Going Out Brings More In: Boost Your Website with Outbound Links

​Did you know outbound links help bring more traffic to your website? Read on to learn why!

Is your business trying to use SEO techniques to boost your search engine rankings?

As you start diving into SEO, you'll realize how intricate it is. SEO requires many techniques in order to achieve high search engine rankings.

Of these techniques, a powerful linking strategy is essential. Hyperlinking different website pages in your blogs will help Google recognize your blog and will rank you based on your niche.

Many website owners recognize backlinking, which is when other websites link to your website. This helps establish authority. But while working on earning backlinks, you should also link to other websites, which is called outbound linking.

Here's how to boost your website's SEO with outbound links.

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​What Are Outbound Links?
Outbound links are links you include in your blog that point to another website. This is not only helpful to the reader but also helpful for Google. Google will crawl your webpage and will recognize these links.

This is beneficial for SEO for three main reasons:

• Google will recognize your niche
• Outbound linking establishes credibility
• Outbound linking tells Google and the reader that your blog is well-researched, informative, and you're linking back to credible sources.

Outbound links also help improve the SEO rating of the website you're linking. Google will establish that website as credible and better identify their niche. That's why outbound linking is beneficial for all parties.

Why Add Outbound Links to Your Blogs
While some of the benefits were already mentioned, it's important to know exactly why you need outbound links in your SEO campaign.

There's a reason they're called "links." Outbound linking helps connect you to other websites. You'll create a system of different websites that Google will crawl and optimize for search engine ratings.

We mentioned that outbound linking helps identify your niche.

Say your niche is clothing. Google won't notice your store is an online fashion store and the blogs you're linking are fashion influencers. Instead, Google recognizes the system of blogs you're creating in your chain.

How to Use Outbound Links
In order to fully optimize outbound links, you must use them correctly. Here are the two best ways to use outbound links:

• Link to websites relevant to your niche
• Link to websites relevant to your blog topic
• In addition, you can participate in a guest posting campaign. You'll team with websites that need to build backlinks. They will write a blog for your website and will supply their own links that you will include in the blog post.

How to Not Use Outbound Links
There are many great outbound linking benefits and strategies. But outbound linking incorrectly may result in poor SEO performance, and you can even lose customers. Here are some mistakes to avoid when outbound linking:

• Linking to competitors (any website that sells the same or similar products or services that you provide)
• Linking to low-quality websites
• Linking to broken links or any websites that don't work
• Using bad anchor text (bad grammar, unrelated text to the link, etc.)
• As long as you follow these guidelines, you'll rank well with outbound links.

Important Strategies to Know
Outbound linking isn't as simple as slapping in a link inside of a blog post. Outbound linking has specific strategies that you need to master. Let's look at a few examples.

Do-Follow vs. No-Follow Links
Earlier, we advised against linking to low-quality websites.

But how do you know which websites are high and low-quality? Enter no-follow and do-follow links. No-follow links bring no search engine value, whereas do-follow links have lots of value.

Does this mean you should avoid no-follow links? Absolutely not! Google can't penalize you for linking to no-follow links.

But in order to optimize a powerful outbound linking strategy, you should link to both no-follow and do-follow links.

Now here's the million-dollar question: how do you know if a link is NF or DF? You'll need the help of search engine tools to identify different link qualities.

Naturally Link
What does "naturally link" mean? Have you ever read a blog and the links felt forced? Maybe there were too many links, or the links didn't provide any help?

Your outbound links should be natural, meaning they shouldn't look forced or spammy. Outbound links serve as assistance or help for the reader.

They're there for them to click for more verification on a subject. They can also be used when crediting something such as a statistic, website, or any fact.

Guest Posting
Guest posting was mentioned previously. It's important to understand just how effective this method is.

Using outbound links in a guest posting setting benefits you and the blog you're linking to.

You will both establish authority, earn more link value (i.e. you'll become a do-follow link), and Google will help identify your chain of links. All of these helps boost search engine ratings and website traffic for both websites.

With guest posting, you're building more than just a great linking strategy. You're building a relationship, opening you up to more guest posting and networking opportunities. Google will notice this cyber-bond and will rank you higher together.

You'll Gain Long-Term Benefits
Unfortunately, linking strategies aren't an instant hit. It takes a long time to gain benefits from linking. The same goes for your outbound linking strategy.

Fortunately, by gaining long-term benefits, you'll gain a stronghold on Google's ranking.

Instant hit blogs such as news articles get lots of traffic immediately, only to decrease in value over time.

Blogs that take a while to gain Google ratings increase in value over time. That's because Google begins to recognize your website as an authority.

In order to gain long-term recognition, use a linking strategy for all of your blog posts, including outbound links.

Don't Forget to Outbound Link!
Out of all of the SEO strategies, linking is one of the best SEO efforts that will benefit your search engine rankings.

Using outbound links will help your blog gain credibility and will improve your SEO rankings. Link to high-quality websites and engage in guest posting.

Still need help with your SEO? We offer many SEO services.