How to Audit Internal Links on a Small Business Website
Internal links are the links that take someone from one page of your website to another page on the same website.
They might connect:
your homepage to a service page
one service to a related service
a blog post to a commercial page
a case study to the service it demonstrates
an FAQ to a more detailed guide
a location page to the service available in that area
They sound simple.
But as a website grows, internal links can quietly become messy.
Old URLs remain in articles.
Important pages receive very few links.
Links point through unnecessary redirects.
Anchor text becomes vague.
New services get added without older pages being updated.
Blog posts attract visitors but never guide them towards anything the business actually sells.
An internal link audit helps you find those problems.
This guide explains how to audit internal links on a small-business website without turning the exercise into an unnecessarily technical SEO project.
Quick Answer: How Do You Audit Internal Links?
Start with your important website pages and check:
Can each important page be reached through links from other relevant pages?
Are any internal links broken?
Do links point directly to the correct current URL?
Does the link text explain where someone is going?
Are old or redirected URLs still being linked?
Do useful blog posts connect to appropriate service pages?
Do related service pages connect naturally?
Are important pages buried deep inside the website?
Are links useful to customers rather than added purely for SEO?
Have you created unnecessary numbers of repetitive links?
You can record the findings in a simple sheet:
Source page | Anchor text | Destination | Status | Action
You do not need a complicated scoring system.
You need to identify which links help, which links are broken or outdated, and where useful connections are missing.
What Is an Internal Link Audit?
An internal link audit is a review of how pages on the same website connect to one another.
Its purpose is not to maximise the number of links.
It is to make sure customers and search engines can sensibly move through the website.
Google says links help it discover pages and understand relationships between content. It also recommends using descriptive anchor text and says that every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your website.
Importantly, Google also says there is no magical ideal number of links a page should contain.
You can read Google's link best practices for the technical guidance.
For a small business, the more useful question is:
Does the linking structure make sense to someone trying to understand the business?
1. Start With the Pages That Actually Matter
Do not begin by counting every link on the website.
First identify the pages you most want customers to find.
These may include:
homepage
main service pages
key product categories
pricing
booking
contact
important location pages
case studies
reviews
frequently asked questions
high-value commercial guides
If you are unsure whether the right pages exist in the first place, read What Pages Does a Small Business Website Need?.
Create a short list of the important URLs.
Then ask:
Where can someone reach each of these pages from?
An important service page that can only be reached by finding a tiny footer link deserves attention.
2. Check Whether Important Pages Have Useful Inbound Internal Links
Google recommends that pages you care about have links from other pages on your site.
That does not mean every page needs ten links.
Look instead for logical relationships.
Imagine a landscaping business has these pages:
Garden Design
Patios
Garden Maintenance
Landscaping Services
Garden Projects
The main Landscaping Services page could sensibly introduce and link to the individual services.
A completed garden project could link to the relevant Garden Design or Patio service.
A guide about choosing paving could link to the Patio service.
Those connections help someone explore the subject.
Now compare that with a Patio page that exists in the sitemap but receives no meaningful links from the rest of the site.
That page is far less integrated into the website.
If you are investigating a page that Google has discovered or crawled but not indexed, internal linking is also one of several areas worth reviewing. Our guide to Discovered vs Crawled – Currently Not Indexed explains the wider checks.
3. Find Broken Internal Links
A broken internal link usually sends someone to a page that no longer exists.
For example:
Blog article → old service URL → 404 page
Broken links can appear when:
a page is deleted
a URL is changed
products or services are removed
a website is redesigned
a blog post refers to an old page
somebody enters a URL incorrectly
Prioritise broken links that affect:
navigation
contact routes
calls to action
key service pages
popular blog articles
pricing
booking
high-traffic pages
A broken link buried inside an old article matters.
A broken Request a Quote button on your main service page matters considerably more.
Prioritise according to customer impact.
4. Check Whether Internal Links Point Through Redirects
Redirects have legitimate uses.
If:
/old-service
has moved permanently to:
/new-service
then redirecting the old address to the new one can protect people and search engines following the old URL.
But once you know the new destination, your website's own internal links should normally point directly to it.
Instead of:
Page A → old URL → redirect → new URL
update the link to:
Page A → new URL
This is particularly important after a redesign or restructure.
Our guide to reviewing SEO before redesigning a website explains why URLs, redirects and internal links should be reviewed before old structures are removed.
Also watch for redirect chains:
Page A → old URL → newer URL → current URL
If you control Page A, there is little reason to deliberately send someone through the whole chain.
Point them towards the current destination.
5. Review the Anchor Text
Anchor text is the clickable wording of a link.
Weak:
Click here
Weak:
Read more
Better:
small business homepage checklist
Better:
SEO and Local Visibility Audit
The reader should normally have some idea what will happen when they click.
