Internal Linking for Small Sites: A 5-Page Map That Scales to 20 Posts

If You Have Zero Posts: Your First 5 Pages and First 3 Links

For internal linking for small sites, begin with a five-page mini-site: one pillar post, two supporting posts, one comparison money page, and one reference page. This hub-and-spoke shape works from day one, illustrated with a beginner-affiliate niche like budget web hosting.

This gives you a complete mini-site: pillar links down, supports link back up, and the money page is reachable from multiple directions. Nothing is linked simply because it exists.

If you have no site yet, here's the bridge to that first decision. Before mapping, you'll need a host. For a beginner comparing Bluehost and Hostinger, check each host's current plan page for shared hosting features, renewal pricing, storage, and support options. Use the table below to record what you see on each signup page today—third-party price lists don't reflect renewal rates or add-on costs.

After checking both signup pages, see our dated Hostinger vs Bluehost comparison (updated monthly) for a side-by-side look. That's the same money page you'll link to in your five-page map.

Disclosure: Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you click and buy, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Once you pick a host, install WordPress, create the five pages, and run the link plan in Step 4. Timing depends on your pace and host setup. The /hostinger-vs-bluehost page is where you put a dated, side-by-side look; the comparison usually comes down to price, renewal rates, and support.

Your first three links to add:

1. From the pillar to the first support (link "how to set up a website" from the pillar to the setup guide).
2. From the pillar to the second support (link "web hosting email setup" from the pillar to the email guide).
3. From the first support back to the pillar (link "best budget web hosting" from the setup guide to the pillar).

After those three, add the comparison page and link it from the pillar and both supports. Then add the glossary and link to it from any post that uses jargon.

If You Already Have Twenty Posts: Start With These Three Links

If you already have twenty posts sitting unlinked, start with these three edits:

1. From your broadest guide (the page covering the main topic) to its most closely related supporting post. Example: link from /best-budget-web-hosting to /how-to-set-up-a-website.
2. From that same pillar to a second supporting post, such as /web-hosting-email-setup.
3. From the first supporting post back to the pillar, using anchor text like budget web hosting for beginners.

After those three, add comparison or money pages and link them from the pillar and at least one support, then add a glossary or resource page and link from any post that uses jargon. The order is the same as the zero-post map—you just don't have to create the pages first.

What Internal Linking for Small Sites Really Does

Internal linking means connecting your own pages with crawlable links and descriptive anchor text, so readers move from one related post to the next and Google can find and understand every page. On a small site—twenty pages or five—the aim is modest: no page left orphaned, and no link added just to fill space.

Unlinked posts depend entirely on a search result to be discovered. Google uses links as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages and to find new pages to crawl ^[1], and it primarily finds pages through links from pages it has already crawled ^[2]. Hand it twenty unconnected pages and you're asking it to guess which ones matter. Readers pay too: someone lands on a review of one product, wants to know how it compares with the alternative, and has to go back to Google—where a competitor's page is waiting.

What counts as an internal link

An internal link connects two pages on your own site. To be crawlable it generally needs to be an anchor element with an href attribute; most other formats won't be parsed and extracted by Google ^[1]. Google lists these as not recommended: <a routerLink>, <span href>, and <a onclick="goto()"> because of script events; javascript: URLs are also not recommended because they don't resolve to normal web addresses ^[1]. Google can generally only crawl anchor elements with an href attribute ^[1]; opening the rendered HTML to confirm the pattern is our own check (Step 2).

The good news for a small site is that this is editing work, not engineering. You are changing words in posts you've already written, one of the few structural improvements you can try without buying anything or risking much.

Step 1: Map Your Pages Into Pillars and Supports

Before you touch a single link, decide what job each page does. A small affiliate site can use three roles:

• Pillar. A broad guide to one topic—the page you'd want to be known for. It links down to the narrower posts that support it.
• Support. A narrow post answering one question. It links up to its pillar and across to one or two siblings.
• Money page. A review, comparison or "best of" list where affiliate links live. It should be reachable from the pillar and from the supports that naturally lead to a buying decision.

Google's guidance is plain: think about what other resources on your site could help readers understand a given page, and link to those pages in context ^[1]. Pillars and supports are just a way of doing that on purpose instead of by accident.

