The new service page is published, and nothing else on the site points to it yet. Your older blog posts never mention it, the menu is already full, and every time you try to add a link in the editor you end up pasting a full web address and wondering whether that was the right way to do it.
Internal linking in WordPress is mostly a habit rather than a technical job. The editor already has a search box for your own content, and a few minutes spent linking new pages from old ones helps visitors find what they need and helps search engines understand which pages belong together. This post covers the mechanics, how to choose the words you link, and how to keep those links working over time.
What counts as an internal link
An internal link is any link from one page of your site to another page of the same site: a blog post pointing to your services page, a service page pointing to your contact page, a FAQ answer pointing to a longer guide. Menu items and footer links are internal links too, but they appear on every page, so they say little about how two particular pages relate. The links that carry the most meaning are the ones inside the body text, written by you, in a sentence that explains why the reader might want to go there.
If you are still getting your bearings on the wider SEO side of WordPress, our WordPress SEO basics for owners post explains where linking sits among the other jobs. For the broader picture of running the site itself, see the beginner’s guide to running WordPress.
Adding a link in the block editor
The block editor makes it easy to link to your own pages without leaving the screen.
- Open the post or page and select the words you want to turn into a link.
- Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on a Mac), or the chain-link icon that appears above the selected text.
- Start typing the title of the page you want to link to. WordPress searches your posts and pages and shows matches under the box.
- Click the right result. WordPress inserts the correct address for you, so you never have to copy it from the browser.
- Save or update the post, then open it on the front end and click the link once to make sure it lands where you expected.
To change or remove a link later, click on the linked text and the small link popover appears with options to edit or unlink. If you use the classic editor, the process is almost the same: highlight the text, click the chain icon, and use its search field to find the page.
Page builders such as Elementor have their own link fields on buttons and text widgets. Most of them let you paste an address, and some offer a search of your content. Either way, check the address points to the live page and not to a preview or draft link.
Should internal links open in a new tab?
Usually not. The link settings include an “Open in new tab” switch, but for links to your own pages it tends to confuse people, especially on phones, where a pile of tabs builds up and the back button stops working as expected. Keep new tabs for the rare case where a visitor is filling in a form and needs to read something without losing their place.
Choosing the words you link
The clickable text, called the anchor text, tells both the reader and search engines what to expect on the other side. A few habits make anchors useful:
- Describe the destination. “Our guide to choosing a roofing contractor” is better than “this article” or “read more”, which tell nobody anything.
- Keep it to a phrase, not a sentence. A few words that name the topic read naturally. A whole linked paragraph is hard to read and looks like a mistake.
- Vary the wording. If ten posts link to your plumbing services page, they do not all need the identical phrase. Write what fits each sentence.
- Do not force keywords. An anchor that reads oddly because you squeezed a search phrase into it helps no one. Write it the way you would say it out loud.
- Do not link the same page twice in one post. One clear link is enough. A second one adds clutter.
Which pages to link, and from where
A simple rule works for most small business sites: link from pages that explain a problem to pages that solve it. A blog post about why gutters overflow should link to the gutter cleaning service page. A service page can link to the one or two posts that answer the questions customers ask before buying. And every important page should be reachable from at least one other page in the body text, not only from the menu.
Look out for orphan pages: pages that exist but nothing on the site links to. They happen easily when you publish a landing page for an advert, or when a menu is reorganised and an item drops out. Visitors cannot reach them by browsing, and search engines may treat them as less important.
Link new posts from old ones
When you publish a new post, it starts with no links pointing to it. The most useful thing you can do on publishing day is go back to two or three older posts on related topics and add a sentence that links forward. Your older posts already have visitors, so this is how the new post gets found. A quick way to find candidates is to search your own posts in Posts → All Posts for a word the new post is about.
Plugins that help with internal linking in WordPress
If you have many posts, working out where to link between posts by hand can take a while. Some SEO plugins offer internal link suggestions while you write, depending on the plugin and which version you have, and there are dedicated linking plugins that scan your content and propose links. These tools can save time, but treat their suggestions as a starting list. Read each one in context and only accept the ones a person would find useful. Automatic linking that turns every mention of a word into a link across the whole site is best avoided: it produces repetitive anchors and links in places that make no sense.
Google Search Console also has a Links report, which lists your most linked pages internally. It is a quick way to see whether your important service pages are getting links or whether an old post you no longer care about is collecting most of them.
Keeping internal links from breaking
Internal links break for predictable reasons: you change a page’s slug, delete a page, or move content to a new address. WordPress can sometimes send visitors from an old post address to the new one on its own, but do not rely on that, especially for pages. When you change an address, add a redirect from the old one; our post on how to set up a 301 redirect for an old page walks through the options.
It is also worth fixing the links themselves, not only redirecting them, because a link that goes through a redirect is slower and messier than a direct one. After renaming a page, search your posts for the old slug and update each link to the new address.
To spot dead links you missed, run a page through our free broken link checker, which reports every link on that page and what it returned. For a whole-site approach, including how to read the results without chasing false alarms, see how to find broken links on your website.
Mistakes that undo the good work
- Linking with the full address including “https://www” when the site uses a different version. Picking the page from the editor’s search avoids this entirely.
- Linking to staging or preview addresses. If your site was built on a temporary address, old links may still point there. Search your content for the old domain and correct them.
- Turning every second sentence into a link. Too many links make a page tiring to read and dilute the ones that matter. A handful of well-chosen links in a normal-length post is plenty.
- Using “nofollow” on your own links. There is no reason to tell search engines not to follow a link to your own page. Leave that setting off for internal links.
- Linking only from the footer. A footer link to every service is fine, but it does not replace a sentence in a relevant post that explains why the reader should go there.
Frequently asked questions
How many internal links should a blog post have?
There is no correct number. Link where it genuinely helps the reader take the next step or understand something better. For a typical small business post, a handful of body links to closely related pages is normal. If you find yourself adding links just to reach a count, stop and remove the weakest ones.
Does it matter if an internal link points to a redirected address?
The visitor still arrives, so it is not urgent, but it is worth tidying. Each redirect adds a small delay and a chain of them can eventually break if one redirect is removed. When you know a page has moved, update the links in your own content to point straight at the new address.
Can I link to a page that is still a draft?
You can create the link, but visitors will hit a page that does not exist until the draft is published, and logged-out users will see an error. It is safer to publish the destination first and then add links to it, or to come back and add the link after it goes live.
Should I link to my contact page from every post?
Only where it fits the content. A post that ends with a clear next step, such as booking an inspection, can reasonably link to the contact or booking page. Adding the same contact link to every post adds little, because the menu already makes that page easy to reach.
Older sites tend to collect links to staging addresses, renamed pages and posts nobody can reach any more. Sorting that out is a patient, page-by-page job. Our WordPress support team can take it on with you, starting with the pages that matter most to the business.
Next in this series: How to Add Schema Markup to WordPress, Step by Step
