Internal link

Google uses links to find new pages and as a signal of how relevant a page is. A page that nothing on your site links to is hard for Google to reach, and visitors rarely land on it. Google's own rule of thumb: every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site.

The clickable words, called anchor text, matter too. A link that says physiotherapy for back pain tells readers and Google what is on the other side. A link that says click here tells them nothing.

Search Console shows a sample of the internal links Google has found, which is enough to spot pages that were left out.

1. Open Search Console and click Links in the menu on the left.
2. Under Internal links, look at Top linked pages and click MORE for the full table. Your home page and your contact and main service pages should be well linked.
3. Look for the pages that matter to you, such as a new service. If one is missing or has very few links, link to it from two or three related pages.
4. Read the link text on your pages on its own. If it only says read more, rewrite it so it names the page it leads to.

Our free website audit checklist covers links along with the other basics. On links alone, watch for these:

• Blog posts that link to nothing and that nothing links to.
• Links that only work through a script on a button. Google can generally follow a link only when it is a standard HTML link with a real address.
• Links that still point to old addresses which now redirect or no longer exist.
• Several links in a row with no sentence around them, so readers can't tell them apart.