by Alecia Wright
Adding links to other websites on your blog post seems like an appropriate move. If you reference another website, why not give credit where it is due? However, some writers do not regard this as an automatic, thoughtless endeavor. Rather, they fear that linking to other sites may compromise their own SEO ranking, because their site links to other websites. Thus, this question presents the debate: Is linking good for SEO?
According to Cyrus Shepard, a SEO consultant and website strategist, there are 2 sides to this argument:
1. Don’t link.
You might not want people who landed on your website to leave with the potential of helping competitors, and linking them could help their rankings. Additionally, numerous links may leave the impression that other pages are better resources than yours. As a result, SERPs may fall.
2. Go ahead, link.
This is a friendlier strategy because adding links can help you make business connections and build rapport with other professionals via networking. If you mention another website, they might share your link and promote it. Overall, adding links can be a strategy-building tactic through outreach: there is a possibility that someone might link back to your page or mention you on their blog, Twitter, etc.
Most importantly, using links makes your article more legitimate as a trusted resource. You seem more knowledgeable about a subject when you have references, just like any academic paper.
Lastly, linking can be an indicator of quality to a search engine. For example, if another website links to your website, Google sees this as a way of endorsing your site as a trusted source. In this way, external links are like popularity votes.
Precautions
Neil Patel, entrepreneur and co-founder of customer analytics platform KISSmetrics, warns that if you do use internal linking in your article, beware of anchor text: the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. Here is an example of the term: the underlined anchor text. Anchor text may compete with keywords you’re optimizing depending on the phrase you choose to identify the hyperlink.
Instead, use anchor text that is specific to targeted keywords, not just “click here.” Also, do not repeat different anchor texts directing to the same website, which Google deems suspicious.
Additionally, it is important to decipher between internal versus external links. Above we’ve been discussing external links: hyperlinks that links to another, different website.
Internal links, on the other hand, are hyperlinks that link to another page on the same website. This good for your SEO because it adds links to another page on your website. Note of caution: make the link opens to a new window/tab so readers are not automatically kicked off your website.
Links’ Affect on Search Rankings
Overall, Google’s algorithm ranks links as the most influential SEO factor:
- Domain Link Features: quality of link, trust, page rank
- Page Link Features: anchor text distribution, quality or “spam-iness” of link sources
Matchnode’s Recommendation
We recommend that you link where it creates value or adds quality. Don’t link just for the sake of linking, otherwise it will clutter your page. Depending on the content, consider an appropriate number of links to include. Three is usually a reasonable number.
Overall, linking/sharing is how the Internet works – we share knowledge with each other. Thanks for reading!