Internal links for SEO are links from one page on your website to another page on the same website. They tell Google which pages belong together and which are the most important. At the same time, they help your visitors keep reading instead of clicking away.
The great thing is that they are entirely in your own hands. You don't need other websites, a budget or technical knowledge. With an afternoon of focused work you can make your whole site stronger. In this article you will learn how that works and what to look out for.
What exactly do internal links do for SEO?
Google discovers pages by following links. A page with no links pointing to it is hard for Google to find, even if it is in your sitemap. Internal links therefore do three things at once:
- Discoverability: Google finds new and deeper pages faster.
- Context: the anchor text (the clickable words) tells Google what the target page is about.
- Weight: pages that are linked often, and from strong pages, receive more value. Your homepage is usually your strongest page, so what you link from there counts.
For visitors, internal links are simply signposts. If someone reads a blog post about quotes, they often also want to know what it costs or how you work. A good link at the right moment keeps them on your site. That is good for your conversion, and indirectly for your SEO too.
Internal links vs external links: the difference
An external link or backlink comes from another website to your site. You don't get those just like that; you need link building for them. Internal links you place yourself. They don't make your site better known, but they spread the value you already have more evenly across your pages. If you have a blog post that gets lots of backlinks, you can pass that value on to your service page through internal links.
Setting up a good internal link structure
Don't start with loose links, start with a plan. A clear internal link structure looks like a tree: your homepage at the top, your main topics below it, and below those the pages about them.
- Choose your most important pages. Usually those are your service pages, your pricing page and your contact page.
- Group your content by topic. For each topic, create a central page (often called a pillar page) that covers the topic broadly.
- Have the articles within that topic link to the central page, and the central page link back to the articles.
- Link from your blog to the matching service. An article about local search visibility, for example, links to your page on online marketing.
- Keep every important page within three clicks of your homepage.
That creates a cluster. Google sees that you have a lot to say about a topic, and your visitors can easily dig deeper.
Anchor text: which words should you make clickable?
The anchor text may be the most important part of an internal link. It is the text you click on. Google uses those words as a hint about the target page.
- Describe the target page. Write 'tips for your meta description' rather than 'read more'.
- Use natural variation. Not every link to the same page needs exactly the same keyword.
- Keep it short: a few words that fit the sentence.
- Avoid 'click here' and 'this page'. They say nothing about the content.
- Don't use the same anchor text for two different pages. Then Google doesn't know which page belongs to that topic.
An example. In an article about keywords you write: 'Know which words you want to use? Then also put them in your meta title and description.' The link fits the sentence and visitors know exactly what they will get.
How many internal links per page is right?
There is no fixed number. Google itself doesn't say how many links a page may have. Mainly look at what makes sense for the reader. A thousand-word blog post with three to six good links in the text is usually fine. An overview page with all your services can have many more, because that is exactly its purpose.
Too many links in a text make it messy. Every link is an invitation to leave. Place links where they add something, not in every sentence. Links within the body text often carry more weight than links in your menu or footer, because they have more context.
Orphan pages and other common mistakes
On many small business websites we see the same problems again and again. Most are easy to fix.
- Orphan pages: pages that no internal link points to. Often old blog posts or campaign landing pages. Google struggles to find them and visitors never do.
- Links to pages that no longer exist. That gives a 404 error and a poor experience.
- Links via a detour: you link to an old URL that redirects. Link directly to the correct URL.
- Everything links to the homepage, but not to the service pages that need to rank.
- Important links only in a drop-down menu or slider, which search engines sometimes struggle to read.
- New blog posts that aren't linked from anywhere. After publishing, also add links from older, related articles.
That last mistake is the most common. You write a new article, link from it to other pages, but forget the other direction. Make it a fixed step: after publishing, find two or three older pages where a link to the new piece makes sense.
How to check your internal links
You don't need to buy expensive software to check your internal links. These steps get you a long way:
- Open Google Search Console and look at the Links report. There you can see which pages get the most internal links. Are your most important pages at the top?
- Use a free crawler (there are a few with a free version) to find broken links and orphan pages.
- Go through your service pages: can you reach them from your homepage within a few clicks?
- Read through your most popular blog posts and check whether they include a logical link to a service or pricing page.
- Repeat this a few times a year, or after every major change to your site.
If you work with a CMS, you can usually edit links yourself in the editor. When moving or renaming pages, keep an eye on your links: a new URL means old links need updating or redirecting.
Internal links on a new or redesigned website
The best time to think about internal links is before your site is built. Then you can make the menu, footer and page structure logical straight away. At Violexa we include this in every custom website. Together we decide which pages matter most and make sure they are easy to reach from everywhere. You get a CMS integration and training, so you can publish and link new articles yourself later.
Custom websites start from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT). That includes design, development, a design that works on every screen, SEO basics and Google Analytics. Would you rather we work on your search visibility on an ongoing basis, including content and internal links? That's possible within our online marketing, from €599 excl. VAT (€725 incl. VAT) per month. There is no minimum term; you cancel monthly with one month's notice.
Curious how your internal link structure is doing? Book a free quickscan. In a 30-minute conversation, online or in person, we look at your website together. Afterwards you get short written advice with a price indication. No strings attached.
Frequently asked questions
What are internal links on a website?
Internal links are links between pages on the same website, for example from a blog post to a service page. They help visitors move on and show Google how your pages are connected.
Are internal links important for SEO?
Yes. Internal links help Google find your pages and understand what they are about. They also spread the value of strong pages across the rest of your site. It is one of the easiest SEO improvements you can make yourself.
Should internal links open in a new tab?
Usually not. Visitors expect a link within the same website to open in the same tab. A new tab is mainly useful for links to other websites or documents.
What is good anchor text for an internal link?
A few words that describe exactly what the target page is about and fit naturally in the sentence. Avoid vague words like 'click here'. Vary a little, but don't use the same words for different pages.