If you already have twenty posts: the linking pattern

The same 5-page map scales without changing the rules. Each pillar connects to four or five supporting posts; each support links back to its pillar and to one or two siblings; each money page is reachable from at least the pillar and one support. For a twenty-page site in the budget-hosting example, you might have one main pillar (/best-budget-web-hosting), four or five support posts covering setup, email, security, speed, and migration, two or three comparison money pages, and a glossary. The exact page names don't matter—what matters is the shape: pillar at the center, supports pointing up and sideways, money pages linked from multiple directions. Nothing is linked merely because it exists.

The orphan test

Google's wording: every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site ^[1]. So list all your URLs and count the incoming internal links for each. Anything at zero is an orphan and your first fix—not because some magic number of links is required, but because a page with no internal links is a page your own site is ignoring.

Step 2: Write the Link So Google Can Follow It

Google generally can only crawl a link if it is an anchor element with an href attribute, and the URL inside must resolve to an actual web address crawlers can request ^[1]. In plain English: a link needs to be a normal hyperlink, not a button that runs a script or a piece of text that only changes something on the page.

How to add this link in WordPress or your page builder

In the WordPress block editor (Gutenberg), highlight the text, click the link icon (chain), paste the URL of the destination page on your own site, and press Enter. In Elementor, select the text widget, open the link option in the widget's content settings; the link button may look different but does the same job. In most other visual editors, the link button is a chain icon; check your editor's documentation if you don't see it.

Quick check: after adding the link, right-click it and choose "Copy link address." If the address starts with your own domain and can be pasted into a new tab, the link is probably crawlable. javascript: URLs are not recommended because Google may not parse them ^[1]. The right-click check is our own test: if no copy-address option appears, the link may not be a normal hyperlink, so Google probably can't follow it. To confirm the destination sits inside an anchor element with an href, open the rendered HTML and look for that pattern yourself—this is our own workflow check, not a Google-documented step. Raw page source may not show JavaScript-inserted links. A screenshot would show the code view with <a href="/your-page">descriptive text</a> next to a non-crawlable button or javascript: call.

One practical habit: write the link in the body text, not in a widget. Bold sentences with real words around them are easier to control than buttons, and they read better on a phone.

Step 3: Pick Anchor Text That Works Without Context

Anchor text is the visible text of a link, and it tells both people and Google something about the page being linked to ^[1]. It should be descriptive, reasonably concise, and relevant to the page it sits on as well as the page it points at ^[1]. Google suggests a simple test: read only the anchor text, out of context, and see if it still makes sense by itself ^[1]. If you can't tell what the destination is about, the link text is too vague.

A useful side effect: if you can't write a descriptive anchor, it usually means the destination page has no clear job yet. Fix the page before you link to it.

Before/after in real body copy: Weak: If you want help setting up your site, click here. Better: If you want help setting up your site, read the step-by-step website setup guide. The second version names the destination and survives the out-of-context test.

For a beginner-affiliate site, good anchors in real sentences:

If you're comparing budget hosts, see how Hostinger stacks up against Bluehost for new site owners.

Start with the step-by-step website setup guide before you pick a plan.

These sentences describe exactly what the reader gets, and they survive the out-of-context test.

Four rules we apply to every link

• Skip \"click here\" and \"read more\". Google lists both as examples of anchor text that's too generic ^[1].
• Don't pile in keywords. Google warns against cramming every related keyword into a link, since keyword stuffing violates its spam policies ^[1].
• Don't chain links. Several links back to back are hard for readers to tell apart, and you lose the surrounding words for each one ^[1].
• Mind the sentence around the link. Google says the words before and after a link matter ^[1]; as our own habit, we check the sentence reads fine with the link removed.

Step 4: Fill In a Link Plan You Can Copy

Twenty pages is small enough to plan by hand in one sitting, and a spreadsheet beats a plugin because you can see the whole map at once. For a mobile-friendly start, use this three-column version:

Example table — replace URLs, roles, and links with your own.

Then expand to the full table below when you're at a desktop:

Example table — replace URLs, roles, anchor text, and dates with your own.

1. Paste every URL into the first column and mark its role.
2. Give each pillar three to five supporting posts, and each support exactly one pillar.
3. Count incoming links per URL. Anything at zero gets a link from its pillar or a sibling before you do anything else.
4. Write the anchor text into the plan before you write it into the page—sentences are easier to fix in a spreadsheet than in a published post.
5. Make the edits, tick the row, and add the date you checked it.
6. Add each new post to the sheet the day you publish it, with at least one incoming link already arranged.

