy to reach? Which are reached?
Plan. We draft a link plan: new links to add, links to change, links to remove and hub pages to create or improve.
Rules. We write a short set of linking rules for editors.
Review. A walkthrough with your editors, so they can apply the rules to new content.

What you receive

A link inventory: every internal link with source page, target page and anchor text.
A list of orphan and weakly linked pages, with a suggested source for new links to each.
A hub plan for your main topics.
A link plan spreadsheet, ready for editors to work through.
Editor guidelines for anchor text and related links.

Problems we look for

Links that open the home page or a section page instead of the specific page being discussed.
Several different anchor texts pointing to one page, with none of them describing it.
Old links pointing to redirected or deleted addresses.
Links hidden in scripts or buttons that are not crawlable anchors.
Footers stuffed with keyword links that help nobody.

Linking and taxonomy together

Automatic related links are only as reliable as the tags behind them. If a guide about bin collection is tagged with a vague "Services" label, it will be shown beside every other service. When we plan related links from the taxonomy, we check the tagging first and recommend fixes where it would produce poor matches. For sites where the taxonomy needs work, a short taxonomy design engagement before the linking plan saves effort overall.

What linking cannot do

Linking helps good pages be found; it cannot make a weak page useful. If a page has thin or outdated content, the plan will flag it for your editors rather than send more readers to it. We do not sell links, buy links or run link schemes on other websites.

Start with the checklist

The free internal linking checklist walks through the points above, counts what you have already done and exports the rest as a to-do list. The internal linking guide explains the reasoning behind each item.

Questions about this topic

Is internal linking an SEO service?

It overlaps with search work, because crawlers follow links. We approach it from the reader's side: which page should someone see next? In our view, the pages that help readers move on are also the pages worth linking for search.

Will you add the links for us?

We deliver a link plan and rules. Your editors or developers add the links, which keeps the knowledge in your team. We can quote separately for checking the result.

How do you find pages with no links?

We crawl the site from the home page and compare the pages we reach with your sitemap and analytics. Pages that appear in the sitemap but are never reached by following links are orphans.

Internal linking strategy