Google's own guidance recommends anchor text that is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to the destination.
Do not take that as an invitation to cram exact-match keywords into every link.
This:
best cheap website designer small business website design Cheshire UK
is not better simply because it contains more keywords.
Write naturally.
If someone read the sentence without thinking about SEO, would the link make sense?
Our guide to getting more people to visit your website includes the same principle: descriptive links are generally more useful than vague instructions such as “click here”.
6. Check Whether Old Pages Are Still Being Linked
Websites change gradually.
That creates legacy links.
You might find:
an old service that no longer exists
an outdated pricing page
an old booking system
a previous contact page
an obsolete campaign page
an old location URL
a blog post linking to a service that has since been renamed
Do not assume a redirect means the job is finished.
If the old link can sensibly be updated, update it.
Then ask whether the surrounding text still makes sense.
If an article from three years ago says:
Our Bronze Package starts at £299.
and the package no longer exists, changing the hyperlink alone does not fix the content.
Internal-link reviews often reveal stale content as well as stale URLs.
7. Review Your Homepage and Navigation
The homepage is usually one of the strongest navigation points on a small-business website.
It should help someone progress towards the pages they actually need.
That could include:
services
products
pricing
reviews
previous work
locations
booking
contact
But do not turn the homepage into a list of every URL on the site.
Our small business homepage checklist explains why the homepage should act as a useful navigation hub while still keeping links relevant to the customer's journey.
The same applies to navigation menus.
Ask:
Does the menu reflect the way customers think about the business?
Not:
Can we squeeze another keyword into it?
8. Check Whether Blog Posts Support Commercial Pages
This is one of the most commonly missed opportunities.
A business may publish useful blog posts for years without connecting those articles to the services it actually sells.
Imagine an accountant publishes:
Should I Register as a Sole Trader or Limited Company?
The article receives useful search traffic.
But there is no link to:
company formation support
bookkeeping
accountancy services
contact
The article educates the visitor and then leaves them at a dead end.
That does not mean every blog paragraph needs a sales link.
It means asking:
If someone finds this useful, what might they reasonably need next?
At BrightPath, for example, an article about improving internal links naturally connects to the SEO and Local Visibility Audit, because internal linking is one of the visible SEO areas reviewed.
If the website has broader structural, navigation, content and customer-journey issues, the Full Website Audit & Improve Plan may be the more appropriate next step.
The connection should make sense because of the reader's need.
Not because you are trying to insert another internal link.
9. Connect Related Service Pages Where It Helps
Service pages should not exist as isolated islands.
Suppose a garage offers:
MOT testing
servicing
brakes
tyres
diagnostics
Someone reading about MOT testing may reasonably need servicing information.
Someone investigating an engine warning light might benefit from the diagnostics page.
Those connections are useful.
But avoid turning the bottom of every service page into:
Also see Service A | Service B | Service C | Service D | Service E | Service F
when most of those links have no meaningful relationship to the page.
Link because there is a genuine next step.
10. Check Location Pages Carefully
Location pages are particularly prone to poor linking.
If a page is genuinely important enough to exist, customers should normally have a sensible way of reaching it.
That might be through:
Areas We Cover → Runcorn
or:
Plumbing Services → Plumbing in Runcorn
depending on the structure of the website.
Avoid adding dozens or hundreds of town names into the footer simply to manufacture internal links.
Our guide to whether you should create a page for every town you serve explains why location architecture should reflect genuine services, customers and operating areas rather than an arbitrary SEO formula.
11. Do Not Chase an Arbitrary Number of Internal Links
You may encounter advice saying:
Every article should contain five internal links.
or:
Every service page needs ten.
That is not a useful rule.
Google explicitly says there is no magical ideal number of links a page should contain.
One article might naturally need two.
Another detailed guide might legitimately contain eight.
A short contact page might need very few.
The better test is:
Does each link help someone understand the subject or take a sensible next step?
If yes, keep it.
If the only explanation is:
“Our SEO tool said we need another internal link”
question whether the link is actually useful.
12. Check That Important Links Are Crawlable
Most normal website links will not cause a problem.
But customised websites, unusual buttons or JavaScript-based interactions can sometimes create navigation that works visually without being represented as a conventional crawlable link.
Google recommends links using normal <a> elements with an href destination.
You do not need to inspect the HTML of every button on a normal small-business website.
But if:
an important page is difficult for Google to discover
navigation has been heavily customised
a developer has built unusual JavaScript interactions
links only appear after complex user interactions
then it may deserve a technical check.
For most small businesses, start with the obvious problems first.
Broken service links and buried commercial pages are normally a better place to begin than investigating obscure technical possibilities.
