Internal linking for SEO: a practical guide for small business sites

Internal links are the links between pages on your own site: menu items, buttons, and links inside your text. They are one of the few SEO tools you control completely, and most small business sites underuse them. Good internal linking helps Google find your pages, understand what each one is about, and see which ones matter most. It also helps visitors find the next thing they need.

Why internal links matter#

• Discovery. Google finds pages mainly by following links. A page that nothing links to (an “orphan page”) may be found late or not at all, even if it’s in your sitemap.
• Understanding. The words you link with tell Google what the target page is about. A link saying “office cleaning in Dhaka” is a strong hint.
• Importance. Pages that many of your other pages link to are signalled as more important. Your key service pages should be among the most linked pages on your site.
• Visitors. Someone reading a blog post about a problem is one link away from the service that solves it. That link is where content turns into enquiries.

1. Get the structure right#

Every important page should be reachable in a few clicks from the home page:

• Main menu: your main sections, such as Services, About, Blog and Contact.
• Section pages: a Services page linking to each individual service; a blog page linking to each post or category.
• Footer: secondary pages such as policies, plus a few key links.

If a page matters for your business, it shouldn’t only be reachable through the search box or a link buried deep in one post.

2. Write descriptive anchor text#

Anchor text is the clickable text of a link.

• Weak: “To learn more, click here.”
• Better: “We also offer office cleaning for small businesses.”

Describe what the reader will get. Don’t repeat the exact same keyword phrase in every link; natural variety reads better and works fine for Google.

3. Link from posts to services, and back#

This is the most valuable habit for a business blog:

• Every blog post links to the related service page, usually near the end: “If you’d like this done for you, see our office cleaning service.”
• Every service page links to two or three helpful posts about the same topic. It shows expertise and gives undecided visitors something useful to read.

On this site, each post links to a service, and each service page automatically lists the posts that link to it under “Related guides”.

4. Link related posts together#

When you write a new post, link to one or two older posts that go deeper on something you mention. Then go back to one or two older posts and add a link to the new one. New posts otherwise start with almost no links pointing to them.

A simple way to organise this is a hub page: one broad guide on a topic that links to every detailed post about it, with each detailed post linking back to the hub.

5. Fix links that go nowhere#

• Broken links (pointing to deleted pages) waste visitors’ time. Update them, or redirect the old URL to the best replacement.
• Links to redirected URLs still work, but it’s better to link straight to the final URL.
• When you rename or move a page, search your site for old links to it. On a move to a new platform, a full redirect plan is essential.

How many links?#

There’s no magic number. Add a link wherever it genuinely helps a reader, and stop there. A post with a few well-chosen links is better than one where every other phrase is underlined.

A quick checklist#

• Every important page is in the menu or one click from a page that is.
• No orphan pages: each page has at least one link pointing to it.
• Link text describes the target page, no “click here”.
• Each blog post links to a related service page.
• Each service page links to related posts.
• New posts link to older ones, and some older posts link to the new one.
• No broken internal links.

For the rest of the basics, see the Wix SEO checklist, and for helping Google understand your pages in more detail, structured data explained.

If you’d like a site built with a clear structure from the start, I do Wix website design.