Why does internal linking matter for SEO?
Search engines lean on links to find your pages and figure out what’s on them, and the way you link hints at which pages you value most. Google says as much in its own documentation. It treats links as a relevance signal and a discovery route, and recommends that any page you care about gets a link from at least one other page on your site.
This post kicks off our Weekly SEO Tip series, and each week we’ll pick a job you can do without hiring anyone. We’re starting with internal links because you control every one of them.
(Quick jargon check: an internal link points from one page on your site to another on the same site. The words you click on are called the anchor text.)
Why internal links matter for AI search too
Google has said its AI features, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, are built on the same core ranking and quality systems as normal search results. Before Google can use a page in those answers, it has to be indexed and able to appear with a snippet. If your own links don’t lead Google there, the page is on the back foot in normal results and AI answers alike. Nobody can honestly promise you a place in an AI Overview. What you can control is whether Google reaches the page in the first place.
7 internal linking mistakes and how to fix them
Here are the seven we run into most often when we look at small business websites.
1. Leaving important pages orphaned
Mistake: Orphan pages are the ones nothing else on your site links to. Nobody sets out to create them. A landing page gets built for a Facebook ad and never added anywhere else, or a blog post drifts so far back in the archive that no page mentions it any more.
Why it hurts: Most of the time, Google reaches a page by following a link to it. Your XML sitemap might still list an orphan, but Google gets the bare URL with no anchor text or context, and nothing to say you think it’s important. A visitor has even less chance of finding it.
How to fix it: Give each important page two or three links from pages that are genuinely related. Take a dog groomer who starts offering nail clipping. The obvious places to link from would be the main grooming page, the FAQ about a puppy’s first visit and any blog post about looking after paws in winter.
2. Using vague anchor text like “click here”
Mistake: Most websites have at least a few links that say “click here” or “read more”. Easy to type in a hurry, yet the reader has no idea where they’ll end up.
Why it hurts: According to Google, good anchor text describes the destination, stays fairly short and makes sense on the page it sits on as well as the one it points to. “Click here” manages none of that. It’s no help to screen reader users either, who often hear only the link text.
How to fix it: Google suggests a simple test: read the anchor text by itself and ask whether you’d know what the linked page is about. If you wouldn’t, rewrite it, so “click here for prices” might become “see our window cleaning price list”. Keep it short, though, as Google also flags overly long anchors.
3. Cramming keywords into every anchor
Mistake: Some site owners overcorrect and pack keywords into every link, writing things like “best cheap emergency plumber Belfast 24 hour” across the whole site. Others use one phrase to link to several pages.
Why it hurts: Google specifically warns against cramming keywords into anchor text, and keyword stuffing is against its spam policies. When the same phrase points to three different pages, you’re sending mixed messages about which one should rank, and we’ve seen that leave two pages on the same site competing for the same search.
How to fix it: Decide which page is the main one for each topic and point related links there. Then let each sentence decide the wording. “Our emergency call-out service” in one post and “what to do about a burst pipe” in another beats one phrase copied everywhere.
4. Relying only on menus and footers
Mistake: A lot of sites have a well-organised menu and footer but almost no links in the main text of their pages.
Why it hurts: Menu links appear on every page, so they say little about how two pages relate, whereas a link inside a paragraph comes with an explanation. Google even notes that the words just before and after a link are part of the picture.
How to fix it: Whenever you write or update a page, ask where a reader might want more detail, and link there. A café’s gluten-free menu page, for instance, could link to its allergen information and to the page for booking the private dining room. Google says there isn’t an ideal count, and that if it feels like too many, it probably is.
5. Linking to broken pages and redirect chains
Mistake: Pages get deleted, URLs get tidied up and whole sites get rebuilt, leaving old internal links landing on 404 errors or passing through redirects.
Why it hurts: Google doesn’t index pages that return a 4xx error, so a link to one is a dead end for search engines as well as people. Redirects are better than that, but each extra step slows things down. By default Googlebot follows up to 10 redirect hops. That sounds like a lot, but after a couple of redesigns it’s easy to end up with links bouncing through three or four before they land.
How to fix it: Whenever you redesign or change URLs, run a crawl and point your internal links at the final address. Old bookmarks and links from other sites can keep using your 301 redirects. For links you can edit yourself, skip the middleman.
