Your website could be full of brilliant content and still not rank. Why? Because Google can't figure out how your pages connect. That's what we're fixing today.

Hi, I'm Nikki Pilkington. My site is https://nikki-pilkington.com/ and in this episode of "SEO F**king What", I'm tackling one of the most overlooked parts of SEO — website structure. Not the sexy stuff. The stuff that actually makes your site work. How your pages connect, how Google moves around your site, and why getting this wrong means even your best content struggles to rank.

Here's what I'm covering: — Why your website is like a building, and what happens when Google can't follow the corridors — What a clear hierarchy looks like and why your most important pages need to be close to the top — Orphan pages: what they are, why they're costing you, and how to find and fix them in an afternoon — Internal linking — the most underused free tool in SEO — and how to actually use it properly — Why your link text matters more than you realise (and why "click here" is doing absolutely nothing for you) — URLs, 301 redirects, XML sitemaps, and why submitting to Google Search Console is non-negotiable

I also give you proper homework. Four things to do this week. None of them cost money. All of them will make a difference.

If you've done your content audit and now you're ready to sort out your structure, this is the episode you need. And if you know someone whose website is a complete jumble with no logic to how it's connected, send them this. It might save them months of confusion.

Get found. Make money. Link properly.

Useful links:

Non Wanky On-Page SEO Toolkit: https://nonwankyseo.com

Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console

Screaming Frog: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/

Follow Nikki:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikkipilkington/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nikkipilkington/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/nikkipilkington.bsky.social

Mentioned in this episode:

ICN Network

Today we're talking about website structure, how your pages connect to each other,

how Google moves around your site, and why getting this wrong means even brilliant content struggles to rank.

This is SEO F**king What. I'm Nikki,

and I've been doing SEO for over 30 years,

before it was even called SEO.

Last episode, we went through your content audit —

reading your website properly, being brutally honest about what was helping

and what was just sitting there doing absolutely fuck all.

If you haven't listened to episode 18 yet, go back and do that first,

because what we're doing today builds directly on it.

You've done your content audit. You know what's good, what's shit, and what needs binning.

But it doesn't matter how good your individual pages are

if Google can't figure out how they all connect. Today we're gonna sort that out.

It really doesn't matter how good a page is if Google can barely find it,

or if Google has no idea how it relates to anything else on your site.

That's what we're fixing. Let's start with a question.

If someone landed on a random page of your website — not your homepage, just some page buried in your blog —

could they figure out what your business does?

Would they know what else is on your site and where to go next,

without having to click back and start from scratch?

If the answer is probably not, your structure is working against you,

and I want you to fix it this time — not just listen and nod.

Here's how to think about it.

Your website is like a building. Your homepage is the front door.

Every other page is a room.

Now, if someone walks into that building and there are no signs, no corridors,

no obvious way to get from one room to the next, they're going to wander around, confused, and then bugger right off.

Google does exactly the same thing.

It comes in through whichever page it finds first, and tries to work out what's in the building.

If it can't follow a clear path from one room to the next, it misses things.

Pages it never finds don't get indexed.

Pages it can't connect to anything else don't get treated as important.

And you'll be sat there pulling your hair out, wondering why your awesome content isn't ranking,

when the real problem is that Google can barely find the fucking stuff.

So good structure — what does it look like?

Think about it like a pyramid. Your homepage is at the very top.

Below that, we have your main sections — your services, your key topic areas.

Below that, the detail — individual service pages, blog posts, case studies.

Every level connects down to the next and back up again.

The closer a page is to the top of that pyramid, the more important Google thinks it is.

So if your most important service page is buried three levels deep and nothing links to it,

Google's treating it like it barely matters and it'll rank accordingly.

That's not Google being shitty —

that's Google doing exactly what you accidentally told it to do by ignoring your structure.

And I see this all the time with small business sites.

The homepage links to a few things. The service pages link to some other things.

The blog posts link to, usually nothing.

They just end. Dead stop. And there are pages dotted all over the place that nothing links to at all.

Orphan pages. Just floating there invisible.

Google might eventually find them through your sitemap maybe,

but if nothing on your actual site points to a page, you are telling Google it's not important,

even if the content on it is really fucking good — and that's a waste.

It's soul destroying, and it's fixable in an afternoon.

The fix has two parts: a sensible hierarchy and internal linking.

So let's do both. Hierarchy first.

Go back to that content audit spreadsheet from last episode.

You've done that, right?

Look at your pages and ask: which of these pages belong together?

Overall service pages and individual service pages should be grouped.

The service pages link to each other. Each one links back to the main service page.

Blog posts on topics related to a service should link to that service page.

And the service page should link back to a few relevant posts.

Think about it from your potential client's point of view.

Someone lands on your social media management page. What else might they want?

Maybe you've got a post about how often to post to LinkedIn.

Maybe there's a case study. Those things should be connected.

Because Google sees those connections and thinks: right, these pages are part of something. They back each other up.

They matter to this website, and that's the signal you want to be sending.

Your most important pages need to be reachable within two or three clicks from your homepage.

