Guide · Content creation
Internal Linking for Small Business Websites: A Simple Strategy
How to link your own pages so Google finds them and customers reach your services: descriptive anchors, hub pages, fixing orphans, and linking guides to services.
Internal links are the links from one page on your site to another. They’re one of the few SEO levers you fully control, and they cost nothing. Yet on most small business websites they’re an afterthought: a menu, a footer, and a blog where every post ends with “Contact us today.”
A little structure here helps Google find and understand your pages, and helps visitors get from a question to a service to a phone call.
Why internal links matter
Google discovers pages mainly by following links. Internal links also give context: the words in a link tell Google what the destination page is about, and the number of links pointing to a page hints at how important you think it is.
For visitors, internal links are the path through your site. Someone reading a guide about leaking water heaters is one well-placed link away from your water heater repair page.
Rule 1: Use real, crawlable links
Google reliably follows standard HTML links: an <a> element with an href pointing to a URL. Some sites use buttons or JavaScript click events that look like links but aren’t. Google may not follow those.
Watch for:
- menus that only appear after JavaScript runs, with no real links in the HTML
- “Learn more” buttons that open content without a URL
- services listed in an image or slider instead of text links
If you’re unsure, our technical SEO checklist covers how to check.
Rule 2: Write descriptive anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link. It should describe the page it points to, in a natural way.
- Weak: “For more information, [click here].”
- Better: “We also offer [emergency drain cleaning] across Orange County.”
Descriptive anchors help visitors know where they’re going, help screen reader users scanning a list of links, and give Google a clear signal. Don’t overdo it though. Forcing the exact same keyword phrase into every link reads badly and looks manipulative. Vary the wording the way you would in conversation: “drain cleaning,” “clearing a blocked drain,” “our drain service.”
Rule 3: Make your service pages the center
For a small business, the pages that earn money are usually service pages, location pages and the contact page. Your internal links should flow toward them.
From the home page
Link to every core service by name, with a sentence on each. A vague “Our Services” button alone isn’t enough.
From guides and blog posts
Every guide should link to the service it relates to, in the body text where it’s relevant, not only in a generic footer. A law firm’s article on what to do after a car accident should link to its personal injury page at the point where the reader is thinking, “Do I need a lawyer?”
Between related services
A clinic’s page on teeth whitening can link to cosmetic dentistry. An HVAC company’s furnace repair page can link to maintenance plans. These sideways links help people who landed on the wrong page find the right one.
This is the backbone of our approach to service pages that rank.
Rule 4: Build hub pages
A hub page is an overview page that links to every page in a group: a Services page linking to each service, a Locations page linking to each city, a Resources page linking to each guide on a topic.
Hubs keep important pages within a click or two of the home page and give Google a clear picture of how your content is organized. If you’re planning a set of related guides, our guide to topic clusters and pillar pages shows how a hub fits into a content plan.
Rule 5: Find and fix orphan pages
An orphan page has no internal links pointing to it. It might be listed in your sitemap, but if nothing on your site links to it, Google may treat it as unimportant, and visitors can’t find it at all.
Orphans usually appear when:
- landing pages are built for ads and never linked from the site
- old blog posts drop off the blog’s front page
- a redesign removes a page from the menu but leaves it live
To find them, compare a list of pages in your sitemap (or Search Console) with a crawl of your site using a tool like Screaming Frog. Pages that appear in one but not the other need a look. Either link to them from a relevant page, merge them into a better page with a redirect, or retire them.
Rule 6: Fix broken and redirected internal links
When a page moves, update the links pointing to it so they go straight to the new address. Links that hit a 404 waste visitors’ time, and links that pass through redirect chains slow everyone down. A crawl every few months catches them.
A simple routine you can follow
You don’t need software or a spreadsheet to keep this healthy. When you publish anything new:
- Link from the new page to the most relevant service page, with descriptive anchor text.
- Link to the new page from at least two existing, related pages.
- Add it to the right hub page.
- Check that the links work.
Every few months, crawl the site, fix broken links and look for orphans.
How many links is too many?
There’s no magic number. Link when it genuinely helps the reader take the next step. A 1,000-word guide might have four to eight useful internal links. A page stuffed with dozens of links in every paragraph is harder to read, and each link carries less meaning.
Want it done for you?
Internal linking is built into how we plan and write content. Every page we publish under our content creation service is linked from and to the pages that matter. If you’d like to see where your current site stands, start with a free audit preview.