A Simple Internal Link Audit Sheet
You can manage a basic internal link audit in a spreadsheet.
Create five columns:
Source page
The page containing the link.
Anchor text
The words someone clicks.
Destination
The page the link points towards.
Status
For example:
working
broken
redirected
outdated
unclear
missing opportunity
Action
For example:
keep
update URL
change anchor text
remove
replace
add relevant link
A row might look like:
Homepage | Website design packages | /website-design | Working | Keep
Another:
Old blog article | Click here | /old-seo-page | Redirected | Update destination and anchor
Another:
Case study | No relevant service link | — | Missing opportunity | Add contextual service link
The spreadsheet is not the objective.
It is simply a way to stop issues being forgotten while you work through the site.
What Should You Fix First?
Not every link problem has equal importance.
I would normally prioritise them in this order.
Priority 1: Broken customer journeys
Fix:
broken contact buttons
broken booking links
broken navigation
missing service links
broken calls to action
These can directly obstruct customers.
Priority 2: Important pages with weak internal support
Review commercially important pages that receive few useful internal links.
Ask where customers would logically encounter them.
Priority 3: Old URLs and redirect chains
Update internal links to current destinations where practical.
Priority 4: Confusing anchor text
Replace vague wording when a clearer description would genuinely help the visitor.
Priority 5: Missed contextual opportunities
Look at blog posts, FAQs, case studies and supporting guides that could naturally connect readers to related information or services.
Do not begin by changing hundreds of perfectly functional links because an automated tool generated a large spreadsheet.
Start with issues that affect important pages and customer journeys.
Can Internal Links Help a Page Rank Better?
Internal links can help Google discover pages and understand relationships between pages.
They can also make important pages more prominent within the structure of the website.
But an internal link does not make a weak page good.
If the destination page:
barely explains the service
does not match the search intent
contains inaccurate information
offers no useful evidence
is substantially duplicated elsewhere
gives customers no reason to act
adding another ten internal links is not the solution.
If Google Search Console shows that a commercially useful page already has some visibility, our guide to finding SEO opportunities in Google Search Console explains how internal links can form one part of a wider page review.
How Often Should You Audit Internal Links?
There is no Google rule saying you need an internal link audit every month.
Review them when something significant changes.
That could include:
a website redesign
changing page URLs
launching a new service
removing a service
restructuring navigation
publishing a large number of new articles
merging pages
changing booking or ecommerce systems
cleaning up older content
For a website that publishes regularly, an occasional review can also find opportunities created by newer pages.
For example, an article written six months ago cannot link to a useful service page that did not exist at the time.
Once the new page exists, it may be worth revisiting older relevant content.
Internal Link Audit Checklist
Before you finish, ask:
Can every important page be reached from another relevant page?
Are any important pages buried?
Are there broken internal links?
Are links unnecessarily pointing through redirects?
Are there redirect chains?
Are old URLs still being used?
Does anchor text explain the destination?
Are links descriptive without being keyword stuffed?
Does the homepage direct customers towards useful next steps?
Do relevant service pages connect?
Do useful blog posts support appropriate commercial pages?
Do case studies connect to the work they demonstrate?
Are location pages sensibly integrated?
Are old services still being linked?
Are important calls to action working?
Are links being added because they help rather than to satisfy an arbitrary count?
If several of those questions reveal problems, the issue may be wider than individual links.
When an Internal Link Audit Reveals a Bigger Website Problem
Sometimes internal links are the symptom rather than the problem.
You may discover that:
the website has no clear hierarchy
several pages compete for the same purpose
important services do not have useful pages
navigation reflects the company structure rather than customer needs
blog content is disconnected from commercial services
old URLs have accumulated after several redesigns
location pages have been created without a coherent structure
nobody is sure which pages should actually be prioritised
At that point, fixing links one at a time may not be enough.
The wider website structure needs attention.
BrightPath Digital's SEO and Local Visibility Audit reviews visible SEO foundations including page structure, headings, service content, location signals, internal links and content gaps.
For businesses that want the wider website reviewed—including navigation, customer journey, clarity, trust, SEO and content—the Full Website Audit & Improve Plan provides a broader assessment and prioritised improvement roadmap.
Final Thought: Internal Linking Should Make the Website Make More Sense
A good internal link helps somebody continue their journey.
It might help them:
understand a service
answer another question
see evidence
compare an option
find a location
understand pricing
make an enquiry
Those are useful reasons to link.
Internal linking becomes less useful when the objective changes from:
“What would help the visitor next?”
to:
“How many links does our SEO tool say this page needs?”
Start with the important pages.
Fix what is broken.
Connect genuinely related information.
Use clear anchor text.
Then stop when the links have done their job.
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