Internal Linking

Internal links determine click depth. A page four clicks from the homepage may appear less important to crawlers and can be harder for visitors to find. Adding a section to global navigation reduces the click depth of its child pages.

Anchor text is the part with the most leverage and the least attention. It is the clearest statement a site can make about what the destination page is for, and internal anchors are entirely within your control in a way that external ones never are. A hundred internal links saying "learn more" describe nothing. The same links saying "roofing market data for Phoenix" describe a page precisely, repeatedly, and consistently.

Direction matters as much as quantity. Ranking equity can pass through links, so add relevant links from established pages, such as the homepage, a trusted guide, or a service page that ranks, to new pages that need visibility. Content linked only from an archive and sitemap may be difficult for visitors and crawlers to discover.

Linking every programmatic page to every other page weakens the information those links provide. If a Phoenix roofing page links to all thirty city pages equally, the links do not show which pages are most closely related. Link to the same trade in nearby cities, the same city in other trades, and the study that contains the page.

Link from established pages to relevant pages that need visibility, and use anchor text that describes the destination. A structure based on real content relationships helps visitors navigate and helps machines understand topical authority.