If someone has to dig through five layers of navigation to find an individual service page, that's a problem.

And not just for Google. If it's a faff to find,

real people won't find it either, and if they can't find it, they can't hire you.

It's pretty fucking basic,

but you'd be amazed how many sites get this completely wrong.

Now, internal linking is probably the second most underused free tool in SEO for small businesses.

The first is Google Search Console — but you knew that, right?

Costs nothing. It works,

and the vast majority of small businesses do none of it.

Every time you publish something, ask yourself:

which existing pages on my website is this relevant to?

Then link to them, and go back to those existing pages and add a link to your new one.

Relevant links — not a hundred links crammed in all over the place.

Relevant links with link text that describes what you're pointing to.

So if I was linking to my SEO page, the link text should say something like "SEO"

or "How to audit your website" — not "Click here".

"Click here" tells Google precisely fucking nothing

about what's on the other end of that link.

"How to do a content audit" tells it exactly what it's getting.

That link text matters more than most people realise.

Stop wasting it on "click here", "read more", "download this".

Make it tell Google, screen readers, and your reader what they get when they click on it.

That goes for your buttons too. Stop making them say "find out more",

for the love of all that is fucking holy.

And look at the pages already doing well on your site — the ones that are already getting traffic.

Those have the most authority right now. If you link from those pages to other pages you want to rank better,

you are moving some of that authority across.

It's not magic, it's just how it works. Use it.

But let's go back to orphan pages. Go through your spreadsheet.

Flag every page that nothing else on your site links to.

Those are your orphans. Either link to them from somewhere relevant,

or seriously question whether they should exist.

A page nobody can find, that nothing points to, that gets no traffic, is dead weight.

A tighter, better connected site nearly always outperforms a sprawling mess.

And while we're at it, let's talk about URLs — the address of your pages —

because this sometimes catches people out.

Your URLs should be clean, as short as they can be, and descriptive.

You want URLs that tell Google and your visitors what the page is about without writing a short story.

I want to say this clearly, because I know someone listening is already reaching for their keyboard.

Do not go and change all your existing URLs today.

If Google has already indexed these pages, changing the addresses without setting up proper redirects

will fuck up whatever ranking you've built. Don't do it.

Going forward, use clean URLs.

For existing pages, only change them if they're genuinely awful

and you're prepared to set up the redirects properly.

Which leads me to redirects.

When you delete a page or move it to a new URL, you need a redirect.

Specifically a 301, that tells Google: this page has permanently moved. Here's where it lives now.

Without that, every link pointing to the old URL hits a dead end. Every person who's bookmarked it hits a dead end.

Google doesn't like dead ends. Sort your redirects.

Last thing before the break: your sitemap.

An XML sitemap is a list of all your pages in a format that Google can read.

It's like handing Google a floor plan of your building instead of making it explore in the dark.

Most platforms generate one automatically. You've probably got one sitting at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml already.

Go into Google Search Console and submit it.

And I'm going to say it again. If you haven't set up Google Search Console yet, what the actual fuck are you waiting for?

It's free.

It shows you what Google's finding, what it's indexing, and what it's struggling with.

You need it. Go and set it up.

In a moment, I'm going to give you the exact things to do this week to sort your site structure out,

starting with the one that'll make the biggest difference the fastest. Don't go anywhere.

If you're listening to this thinking: I want to sort out my on-page SEO,

but I can't afford to hire anyone — I've got you.

My non-wanky on-page SEO toolkit is everything I actually do for clients when I'm optimising their websites,

laid out so you can do it yourself. £200, no upsells, just the toolkit.

Go and have a look at nonwankyseo.com.

There's a £20 a month option — £20 a month to sort out your SEO.

Get it before I remove it, because it's too good a deal.

Right. Here's your homework, and I mean it. Please don't just nod along

and go back to whatever you were doing before you pressed play on this.

go back to your content spreadsheet from the last episode.

Add a column for "links to" and a column for "linked from".

For each page, note what other pages it links to, and which pages link back to it.

You don't have to do the whole site this week. Your main service pages, five most visited blog posts. Solid start.

find your orphans. Any page with nothing in the "linked from" column needs attention.

Either add links to it from somewhere relevant on your site,

or ask yourself seriously whether it needs to exist.

look at your best performing pages — the ones already getting traffic.

Check where they link to. Point other important pages to them.

You've got authority sitting there that you're not using.

check your sitemap. Submit to Google Search Console if you haven't already done it.

Four things. None of them cost money. All of them will make a difference.

Use a tool such as Screaming Frog to make it easier. The links are in the show notes.

But honestly, doing it by hand once in a while is a really good exercise in learning more about your website.

If you've done your content audit and now you're sorting out your structure, you're already doing more than the vast majority of small businesses ever bother with.

Make sure you're following SEO F**king What wherever you're listening, so you don't miss what's coming.

And if you know someone whose website is a complete jumble with no logic to how it's connected,

send them this. It might save them months of confusion.

Until next time: get found. Make money. And link properly.