As a form of online content, links provide a great value for users. Without links, a blog post is simply a dead end and may not be very helpful if people need more information than what is offered in the article. SEO industry experts often mention the importance of getting backlinks to your website, but should outbound links be totally left in the dust?
What Are Outbound Links?
First off, outbound links, also known as external links, are defined as links on a web page that link to pages on other websites. Examples of outbound links include press releases, industry-relative blog posts, and government regulations. While overloading your blog post with a large quantity of outbound links is not an effective digital marketing strategy, linking to other articles with high quality content can help provide additional sources for your audience.
A big part of incorporating outbound links is understanding which opinions or data in your blog post could use a source to provide clarity. Not just any outbound links will do either; it’s a toss-up of deciding which sites are the most important to link to (something we at The Web Guys know a thing or two about).
Improve Your Reputation
Most people assume that having external links will lose visitors by driving people away from the blog. However, outbound links can improve your blog’s reputation. When your article has outbound links that relate to the content of the page, your blog post can serve as an authoritative source for users — not mention serve as a “shout-out” to fellow industry experts.
Be More Helpful
While Google doesn’t consider outbound links to have a huge effect for rankings in search results, that shouldn’t deter you from including a link or two to a website that is useful for your audience. The end goal with outbound links is to help users find the answers to their search queries as well as improve your own writing strategy by supporting arguments in your blog posts.
Today we covered why outbound links can be useful to incorporate in blog posts. If you’re wondering the “how” aspect of including outbound links to your blog or have another other burning question about blog writing for your business, let our team share the best blogging practices for success. At The Web Guys, we have a team of designers and marketers who can devise a plan for your online marketing efforts. Contact us at (317) 805-4933 to get started today.
