Internal links are HTML anchor elements that connect pages within your own website. They use the <a href="..."> tag where the href points to another page on your domain, either as a relative path like href="/services/seo" or an absolute URL like href="https://yoursite.com/services/seo". The basic syntax looks like this: <a href="/target-page">anchor text</a>. The href attribute tells browsers where to go, and the anchor text between the tags is what users see and click. You can also add attributes like rel="nofollow" to control how search engines treat the link, or target="_blank" to open in a new tab, though we rarely recommend the latter for internal links. Internal links serve three critical functions. First, they let users navigate your site logically. Second, they distribute PageRank and authority throughout your domain, helping important pages rank better. Third, they help search engine crawlers discover and index your content. A page with zero internal links pointing to it might never get crawled. At Ottawa SEO, we build internal linking into the content creation process, not as an afterthought. When we launch a new service page or blog post across our portfolio, we immediately identify 3-5 existing pages that should link to it and 3-5 pages it should link out to. The anchor text matters, use descriptive keywords that signal what the target page is about, not generic "click here" text. Common mistakes include overlinking (stuffing 20 internal links into a 400-word post), using the exact same anchor text repeatedly (looks manipulative), and ignoring orphaned pages that have no internal links pointing to them. We audit our sites quarterly to find orphans and fix broken internal links, both of which waste crawl budget and hurt user experience. The technical execution is simple, but the strategy behind which pages to link, when, and with what anchor text is where most sites leave ranking opportunities on the table.