6. Using links Google can’t follow
Mistake: Some things that look like links to a visitor aren’t really links in the code. A “Book now” button that runs a bit of JavaScript instead of pointing to a URL is a common example, and so is a linked image with an empty alt attribute.
Why it hurts: According to Google, it can generally only crawl a link if it’s a standard HTML anchor element with an href attribute, so a button that only works through a script may never be followed. With image links, Google reads the alt text as the anchor text. If that’s blank, it has nothing to go on.
How to fix it: Your web developer can tell you quickly whether your main buttons are proper links. To see for yourself in Chrome, right-click the button, choose Inspect and check the code for an <a> tag containing href=. And if an image is acting as a link, give it alt text that says where it goes.
7. Never linking blog posts to the pages that bring in business
Mistake: This one tends to cost the most. A useful blog post starts bringing in visitors, but when they reach the end there’s no link to the service that could actually help them.
Why it hurts: Someone who has just read about a problem is often ready to sort it out. With nowhere obvious to go next, plenty of them will simply leave.
How to fix it: Add one link from each relevant post to the service page it relates to, placed where the reader is most likely to want help. It’s worth keeping service pages only a few clicks from the homepage as well. Then, once a month, open your most popular older posts and link them to whatever you’ve published since.
Quick summary: 7 internal linking mistakes and fixes
| # | Mistake | Quick fix |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Orphan pages with no internal links | Link each key page from 2 to 3 relevant pages |
| 2 | Vague anchors like “click here” | Use short, descriptive anchor text that makes sense on its own |
| 3 | Keyword-stuffed or repeated anchors | One main page per topic, with natural, varied wording |
| 4 | Links only in menus and footers | Add contextual links inside your body content |
| 5 | Broken links and redirect chains | Update links to point straight at the final live URL |
| 6 | Links Google can’t crawl | Use real <a href> links and add alt text to image links |
| 7 | Blog posts that never reach service pages | Link each relevant post to its matching service page |
How to audit your internal links yourself
You can do a basic check for free in about an hour.
- List your priority pages. Note down the 10 or so pages that matter most, usually your services, booking page and strongest blog posts.
- Open the Links report in Google Search Console. In the Internal links section, the Top linked pages table ranks your pages by how many internal links point to them. If a key service page is near the bottom, it needs more support. Google describes this report as a sample.
- Crawl your site. A desktop crawler such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider, which is free for up to 500 URLs, will show broken links, redirects and how many internal links each page receives.
- Hunt for orphans. Check your XML sitemap against the pages the crawler managed to reach. If a URL is in the sitemap but the crawl never found it, chances are nothing links to it.
- Scan your anchor text. Export the anchor text from your crawl and search it for “click here” and “read more”.
- Fix in order of impact. Start with broken links, move on to orphans and buried service pages, and leave anchor text until last.
- Repeat regularly. A light check each quarter keeps things tidy, and a full crawl after any redesign or URL change catches the bigger problems.
When is it worth getting professional SEO help?
Many small businesses can work through these checks themselves, and it’s worth having a go. It gets harder with hundreds of pages, a recent platform move, or Search Console reporting pages as not indexed for no obvious reason.
Recognise any of that? It’s the sort of work our SEO services cover. We start with how your site is put together, plan internal links around the pages that actually bring in enquiries, and pick up the technical issues that are easy to miss. If a free discovery call would help, book one and we’ll tell you honestly what we’d fix first.
Frequently asked questions about internal linking
What is internal linking in SEO?
It’s simply linking from one page of your website to another page on the same site. Those links are how search engines find your pages and work out what they’re about.
How many internal links should a page have?
There’s no fixed number. Google says there’s no magical ideal count of links for a page. Add them where they genuinely help a reader.
Do internal links help with AI Overviews and AI search?
Indirectly. Google builds its AI answers from pages in its search index, so anything that helps it crawl and understand your pages, internal links included, keeps them in the running. A mention still isn’t guaranteed.
Should internal links be nofollow?
Usually not. Google suggests nofollow for links you don’t trust, for paid links and for links your users add. Your own pages don’t fit those, so leave internal links as standard links.
How often should I check my internal links?
For most small business sites, a quick look every three months is plenty. Do a full crawl after a redesign or any URL changes.
Your Weekly SEO Tip takeaway
If you only do one thing this week, pick one mistake and fix it on your most important pages. See you next week.
