So far we have talked about how backlinks and internal links help improve your keyword rankings and boost your overall SEO. In this piece, we’re going to talk about outbound links. As the name suggests, these are links within your content that point to other sites. You might be wondering, “Why on earth would I spend all this time and effort on my site, only to direct people away?” Not to worry! We’ll help you understand how to do it effectively and what the value is in including outbound links on your site’s pages.
Websites that Offer Value to User Experiences Rank Higher
This is another theme we’ve talked a lot about: search engine algorithms have been ever-changing to return higher quality results to their users. The more value-added benefits your website offers your visitors, the better your SERPs will be. When you include outbound links that are relevant to your information you are giving your users a way to learn more about the topic. When search engines crawl your site and pick up on these links, if they point to sites that are reputable and relevant to your information, it’s one more thing that helps improve your ranking.
Using Outbound Links Effectively
Just as you don’t want to clutter your pages with too many inbound links, you want to keep a balance when including outbound links. One or two in a post is likely sufficient, depending on the depth of information you are covering. The important thing to remember when including outbound links in your blog posts or other content is that your goal is to provide your visitors the opportunity to learn more about the topic you are covering. For example, we talk a lot about SEO strategies to help improve your rankings. An outbound link to Google’s SEO best practices would enhance the information we are giving you, and since they are obviously an authority, we are providing you a value-added service and helping you learn more about our topic.
The most important thing to keep in mind when using outbound links is that if you are providing your visitors an enhanced user experience, you are helping search engines achieve their goals. This is why using them effectively helps to improve your SERPs.