Internal linking strategy for small blogs
If you have 15 posts, here’s the linking pattern that works.
Internal linking advice is written for sites with four hundred posts. If you have fifteen, most of it does not apply. Here is the pattern that does.
The rule of three
Every new post links to three existing posts. Every existing post, when you next touch it, gains one link to something newer. That is the entire maintenance routine.
Which three
- The pillar post for the subject this post sits under. Always.
- The closest sibling — the existing post a reader of this one would most want next.
- The commercial page the subject naturally leads toward: a service page, a product, a booking form.
Anchor text
Use the target page's own subject phrase, not "click here" and not the bare URL. If the target post is about grind size, the anchor should contain the words grind size. Keep it inside a sentence that would read normally without the link.
Two mistakes
Linking every mention. Five links to the same page from one post is one link with extra noise. Once is enough.
Linking only forward. New posts naturally link to old ones. The value comes from going back and adding links from your older, better-established posts to the new ones — that is what passes authority in the useful direction.
The fifteen-post reality
At this size you can hold the whole map in your head. Draw it once, on paper: pillars in the middle, posts around them, arrows between. Any post with no incoming arrows is invisible. Fix those first.