What are external links, and why are they important for SEO?
External links are simply links to other websites. They are important for SEO because they help search engines understand your website's content and context. By linking to other relevant websites, you are providing search engines with more information about your website and what it is about. This can help improve your website's ranking in search results.
<a href="https://externalwebsite.com/page-to-link-to" rel="nofollow" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Anchor text</a>
External links help to build relationships with other websites and kinda puts you in the good books of Google. If you link to a website, they may return the favor and link back to you. This can help increase traffic to your website from other sources. So they are a valuable asset for any website looking to improve its SEO.
Linking to other credible and trustworthy sources in your niche is generally considered a best practice as it helps your readers find other relevant information about the topic they are engaged in.
How do you create external links in your content marketing strategy?
There are a few ways to add external links to your website. The most common way is to simply include a link in your content when relevant. The key here is to add outbound links to relevant sources, niches, or industries. For instance, adding an outbound link to a coaching institute would make perfect sense if you are a life coach. However, an outbound link to a web hosting company seems rather odd and irrelevant.
While there is no magical number of external links you need to add, it's best practice not to add too many external links on your page as Google may find it suspicious as similar behavior to link farms.
Typically you open an external link on a new tab to prevent users from leaving your website. Use this tool to find what external resources you are linking to and if you open them on a new tab.
When other websites link to you, this is known as a backlink.
Here are some best practices when it comes to adding external outbound links
- The links have to be relevant to your target audience, niche, or industry.
- The links should point to credible and trustworthy sources.
- Too many external links can be suspicious to Google, so use them sparingly.
- Open external links on a new tab to keep users on your website.
Overall, adding external outbound links is an important task for your SEO campaign. Use them sparingly. Remember, adding too many external links can actually hurt your website’s ranking. Use our external links checker to do an external link audit and ensure that your website follows Google’s guidelines.