How to improve your site's SEO with external links

External links are hyperlinks that point to other websites. External links are also called “outbound” or “inbound” links, depending on where they lead. We typically use the term for discussing web design and SEO, but it can refer to any type of link in a document pointing outside of itself. 

An external link may exist within the text of an article, appear as a graphic containing a URL linking elsewhere on the internet, or be placed in an email signature directing readers elsewhere online. When people talk about how many external links, there are pointing to your website.

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What Are External Links?

External links are hyperlinks that point to other websites. External links are also called “outbound” or “inbound” links, depending on where they lead. We typically use the term for discussing web design and SEO, but it can refer to any type of link in a document pointing outside of itself. An external link may exist within the text of an article, appear as a graphic containing a URL linking elsewhere on the internet, or be placed in an email signature directing readers elsewhere online. 

When people talk about how many external links there are pointing to your website, they’re talking about traffic. Many external links exist within a text, graphic, or other accompanying media on the web. They may be called external links because they lead to something external.

Why Should You Use Them?

External links allow visitors to different websites to stay on your site longer. The main reason to include them is that Google loves the trust that these links bring. If you send people to different websites, they are likely to stay on your site longer and consume more content, which means you’ll receive more page views in return. Along with retaining visitors to your site, linking out will also give your site more reach. 

Therefore, it’s a good idea to link to other content you like, as well as two businesses and organizations that are like yours. This will allow you to easily reach more potential clients and customers. One of the primary benefits of external links is that they can reduce the number of cookies your visitors have on their computers.

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How to Create and Share Links

Creating links for your website or business has many similarities to create blog posts. As with any kind of writing, the key is to write with clarity, be consistent, and get a high-quality article up and published as quickly as possible. There are several tools available to help you make your own links. Here are a few of the best. Is the site you want to link to already associated with WordPress, an RSS feed, or another blogging platform? 

If so, look for a plugin that allows you to easily add your information to the list of blog posts this site publishes. The WordPress plugin WPML allows you to do this. If it’s an external URL that you want to link to, the most popular way to do it is to use the submit plugin Contact Form 7 (see below).

How to Get Links

If you’re not naturally outgoing or charming, you can still get links to your website. The trick is to make it worth their while to link to you. Here are a few tried-and-true techniques for improving your link profile. If you’d like to improve your blog’s profile getting linked to by the authorities within the content you’re writing is often a more cost-effective method.

For example, if you write about cooking, ask for a recipe for a dish you’ve never tried before and write a review of it on your blog. Set up a link to your home page or a section of your website that you’d like people to refer to later. Make it easy for people to link to your website. Provide a form or an email address for people to used to get your website from your website to theirs, or to comment on it.

Disadvantages of External Links

When someone links to your website, it doesn’t mean they agree with you or read what you write. They may just be passing through and clicking the link for its own sake. If you link to another website, you’re not increasing traffic to your own, but are instead taking someone else’s traffic. External links may reduce SEO opportunities on the website you’re linking to, which may or may not be a good thing.

If your page is primarily a resource for a topic that is covered elsewhere, it may not gain the trust and traffic needed to really thrive as a destination page for that topic. The best way to explain the advantages and disadvantages of external links is to start with the top example of where the concept is best used: the navigation bar.


Internal links are hyperlinks that link to a page on the same website, whereas external links are hyperlinks that link to a site outside of your website. (You can learn more about inside link analysis in our cheat sheet.) External links may seem counterintuitive - after all, you don't want customers clicking on links that direct them outside of your website.

Google wants to make it easier for internet users to find your website. To do this, they use inbound links from other websites in their search engine. We can provide you with content that is trustworthy and credible, which will help you increase your online presence and rank higher in search engine results.

When you first start out working online, the question of external links might not immediately come to mind. But as a website grows and gains more traffic, an interesting idea will arise: What effect do other sites have on my own?


Types of Links

There are two important types of links to your site: do-follow and no-follow. Dofollow links allow Google to index your content better and will boost your rankings in its search engine, while the nofollow links will not pass any link credit.

What are the benefits of Internal links? 

Internal links help to keep your viewer engaged with your site, which can result in higher conversion rates and more leads. They also increase the authority of the pages they’re linked to and can be used as a call to action.

For example, a video might prompt viewers to read or learn more about a topic by clicking on the internal link, or else ask them to contact you or schedule a visit.


Your search engine rank can be improved by adding internal links. The anchor text should be a specific and descriptive keyword that will help the bot "crawl" your page and its context. Internal links will help the bot find other web pages on your site too!

Did you know that the quality and quantity of your external links matter? Adding high-quality, informative website links to your pages will help improve the credibility of your website, whereas adding spam or low-quality, irrelevant links will hurt it.

Linking to other sites won't hurt your page rank as long as the content you're linking to is from an authoritative site.

An external link is more valuable if it links to popular and relevant pages that are highly ranked and related to the content on your web page. Valuable external links will also help to improve the authority of your website, by providing visitors with references


Why do internal links matter?

Internal links are an essential part of creating a website that is easy to navigate and helps visitors find what they're looking for. Internal links also allow search engines to better understand and rank your website in a way that ensures a great user experience.

Increase conversions and stickiness by linking to further helpful content on your website. With this, you're giving people the chance to stay and explore more of your site, which is a great opportunity to move them down the next logical step in their buyers' journey.

Why do external links matter?

External links are important because they help your website gain more domain authority. Search engines want to understand how authoritative websites are so they can show the best results to their customers.

To do this, they consider how many links your website has, and, how authoritative the websites are that link to your website. The more links you have, and the higher the quality of those links


How to get more high-quality external links to my website? Here's how: 

create brilliant content that people want to share and link to. Make it easy for people to share your content so that others will link to it from social media. Write guest content for other websites that then links back to your website. If you're still hungry for tips, check out our complete

Google uses external equity links to rank pages. These are links that don't have a "no-follow" attribute, typically passing PageRank and anchor text. This is an exciting new development for those of us who want to rank higher!

Conclusion

This article has taught you how to design a modern website and how to use a few tools to make it more unique. For further help or advice, read my blog or follow me on Twitter.