What internal links do
Each link tells a visitor where to go next and tells Google that the target page matters to you. Pages that no other page links to are hard to find, and they often fail to appear in search at all.
Your navigation menu and footer already create some links. The more valuable ones usually sit inside the body text, where a link appears at the moment a reader wants more detail.
Pick your priority pages
List the five or ten pages that earn you money: main services, contact page, a key pricing or process page. These deserve the most links. Everything else, such as articles and case studies, should help lead readers toward them.
A simple pattern is a hub and spoke. A main service page is the hub, and articles about related questions are the spokes. Each spoke links up to the hub, and the hub links down to the most useful spokes.
Write useful anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable words. Make it describe the destination, such as our guide to preparing for a home inspection, not click here or read more. Variation is natural. You do not need the exact same phrase every time.
Avoid stuffing a link into every other sentence. A few well-placed links are more useful than a page that looks like a wall of blue text.
Fixing orphan and buried pages
To find orphan pages, compare the list of pages in your sitemap with the pages you can reach by clicking from the home page. Anything unreachable needs a link from a related page. Pages that need four or five clicks to reach are buried, so bring them closer.
When you publish a new article, add links to it from at least two older pages that fit the topic. Many owners link out from the new page but forget to link back in.
Broken internal links frustrate visitors and waste the attention of search crawlers. After you rename or delete a page, update links that pointed to it and set a redirect. A crawler tool or the coverage reports in Search Console can reveal problems.
Open links in the same tab for internal destinations. Readers can use the back button, and it keeps the experience simple, especially on phones.
A fifteen-minute monthly audit
Pick one important page. Read it as a visitor and ask where you would want to go next. Add one link to a helpful page and check that every link works. Repeat with a different page each month, and in a year the whole site is stronger.
Also look at your top landing pages in analytics. If they get visits but few clicks to a contact page, add a clear next step with a button or a sentence that invites action.
A worked example
Suppose a roofing company has a service page for roof repair, plus three articles: how to spot storm damage, what a roofing estimate should include, and when to replace instead of repair. The repair page should link to all three in the sentences where they naturally come up. Each article should link back to the repair page near the end, with a line such as if you see these signs, here is how we handle repairs.
The articles can link to each other where it helps, for instance from the estimate article to the replacement article. This web of links tells readers where to go next and shows search engines which page is the main one for the topic.
Common questions
How many internal links should a page have?
There is no fixed number. Link where it helps the reader, and keep the page readable.
Do footer links count?
They count as links, but contextual links in the body text usually carry more meaning for readers and for search engines.
This guide is general information. Search engines change how they work and their guidelines; check Google's current documentation for your situation. Nobody can guarantee a ranking.