How to build internal links around real tool journeys
Connect directories, categories, tools and guides around the user's next decision without creating repetitive link blocks.
Give every indexable page a discoverable place in the site hierarchy, then add contextual links only where they answer the next likely question or continue the workflow. Use descriptive destination labels and audit the rendered graph for orphans and broken routes.
Give each page one clear structural parent
Use a stable path from the home page to the tool directory, category hub and individual tool. Guides belong in their own index and can also support a tool or method. Breadcrumbs should reflect that structure instead of inventing a different hierarchy on each page.
Link at the point of the next decision
Add a contextual link when a reader needs to validate the source, choose the next transformation, understand a limitation or learn the method in depth. The destination should remove uncertainty or continue the current workflow—not merely share a keyword.
Name the destination by its outcome
A link label should tell the reader what changes after following it. Prefer “Flatten a reviewed JSON array into CSV” to “Related tool.” Repeated exact-match anchors are unnecessary when a clearer phrase can preserve the same destination meaning.
Audit the rendered graph, not only the registry
Verify that every indexable route receives at least one real HTML link, every internal href resolves without an unintended redirect, and retired routes are removed or redirected. Re-run the graph when routes, navigation or publication status changes.
Check the source against the result
A person has just validated JSON and needs to decide what to do with the reviewed structure.
The JSON Formatter links to JSON to CSV for transformation, Developer and Data for alternatives, and Privacy for the local-processing boundary.
Each destination answers a different next question: continue the workflow, compare options or inspect trust. None is added solely because it contains the word JSON.
Inspect the hierarchy from the task directory
Start at the public tool index, move into a category, and verify that each live tool exposes a useful next step rather than a generic link cloud.
Open the tools directory