Quick answer
Structure a website as hubs and spokes: a pillar page for each major service, supporting pages for sub-services and locations, and contextual internal links using descriptive anchor text. Keep every important page within three clicks of the homepage.
Hubs and spokes
Group related pages under a pillar. A trades hub links to plumbing, electrical, roofing and drainage pages; each of those links back to the hub and sideways to related services. This tells search engines which pages are the authority on a topic.
Anchor text matters
'Click here' tells a crawler nothing. Use the phrase the target page is about — 'emergency plumber website design' — while keeping the sentence natural.
Keep the click depth shallow
Any page more than three clicks from your homepage tends to get crawled less often. Navigation, footer links and contextual body links all help flatten depth.
- Link new pages from an existing indexed page on the day you publish
- Add both navigational and in-content links
- Avoid orphan pages that only exist in the sitemap
- Fix internal links pointing at redirects
Frequently asked questions
- How many internal links should a page have?
- There is no fixed number. Link wherever it genuinely helps the reader — typically 3–10 contextual links on a service page.
- Do footer links count?
- Yes, but contextual links inside body content carry more weight because they come with topical context.
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