Internal linking is about creating a web of connections between your own pages so search engines understand your site structure and users find what they need. Done right, it spreads link equity from your strongest pages to newer or deeper content, shortens crawl paths, and reinforces topical clusters. Start with your site architecture. Your homepage and main category pages typically hold the most authority, so link from them to important product pages, service pages, or pillar content. Every page should be reachable within three clicks from the homepage. Use your main navigation and footer for persistent links to key sections, but don't stop there—contextual links within body content carry more weight because they're editorially placed and surrounded by relevant text. Anchor text matters. Instead of "click here" or "read more," use descriptive phrases that include your target keyword or a close variant. If you're linking to a page about WordPress security, anchor it with "WordPress security best practices" rather than generic text. This tells Google what the destination page is about. Avoid over-optimization—don't hammer the exact same anchor 50 times across your site. Mix exact match, partial match, and branded anchors. We build internal links in layers. Pillar pages link to cluster content, cluster pages link back to the pillar and to each other where relevant, and blog posts cross-reference related articles. Older, established posts are gold mines—go back and add links to newer content from them. Tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs Site Audit show you orphan pages (zero internal links pointing in) and pages with weak internal link profiles. Avoid common mistakes: linking to the same page multiple times from one article (the first link counts most for anchor text), creating circular link loops with no escape, or dumping 100 links in your footer. Keep it natural. A page with 200 outbound internal links dilutes the value of each one. At Ottawa SEO, we audit internal link distribution quarterly for our portfolio. Pages that rank on page two often just need three or four strong internal links from related content to push them over.