As Link building is the basis of any SEO strategy, you might be looking for different sources to earn quality backlinks for your website. But, have you considered why a high ranking website would provide a backlink to your website? What will you offer them? Do you also provide links to other websites?
Outbound links can provide a positive impact on the ranking of your website if used effectively. That is why it is recommended to add outbound links, wherever relevant. Before getting into the details about the impact of these links, an SEO Expert should understand about the outbound links.
What are Outbound Links?
Outbound links are links to external websites from your website. These are also called external links. These links direct away from your site, sending traffic from your website to another.
Such links can be added to provide the reference of studies, facts, and statistics. If you add a link to the original study or statistics, you can add more credibility to the content. External links can also be added, if you take quotes, and images from other websites. You can give the credit to the source website.
Types of Outbound Links
There are two types of outbound links:
- No-Follow links
- Do-Follow links
Do-follow links
By default, any link is a do-follow link. If you prefer, you can change a link to no follow link manually.
When crawling a website, the search engine crawlers follow these links. Ranking power or link juice is transferred through these links. When giving credits to a website, you should always use a do-follow link. Providing a do-follow link is an ethical way to give credit to the website.
Such links act as a vote of confidence to the target website. By linking to a website, you provide the authority and credibility to the website.
No-Follow Links
To add a no-follow link to your website, use the code rel=”nofollow” tag. This tag tells the search engine crawlers to not to follow these links. This means that these outbound links do not pass on the link value to other websites. The no-follow outbound links halt the crawlers from exploring the target website.
It is crucial to add such tags to the links that the readers add in the comment section as they could direct the crawlers to a spammy website. If you do not add the no-follow tag to such links, the spammy links can reduce the credibility of the website.
Affiliate links, paid links and links to the product page needs to be added as a no-follow link. As these links have the potential to generate revenue for you, google would want you to add such links as a no-follow link by default. The SEO Expert India recommends to avoid losing credibility, you should always add no-follow tags to such links.
Best Link Building Techniques for 2020
How Outbound links help you Rank high in SEO
Linking to the relevant industry can provide a positive impact on your SEO strategy if done correctly. Here are some positive impacts of outbound links on the ranking of your website.
- It increases the Relevance
When the crawlers crawl your website, the search engine learns from your website and the external links from your website. If you add a link to a relevant source in the industry, it can help you increase the relevance of your website. The crawler will understand the industry you are in, referring to the sources you add a link to. It will add to the relevance of your content within the industry.
- It enhances the credibility
When your website links to another website with high domain authority in your niche, it will help you increase the reputation and credibility of your website, from the viewpoint of readers and the search engine. Slinking with a website with high domain authority, even if it is only an outbound link, will have a positive impact on your website’s reputation.
The outbound link to a website with high DA will not only improve the credibility but will also help in improving the ranking. The outbound links are generally used to refer to the stats, facts, and sources. Adding these kinds of details and citations in your content can help you improve the credibility of the website and can prove that the content is well researched, up to date and is accurate with references.
- It provides Backlink
If you link you to quality websites with high DA regularly, these websites can regard you positively. So, while creating the content, focus on adding value to the readers of these websites. In this way, it increases the chances that these websites will link back to your site.
If you add valuable content focusing on industry-based statistics and resources, it will help you get quality backlinks. In this way, you will improve your website’s quality as highly linkable. You need to add content that is comprehensively researched, highly authoritative, has interactive resources and references, and is very engaging to make it worth linking to.
Adding industry resources, and statistics will make it easier for you to generate high-quality backlinks.
- It will boost the value for readers
If you provide an external link that would direct the readers to a relevant resource, the readers would find the content of more value. The readers will find the content helpful and would refer to the outbound links beneficial and relevant.
If they like the content, they are more likely to come again to your website or these readers will consider your website a positive light. The readers will consider your website as something that can provide value to them.
Final Words
Outbound links can have a very positive impact on the ranking of your website. It depends on the linking practices that you use to add outbound links on your website. However, if you do not use the outbound links properly, you may lose credibility and ranking of your website. Hence, follow the industry recommended practices to get the best results from the outbound linking your website.