Your service pages sit on the site and nobody visits them. Someone told you that internal links matter, and now you are staring at a menu and a pile of pages wondering which one should point to which. The good news is that internal linking for small business sites is a short job with a clear order. Every important page needs a link from another page that visitors and Google can find, and the link text should say where it goes. The real work is deciding what belongs next to what. You can map it on one sheet of paper this week, check it against a free Google tool, and fix the gaps without rebuilding anything.
Key Takeaways
Connect pages a visitor would naturally want next: home to services, service to related service and contact, article to the service it explains, location to its services.
Search Console's Links report shows which pages Google sees linked inside your site, and a comparison with your page list shows which pages have none.
There is no required count of links per page, so add a link when it helps a reader and name the destination in the link text.
How do I connect my pages so customers can find the service they need?
Think of each page as a stop on a visitor's route. A person reading about a leaking roof should be one click from the roof repair page, and from there one click from a way to ask for a quote. Google's crawlable links guidance asks for the same thing in technical terms: make sure every page on the site can be reached by a link from another findable page, and use standard HTML links with an `href` so Google can follow them. The plan below goes one page type at a time.
Home page
Link to your main service pages and to your contact page. The home page is often the first place a visitor or Google lands, so it should point at the pages that earn you business, in the order that matters to you.
Service pages
Link each service page to related services, to the locations you genuinely serve, to the articles that explain the work, and to contact. A roofing page might link to a gutter page, to a post on what to put on a service page if you are the one writing it, and to your quote form. Keep to related pages. A service page that links to every other service reads like a footer.
Location pages
Each location page links back to the services you offer there and to contact. Link only to places you actually serve. A link to a town you do not cover sends people to a promise you cannot keep.
Blog posts
Each post links to the service page it supports, to one or two related posts, and to a next step such as contact. A post that explains a problem and never points at the fix leaves the reader stranded. Google's SEO Starter Guide describes the same idea: pages that relate to each other should be easy to move between.
Contact page
Reach it from the header, the footer and from the end of every service page and post. A visitor who is ready to call should never have to hunt for the contact page.
What does a linked page look like to Google, and what does it need?
A link only helps if Google can follow it. Google says it generally crawls links that are standard HTML `<a>` elements with an `href` attribute. A button that runs a script, or a menu item with no real address behind it, may look like a link on screen and still give Google nothing to follow. If your pages were built with a page builder or custom code, ask whoever maintains it to confirm that the important links are standard anchors.
Anchor text is the clickable words. Google's guidance asks for text that is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to the pages on either end of the link. "Roof repair in your area" tells a reader and Google where the link goes. "Click here" and "read more" tell neither of them. The W3C's accessibility rule on link purpose asks for the same clarity for people using screen readers, who often hear the links read aloud one after another.
| Link type | Works for visitors and Google | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Standard HTML anchor with an href | Yes | Keep it |
| Descriptive text such as "gutter replacement pricing" | Yes | Keep it |
| "Click here" or "read more" | Partly | Name the destination |
| Button that runs a script with no real address | No | Replace with a standard anchor |
| Link to a page that returns a 404 | No | Update or remove it |
| Link to an old address that redirects | Works, with a detour | Link the final address |
If a page has moved, link straight to the new address. Our post on fixing broken links and 404 errors walks through the repair, and moving your website without losing Google rankings covers what to carry over in a redesign.
How can I see in ten minutes which pages are linked?
Search Console is free, and its Links report shows what Google has found. If you have not set it up yet, start with Search Console setup for a small business. Then follow these steps.
- Open Search Console and choose your site.
- Open Links from the left menu.
- Find the Top internally linked pages table and read the leading addresses.
- Select one of your service pages to see which pages link to it.
- Export the data if you want to compare it against a list.
Check the same questions each time. Are your main service pages there? Is your contact page there? Do your blog posts show up as linking to the services they cover? Does an important page show few links or none? Google's Links report help page describes the report, and it also notes that the report is a sample. A page missing from it is a page to review, not proof that nothing links to it.
How do I find pages with no links pointing at them?
A page that no other page links to is called an orphan page. Search Console does not have a dedicated orphan report, so you find them by comparing two lists. The first list is every page you own, which you can pull from your XML sitemap or from the page list in your website platform. The second is the set of addresses in the Links report. Any address on the first list that never appears in the second is a candidate.
