Guide

Site structure and internal linking for service businesses

How to organise a service business website so visitors and Google understand it: hubs, service pages, guides, breadcrumbs and an internal linking plan you can follow.

VAULT 33|27 · Updated 12 November 2026 · Reviewed 12 November 2026 · 1 min read

A structure that works

Level	Example	Links to
Homepage	/	Main services, key areas, proof
Service hub	/services/	Every service page
Service page	/services/eicr-certificates/	Related guides, relevant areas, enquiry
Area hub (if needed)	/areas/	Genuine area pages
Guide hub	/guides/	Topic groups and guides
Guide	/guides/what-is-an-eicr/	The matching service page, related guides

Most important pages should be reachable within two or three clicks from the homepage.

Internal linking rules

Every page is linked from somewhere. Orphan pages are hard for people and search engines to find.
Guides link to the matching service. Help first, then the next step.
Services link to supporting guides that answer common objections.
Use descriptive link text: "EICR certificates for landlords", not "click here".
Link naturally where it helps the reader, not in long keyword lists.
Use crawlable links: standard HTML links with real addresses.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs show where a page sits ("Home › Services › EICR certificates") and help people move up a level. Add breadcrumb structured data so search engines understand it too. See schema markup.

URLs

Short, readable, lowercase, words separated by hyphens, and stable. Changing URLs later means redirects; see the migration checklist.

A quick internal linking audit

List your money pages. How many internal links point to each?
Find pages with no internal links pointing to them.
Check every guide links to a relevant service.
Fix broken internal links and links that go through redirects.

Sources

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