If you'd like a fill-in-the-blank version of the link plan table as a printable/digital template, you can open it here—no signup required. Open the internal-link map template.

Disclosure: This site may earn affiliate commissions from some links. You'll never pay more by using them.

Keep the sheet next to your content calendar. It records what you changed and when, useful when you return to a post six months later—the process in refreshing old affiliate posts assumes you know what the page used to say.

How Many Internal Links Should Each Page Have?

Google doesn't publish an ideal number. Its guidance says there is no magical ideal number of links a page should contain, then offers a rule of thumb: if you think it's too much, it probably is ^[1].

As a working habit on a small site, aim for three to five in-body links per post, placed where a reader would genuinely want the next piece of information. Navigation and footer links don't count, because they appear on every page and don't help someone halfway through an article decide what to read next.

Placement matters as much as quantity. Put links early in a section, where the reader is still building context; a link buried at the end is easy to miss. A link from a page that already earns search impressions is more useful than one from a page nobody opens—which is why the reports in Google Search Console for affiliate sites are the right place to start choosing which pages deserve to be pillars.

Internal Links vs Backlinks, Tools, and Affiliate Links

These three get muddled, and the muddle is usually about who controls what.

Backlinks you mostly can't create on demand. Internal links you can fix tonight, so they're the sensible first job for a site with twenty pages and no budget for link building—and the same applies to a site with five.

Which tools do you actually need?

For a site this size, a spreadsheet plus Google Search Console (free) is enough—and to check what's indexed, use the site: search operator ^[2]. You don't need a crawler tool yet. If you're comparing paid options, decide what question you're trying to answer first—the same discipline we set out in keyword research with free tools only applies to link audits.

How should affiliate links fit in?

An affiliate link isn't an internal link, and Google advises qualifying links you were paid for in some way ^[1]. For the practical side—which attribute to use, and what to do about cloaking—see our guide to rel=\"sponsored\", nofollow and affiliate link marking. Keep the two kinds of link technically distinct. For FTC disclosure wording examples, see our set of examples (adapt as needed; check the FTC's current guidance, not legal advice).

The trust question, answered plainly

If you've been burned by \"honest reviews\" that pushed whatever paid best, it's fair to ask what this article is selling. Nothing in this post requires a purchase: the plan needs no software purchase and no program signup, and the Google-derived guidance above comes from Google's documentation ^[1][2]. The site itself may earn commissions from some tool links on other pages. For how we test and recommend tools elsewhere, see our methodology.

Keep It Alive: A Monthly Linking Pass

Links rot quietly. A page gets renamed, a post is rewritten and loses the sentence the link sat in, an anchor no longer describes where it goes. A short pass once a month catches most of it:

1. Open the link plan and pick three rows you haven't checked recently.
2. Click every internal link on those pages. If one leads nowhere, fix it or remove it.
3. Read each anchor out of context. If it no longer describes the destination, rewrite it ^[1].
4. Add any new posts to the sheet with at least one incoming link already lined up.
5. Run a site: search for your domain to confirm the pages you added are indexed ^[2].

Then leave it alone for a while. Google notes that some changes take effect within a few hours while others could take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging whether a change helped ^[2]. That's the honest timescale—no plugin shortcuts it.

If a page is worth linking to but its recommendations are stale, fix the content before you point links at it: refreshing old affiliate posts covers what to check, change and re-date. And if you're still deciding which pages deserve to be pillars, the intent behind each query matters more than the keyword itself—search intent for affiliate content explains how to tell a comparison query from a research one. When the structure is in place, the broader signals that make a small site feel trustworthy are worth a read too: experience, expertise and trust on a small affiliate site.

Finally, keep it in proportion. Internal linking is the cheapest structural improvement available to a small site, but it is not a ranking promise—Google is explicit that there are no secrets that will automatically rank a site first ^[2]. What it does is make your site legible: to a reader deciding what to read next, and to a crawler working out which of your pages you consider important. Check the current version of Google's link guidance before you rely on any detail here, since pages are revised. The link best practices page we used carries a last-updated date of 10 December 2025 — treat that as the date of the source we reviewed, not a current guarantee.

Related guides: The Anatomy of a Useful Product Review (With a Fill-In Template); How to Write a Comparison Post That Actually Helps Readers Choose; \"Best X\" Lists Done Right; Experience, Expertise and Trust on a Small Affiliate Site.

This guide is general education. Program terms and tools change; check the linked official pages for the current version. How we write: editorial policy. This page has no affiliate links.