Internal linking strategy for new websites

The best internal linking strategy for a new website is simple: make sure every page can be reached from your menu or from another page, link your most important pages from the homepage, and use descriptive words for every link. You don't need special software or a spreadsheet to do it. You just need to think about how your pages connect.

What is an internal link, and why does it matter on a new site?

An internal link is a link from one page on your website to another page on the same website. Your menu items are internal links. So is a sentence in a blog post that says "see our services" and sends the reader to your services page.

These links matter for two reasons. First, they help visitors get where they're going. Second, they help search engines like Google (and the AI assistants that read websites to answer questions) find your pages and understand how they fit together. Those tools discover pages mostly by following links, the same way a person wanders through a building by following the doorways.

A new site has a particular problem: almost nobody else links to it yet. Links from other websites are a big signal that a page is worth showing, and you won't have many for a while. Your own links are the part you fully control, so they carry more weight early on.

The worst case is an orphan page, which is a page that no other page links to. Visitors can't stumble onto it, and search engines may never find it at all.

How should you organize the links on a new website?

Think of your site as a tree. The homepage is the trunk. A few main pages branch off it. Smaller supporting pages, like blog posts, branch off those.

Say you run a small bakery. Your homepage links to Menu, Custom Orders, About and Contact. Your blog post on "how far ahead to order a wedding cake" links up to Custom Orders, and Custom Orders links back down to that post. Everything is connected, and each link makes sense to a human reader.

Here are the rules that keep that structure healthy:

• Link every main page from the homepage or the menu. These are the pages that earn you business: what you offer, what it costs, how to get in touch.
• Have every blog post link up to a relevant main page. A post about a topic should point to the page where the reader can act on it.
• Link related posts to each other. One or two per post is plenty.
• Keep everything within three clicks of the homepage. If a page is buried deeper, visitors and search tools are less likely to reach it.

How do you write link text that actually helps?

The clickable words in a link are called anchor text. They should tell the reader, and search tools, what's on the other side.

Compare these two sentences:

• Weak: "To learn about our wedding cakes, click here."
• Better: "Take a look at our wedding cake options."

The second one works for a person skimming the page, and it tells Google what the destination is about. "Click here" and "read more" say nothing.

A few habits help:

1. Describe the destination in a few words. Three to six is a good length.
2. Vary your wording naturally. You don't need to repeat the exact same phrase every time. Write the way you'd say it out loud.
3. Link where a reader would want the link. If someone reading a paragraph would wonder "what does that cost?", that's the spot to link your pricing page.
4. Don't overdo it. A handful of links in a post is fine. A link in every sentence is noise.

What mistakes should you avoid, and how do you check your work?

The common slip-ups are easy to spot once you know them:

• Relying on the menu alone. Menus are helpful, but links inside your writing show which pages relate to each other.
• Linking everything to everything. If every page links to every other page, no page stands out as important.
• Leaving broken links. If you rename or delete a page, any link pointing to it now leads nowhere. Update those links.
• Hiding your contact page. If someone is ready to reach out, it should take one click.

To check your own site, write a list of every page. Next to each one, write which other pages link to it. Any page with an empty answer needs a link from somewhere sensible. If you'd rather get a second opinion, the free website grader will score an existing site and point out weak spots.

Where to go from here

If you're building a site from scratch, set up the structure before you write much content. With SimplePath, you describe the website you want and it builds it for you, so you can plan your main pages first and add the supporting ones as you go. You can see what SimplePath can build, from simple sites to stores and blogs. And if you're unsure how to organize your pages, get in touch and ask.