Candidates need a look, not a verdict. Open the page, search your site for its name, and see whether anything points at it. If nothing does, decide what it should be. A service page deserves links from the home page, a related service and a post. A page you no longer need can be updated, merged into another or removed, and our post on updating, merging or deleting old pages covers that decision. A sitemap helps Google find pages, as Google's sitemap overview explains, but it is not a substitute for links between your important pages.
A new page needs the same treatment on the day it goes live. Link it from the pages that already get visits, and get a new page found by Google lists the other steps to take. If a page is linked and still not showing, page not indexed in Search Console explains what to check next.
Which linking mistakes should I fix first?
Fix them in this order, because the first ones cost the most and take the least time.
- A new service page nobody links to: Add links from the home page, a related service and a relevant post.
- A post that mentions a service without linking it: Add one link to the service page where the sentence names it.
- Menu-only linking: A menu helps, yet pages that never link to each other inside their text leave visitors without a next step.
- Old addresses after a redesign: Update links so they point at current pages.
- Vague anchor text: Replace "click here" and "learn more" with the name of the page.
- Links that are not real anchors: Ask whoever built the page to replace them with standard HTML links.
- Links to unrelated pages: Remove links added only to raise a count.
- A contact page that is hard to reach: Add it to the end of every service page and post.
Google says ordinary 404 errors do not generally harm search performance, according to its guidance on 404 pages. A broken link inside your own site still sends a real person to a dead end, so the repair is worth doing.
What can I do myself, and when is paid help worth it?
A small site can often do this work alone. Search Console costs nothing, the rules are published by Google, and a site with a few dozen pages needs an afternoon, not a retainer. Start with the page list, the Links report and the steps above.
Paid help makes sense when the site has a large library of pages, several locations, a redesign or move in its past, addresses that do not follow one pattern, or no reliable list of pages to begin with. In those cases the work is diagnosis, sorting what matters first, making the changes, testing them and keeping them up. Links are one part of search work, and our post on what SEO includes shows where they fit alongside the rest. Links do not replace useful pages, correct indexing or a clear offer, so a page with weak content will still need more than a link.
Links also help Google find and understand pages, but they do not set a required count. There is no rule for how many links a page needs, how many clicks away from the home page it must be, or what share of anchors must match a keyword. Add a link when it helps the reader, and keep the words accurate about the destination.
Check your internal linking
Pick an answer to begin.
1. Which link text is easiest for a visitor and for Google to understand?
2. Search Console's Links report does not list one of your service pages. What is the best next step?
3. How many internal links should each page have?
Frequently Asked Questions About internal linking for small business
What is an internal link?
A link from one page on your website to another page on the same website.
How should service pages link to each other?
Link only to related services that help the same visitor or cover a connected need, such as gutter repair from a roof repair page.
Should blog posts link to service pages?
Yes, when the service is a sensible next step from what the post covers. Place the link in the sentence that names the service.
How many internal links should a page have?
There is no required number. Add links where they are useful and relevant to the reader.
Can a sitemap replace internal links?
No. A sitemap can help Google find pages, and it works alongside the links between your important pages.
How do I find orphan pages?
Compare your page list or sitemap with the addresses in Search Console's Links report, then open each candidate and check whether anything links to it.
The Bottom Line
A well-linked small business site comes down to a few habits. Link the home page to your services and contact, each service to related services, locations and articles, each post to the service it supports, and every page toward contact. Use standard HTML links with short, descriptive text, check the Links report in Search Console, and compare it with your page list to catch pages that nothing points at.
Done once and kept up as you add pages, this makes it easier for a visitor to move from a question to a service to a contact form, and easier for Google to find and understand what you offer. It takes an afternoon for a small site, and it costs nothing but time.
If you want a second pair of eyes on the map, Web Leveling can sort out how your pages should connect as part of our search engine optimization work. We work with small and medium businesses across the country and overseas. Send us the pages you are worried about and we will go through the links with you.
Terms
Internal linking terms
Tap a term to see what it means.
Internal link. A link from one page on your website to another page on the same website.
Anchor text. The clickable words of a link.
Orphan page. A page that no other page on the site links to.
Crawl. When Google follows links to read the pages of a site.
Sitemap. A file that lists the pages of a site for search engines.
Links report. The Search Console report that shows which pages are linked within and to your site.
