A link exists because of a relationship, not a template.

Internal linking follows relationship analysis rather than a sitewide pattern repeated on every page. A link earns its place when the destination genuinely helps the visitor continue — verifying a claim, choosing a related service, or confirming coverage — not because a navigation component needed another row filled.

Where links belong

Avoid exact-match anchor repetition. The same anchor text on every instance of a link reads as mechanical, to a visitor and to a crawler.
Anchor text describes the destination. A visitor should know what they'll find before they click, not after.
Not every page links to every other page. Relevance decides inclusion; link density doesn't.
Links stay reachable through ordinary HTML. A relationship that only works through a script isn't reliably a relationship at all.

Relationship types that justify a link

Link relationships and the reason each one holds
From	To	Reason
Homepage service card	Core service page	Visitor evaluates the distinct service directly
Homepage project card	Case study	Visitor verifies a specific service/location claim
Service page	Pricing page	Visitor moves from scope to cost naturally
Problem page	Matching service page	Diagnosis resolves into the correct service

Links are evidence too

Structural proximity — which pages sit near each other in the hierarchy — feeds relationship analysis as one signal among several. It's a reason to investigate a potential link, not proof that the link should exist on its own.

Built into the hierarchy, not added after

Internal linking requirements come out of website hierarchy analysis, not a separate audit run once the site is live. A page missing an obvious link back to its parent category is a hierarchy signal worth revisiting, not just a broken-link report to fix in isolation.

See how hierarchy analysis surfaces linking gaps.

A link exists because of a relationship, not a template.

Where links belong

Relationship types that justify a link

Links are evidence too

Built into the hierarchy, not added after

Link pages because they belong together.