How to Plan Internal Links Between Website Pages
A beginner, hands-on guide to plan internal links between website pages with browser inspection, exact code-level changes and verification.
By the end: You will implement and verify plan internal links between website pages on a real local/staging page.
You will implement and verify plan internal links between website pages on a real local/staging page.
Key terms before you start
These definitions make the steps easier to follow and help distinguish controls, files and concepts that can look similar at first.
What you need before starting
- A page you are allowed to edit
- Access to the HTML/CSS/JS or CMS/template that renders it
- A modern browser with Developer Tools
Step-by-step tutorial
Every step is shown below. Work through them in order and use each checkpoint to confirm the result before moving on.
Work on a local or staging copy
Open the project containing the website source. If this is a production site, use a staging copy or backup before structural changes.
A browser page is rendered from source files/CMS output; DevTools edits do not save back to the server.
Move it into the actual source and reload.
Open the page in a modern browser
Load the page, then press F12 or Ctrl+Shift+I (Windows/Linux) to open Developer Tools.
DevTools lets you inspect the DOM, applied CSS, computed sizes, requests and console errors.
Move it into the actual source and reload.
List important destination pages
Write the pages a visitor should be able to discover: major services, pricing, contact, key tutorials/categories.
Prioritize useful destinations over every URL.
For each page, write the next question
After reading a service page, the next question may be price, process, evidence or contact.
Internal links should answer a natural next task.
Add descriptive anchor text
Write “See WordPress maintenance pricing” rather than “click here”.
Anchor text should make sense out of context.
Link prerequisite concepts in tutorials
When a tutorial requires understanding CSS Grid, link the Grid tutorial where the concept first matters.
Do not add repetitive links in every paragraph.
Avoid orphan important pages
Check whether each important page has at least one contextual internal route from another relevant page/navigation.
An XML sitemap alone is not visitor navigation.
Click-test links
Use a crawler or manually test key paths and fix 404/redirect chains.
Prefer direct current URLs for internal links.
Test the public/staging URL logged out
Open the final URL in a private/incognito window.
CMS/admin sessions can hide caching, permission or styling differences.
Check caching, loaded asset URL, theme/template and logged-out view.
Document the changed file/rule
Record the file/template/component and purpose of the change in the project notes or version-control commit.
Future maintainers should not have to reverse-engineer why a rule exists.
Check caching, loaded asset URL, theme/template and logged-out view.
Reload the real page and reproduce the result after all temporary DevTools edits are gone.
Concrete examples
Copyable example
<p>Need ongoing updates?
<a href="/wordpress-maintenance/">See WordPress maintenance services</a>.
</p>Troubleshooting
Move it into the actual source and reload.
Check caching, loaded asset URL, theme/template and logged-out view.
Use the Styles/Computed panels to trace the final value instead of adding stronger selectors blindly.
The change has a traceable reason/location.
Continue with these tutorials
Documentation and references
Use these primary and supporting sources to verify current controls, browser behavior and product-specific details.