I Hereby Give you Permission to Start Linking Out

An article by Alek Jones    1 Comment

Why are we so reluctant to link out from our own sites, and if we do, why do we so often link to the homepage of a site and not a deep link to a page that is more specific? A quick answer will be that most of us strongly believe that linking out to other sites is a bad thing and that we will lose some of our precious ranking power or Page Rank, if you will.

Let’s think about this for a second. When asking some of the best SEO’s in the industry how to effectively implement a SEO strategy and with it, all the other facets of online marketing, the majority of them will tell you: “Optimize for the user, not for the Search Engines”.

In the world of Onsite SEO this means making your site user friendly  and easy to read with sensible Meta data, Headings, great content and ease of access to your conversion elements, just to name a few basic elements.

The question is, how do you ‘build’ links with the user in mind?

Getting links to your site is more than likely done to improve the rankings of your site and to gain traffic. Linking from your site can compliment your product or service offering as it adds value to the user’s experience.

In my book this means you are optimizing for the user and not for the SE’s.

Also consider that this act might also contribute to your rankings because when you link out, you are networking with other webmasters – an act that could just score you a link for you trouble.

Google and other Search Engine algorithms take many factors into consideration when determining the value of a reference or link to your site. Is it possible that Google will reward you for linking OUT? If it’s a good quality link that is relevant to your site and industry, and it adds value to your users’ experience, regardless of the PR you shall be rewarded.

Many website and blog owners believe that linking out to other sites may cost you Search Engine rankings and lower your website’s reputation. That is simply what most of us have heard or read. The point is that the web is one large network of information that is joined to each other via links. Links ARE the internet. When you contribute to the accessibility and information infrastructure of the Internet effectively, providing that you are not linking to crap, it can do a lot for your rankings and reputation.

Another misconception in the industry is that we create exit signs for our site users when linking out. There is ample evidence out there that contradicts this philosophy. Google, Reddit, Digg, Twitter & Delicious are just a few examples that try to get users off their site as quick possible.  Yet they keep coming back again and again.

A survey of major newspapers on the web found that sites that actually link out, tend to perform better than those who don’t. Don’t you think it is worth incorporating this into your strategy?

So there you have it. Give freely to those who are worthy of your valued vote and therefore ensure that browsers to your site have the best possible experience.