Internal Linking Strategy for Small Websites, Step by Step
A simple, repeatable internal linking plan for small sites: hubs, contextual links, anchor text and fixing orphan pages.
Internal links are the links between pages on your own website. They are the cheapest SEO improvement available: no outreach, no budget, just editing your own content. They help visitors find related information, help search engines discover and understand your pages, and pass authority from your strongest pages to the ones that need a push.
Small sites benefit the most, because a few well-placed links can change how a whole section performs.
Why internal links matter
- Discovery. Crawlers find pages by following links. A page with no internal links pointing to it โ an orphan page โ may never be crawled.
- Context. The words you use in a link (the anchor text) tell search engines what the target page is about.
- Importance. Pages that receive many internal links are treated as more important within your site.
- Engagement. Helpful links keep readers moving to the next useful page instead of leaving.
Step 1: Pick your hub pages
Choose the few pages that matter most to your business โ main services, best-selling categories, flagship tools or cornerstone guides. These are your hubs. Every related page should link to its hub, and each hub should link out to its supporting pages. This "hub and spoke" pattern makes your topical focus obvious.
Step 2: Add contextual links inside your content
Menu and footer links help, but links inside paragraphs carry more meaning because they sit in context. When an article mentions a topic you cover elsewhere, link it right there. Aim for a handful of genuinely useful links per article rather than a fixed quota.
Step 3: Write descriptive anchor text
Anchor text should tell readers what they will get. Compare:
- Weak: "To learn more, click here."
- Better: "Our guide to fixing 301 redirect chains explains the steps."
Use natural variations. If every link to a page uses an identical exact-match phrase, it looks engineered.
Step 4: Rescue orphan pages
Compare the list of pages in your sitemap with the pages that receive internal links. Any page that gets none is an orphan. Either link to it from relevant content or, if it no longer deserves to exist, redirect or remove it. Our guide to XML sitemaps explains why a sitemap is not a substitute for links.
Step 5: Fix broken and redirected internal links
Every internal link should point to a live page at its final address. Links to 404s waste crawls, and links through redirects add needless hops. Check your key pages with the broken link checker and update anything that is broken or redirected.
Step 6: Make it a habit
Each time you publish something new, do two things: link from the new page to its hub and to one or two related pages, and go back to two or three older pages and add a link to the new one. That second step is the one most people skip, and it is what gets new pages crawled and ranking faster.
Finding the right older pages is the hard part. The free internal link suggestions tool compares an article with a list of your other pages and suggests relevant links by keyword overlap. See how to find internal linking opportunities for a walkthrough.
Related guides
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Frequently asked questions
How many internal links should a page have?
There is no fixed number. Add links wherever they genuinely help the reader. A long guide might have ten; a short page might have three.
Should internal links be nofollow?
No. Nofollow on internal links only stops authority flowing through your own site. Leave them as normal links.
Do footer links count?
They do, but contextual links inside content carry more meaning.
Can too many internal links hurt?
A page crammed with links becomes hard to read and dilutes each link's value. Keep them relevant and useful.