On most small business sites we audit, the only links between pages are the ones in the main menu. The service pages don’t link to each other, the blog posts don’t link to the services, and the project gallery is a dead end. That’s a missed opportunity, because linking your own pages together is free, entirely in your control, and one of the few SEO jobs where an hour of work can make a noticeable difference.
What internal links do
They do three jobs at once.
They help Google find and understand your pages. Google discovers pages by following links. Its own link guidance says to link every important page from at least one other page on your site. A page with no links pointing to it (an “orphan”) can sit there unnoticed.
They tell Google which pages matter. If your blog posts, project pages and homepage all link to your “switchboard upgrades” page, that’s a strong signal it’s an important page on your site.
They move people towards a decision. Someone reading a post about hot water systems is a few clicks away from booking a replacement. A well-placed link takes them straight to the page where they can.
The third job is the one that pays your bills, so write links for people first.
Anchor text: say where the link goes
Anchor text is the clickable words. Google uses it to understand what the linked page is about, and people use it to decide whether to click. Google’s guidance is to be descriptive and concise, and to test whether the words make sense out of context.
Some before and after rewrites from the kind of copy we see:
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| To find out more about our services, [go here]. | We also handle [switchboard upgrades for older homes]. |
| [Read more] | [How we price bathroom renovations] |
| Check out [this page] for details on finance. | Payments can be spread out with [our finance options]. |
| We offer [plumber Ballina plumbing Ballina emergency plumber]. | Burst pipe after hours? We offer [24-hour emergency plumbing]. |
The last row is the opposite mistake: stuffing keywords into anchors. Google says to write naturally, and if the phrasing feels forced, it is.
A few more rules:
- Vary the anchor text pointing to a page. “Emergency plumbing”, “our after-hours plumbers” and “urgent plumbing callouts” can all point to the same page.
- Give the link context. Surrounding words matter. A link inside a full sentence carries more meaning than a row of five links bunched together.
- Linked images need alt text. Google uses an image’s alt text as the anchor text when the image is a link.
Where to put internal links
In the body of your pages
This is where most sites are weakest. Service pages often link nowhere except the contact form. Each service page should link to:
- Related services (“Most clients who book a roof restoration also ask about gutter replacement”)
- A relevant project or case study
- One or two useful guides or FAQs
In blog posts and resources
Every post should link to at least one service page, and to related posts where they genuinely help. If you write a post on choosing a hot water system, it should link to your hot water installation page. That’s where the commercial value of blogging comes from.
In your project or portfolio pages
Project write-ups are natural link sources. “We replaced the switchboard and added surge protection” can link to both services.
Buttons
Buttons are links too. A button reading “Learn more” under every section of your homepage tells Google and screen reader users nothing. “See our kitchen renovations” works better and still fits on a button.
Common problems on Elementor sites
Because we build exclusively in WordPress and Elementor, we see the same issues repeatedly:
- Whole boxes made clickable with a wrapper link but no text inside the link. Google can’t read much from it.
- Buttons with the same “Learn more” text across a page.
- Links added with JavaScript actions or popups instead of normal links, which Google may not follow.
- Tabs and accordions hiding all the links on mobile, where most visitors are.
Our list of common Elementor mistakes covers more of these.
A 30-minute monthly routine
You don’t need software or an SEO degree. Once a month:
- Pick your three most important pages. Usually your top services. Write them down.
- Search your own site for related words. In Google, type
site:yourdomain.com.au hot water(with your domain and a topic). This shows every page that mentions the topic. - Open each result and look for a natural sentence where a link to the important page would help a reader. Add the link with descriptive anchor text.
- Check new content. Anything published this month should link to at least one service page, and at least one older page should now link to it.
- Check Google Search Console. The Links report shows your most-linked internal pages. If your best service isn’t near the top and your privacy policy is, that’s telling you something.
- Fix broken links. If you’ve removed or renamed a page, update the links pointing to it rather than relying on redirects forever.
Thirty minutes, once a month, and within a quarter your site will be better connected than most of your competitors’.
How many links is too many?
There’s no magic number. Google’s view is that if a page seems to have too many links, it probably does. In practice, a 600-word service page might have three to six links in the body. A long guide might have a dozen. Link when it helps the reader, and stop when it doesn’t.
Also avoid linking several pages that say much the same thing. If you’ve got four near-identical suburb pages, linking between them won’t help. Fix the underlying problem first, as covered in our guide to duplicate content.
Start with one page
Pick your most valuable service page today and find three other pages on your site that should link to it. Add those links with clear anchor text. It’ll take 15 minutes, and it’s the habit that matters.
We plan internal linking into the sites we build through our web design service. For an existing site, a proper link map is part of our SEO service.