Welcome to another Tuesday Tip in our series on website development. Outbound links are on the menu today. Outbound links, or external links, are the opposite of backlinks. Rather than another site having a link to your website (a backlink), outbound links are when you include a link to an external site on your blog page or website. Outbound links are not as important for your website’s SEO as backlinks, but they are important when it comes to blogging!
Blogging with outbound links
It’s best to include at least one or two outbound links in your blog content whenever possible. These links should point back to reliable industry resources, articles, or the websites of respected colleagues. When you research and write content, external links give readers the option to read other articles on the topic. Think back to college…outbound links are basically your in text “references.”
Be careful with outbound links, though. Make sure you don’t use them too often, and make sure they link to reliable destinations. If they link to poor quality websites or sites that contain spam and ads, they will hurt your SEO rather than improve it.
SEO Factors of outbound links
- Trustworthiness matters. The higher the quality of the linked site, the better.
- The relevance of the linked page. The content on the page must match the content of your blog post.
- The anchor phrase in the blog. The words that contain the hyperlink should match the primary header of the linked site exactly.
Hopefully you now have a better understanding of outbound links! All that’s left is to get blogging. Look for our future blogs on website design and development. Contact Sprout today with your questions, or call us at 603-227-5240.