Apr 5, 2021
INBOUND, OUTBOUND, AND INTERNAL LINKS EXPLAINED
One thing that acts as a unifying force to bring everything together on the internet is (cue drumroll) links.
Links are crucial for guidance in navigating the internet. Like the signposts on a highway, links take you from one destination, aka webpage, to another. At times, these signposts might lead to another part of the same site. It’s safe to assume that none of us can imagine surfing the web without links being there to guide us.
Links are extremely important because, without a link, a website loses its identity. Similar to links acting as signposts, search engines serve as the maps of the internet. Search engines measure and rank all types of links from countless webpages. After analyzing a search query, they show the best result for that specific search. What determines what gets shown and what page of results certain pages rank for? A site’s rank depends on its general condition and health. A site’s health and SEO performance rely on several factors, such as site reputation, keyword placement, internal and external links, and more. Because of that, it is important to have high-quality links and understand how to make the most out of them.
IMPORTANCE OF OFF-PAGE SEO AND LINK BUILDING
Utilizing off-page SEO strategies, like link building, adds significant value to a site. It makes the website unique in a search engine’s view and proves it is trustworthy. Think of all links you receive or send out as testimonials for your webpage’s quality from outside sources.
As a result, these external sources become one of the determining factors for sites with a similar quality of on-page SEO. This distinction allows search engines to decide which websites to rank first on search result pages.
Let’s imagine you are looking at two photography websites that have almost identical content, but one appeared on the first page on search results, and one on the second. What makes one site rank higher than the other?
Since the sites have similar content, they probably have similar on-page SEO practices. In this circumstance, off-page SEO strategies can give one page the upper hand, ranking it higher in search results. Google and other search engines measure your off-site SEO on various factors, including the quality and amount of outbound links and backlinks. Suppose one webpage receives backlinks from many reliable sources, whereas its competitor site hasn’t garnered even one backlink. For obvious reasons, the page having a more prominent online presence and backlinks will trump the other in rankings.
Multiple on-page and off-page factors go into a search engine’s judgment of a page’s value and relevance regarding searchers’ queries. Yours may experience less traffic and visitors without off-site optimization, so investing in link building and other practices is always a wise decision.
TYPES OF LINKS
Now, you have an idea about the basics of links, their relation to each other, and what makes search engines prefer one over the other. Without further ado, let’s move on to discussing the significant types of SEO links.
OUTBOUND LINKS
Outbound links seem to be the hot topic in the SEO world right now, but for controversial reasons. An outbound link means the links that lead traffic from your website to another. It’s common to disregard the importance of these links. After all, it doesn’t seem fair to feature another page’s link and direct users elsewhere when you’ve worked so hard to land them on your site. Sure, that’s a rational argument, but it misleads you from the core reason sites indulge in link building. The internet features many web links. Search engines are consistently crawling and indexing these links to rank them on relevancy and quality.
Therefore, increasing the number of links, whether outbound or inbound, will proportionally increase your chances of ranking higher on search engines. Just as you would want other sites to link to yours, you should for them. Where it is appropriate to do include an outbound link, An excellent approach to outbound link placement is to position the link to open in a new tab. This way, the visitor won’t get lost and will still have your site open. Just as you w
INBOUND LINKS
Inbound links might be the best tool to bump your rankings up a notch in SERPs. Consider inbound links as the exact opposite of outbound links. In essence, inbound links refer to any place on the internet featuring your website’s link to direct traffic to your site. For example, you just started a tech gear business, and your brother-in-law happens to run a personal tech blog. In this case, if he writes about your budding start-up and puts your page link on his blog, that’s an inbound link for your page.
If your webpage is registered or linked to an online directory, that also counts as an inbound link. Remember, increasing the number of links from trustworthy sources can indirectly boost your page’s reputation. Search engines like Bing and Google will pay attention to the numbers and may increase your ranking.
INTERNAL LINKS
If you haven’t guessed yet, internal links refer to the links that lead users to a different page on your website. For instance, when someone is viewing your product category page, you can place an internal link there to direct them to your physical store location. Moreover, you can put internal links leading to previous relevant blog posts and even your social media platforms.
In short, all of your site’s primary pages are a web of links (pun intended). Your website holds together due to these links working and linking with each other. To guarantee your site’s sustained overall health and search engine ranking, make internal links a priority. The greater the number of internal links on your website, the greater is the probability of ascending the SERPs rank.
CONCLUSION
Links remain a critical aspect of modern search engine optimization. There are three major types of links that we covered in this article.
Inbound links can act as an attestation of a site’s credibility and authority if they’re natural and come from credible sources. On the other hand, internal links can help spread your page rank from the inbound links to other site pages and simultaneously boost ranking on multiple pages. Lastly, outbound links can also enhance your online reputation and search engine ranking, but only if they appear natural to the visitors.
When you feature links on and from high-quality websites, search engines identify your site as a high-quality site too.
Ready to start linking? Sign up for a complimentary strategy session below to get started!
