- Have you ever thought about outbound link SEO?
- Should You add a link to external sites?
- Will, it improve your SEO?
Have you considered why it’s important to have quality outbound links from your website or wondered how to produce them?
Note: External links and outbound links are the same. I may be interchangeably using both the words, in this article.
Because we’re working in a post-panda world, I’m offering up this post to help you understand the importance of outbound links for SEO.
We have already talked about how to create backlinks to your website which will eventually help in increasing the search engine ranking, but at the same time, you should consider employing an outbound link strategy to make sure your blog is never devalued.
What are outbound links?
Outbound links are links that point to some other domain from your site.
When you link out to related domains, it not only helps the search engine to understand your niche, but also helps to increase the trust and quality of your site which plays a vital role in your blog’s SEO.
Outbound links:
- Give search engines a clear idea about your blog because of relevant links.
- Offer the best way to be in touch/build relation with bloggers having the same niche.
Benefits of outbound links from the SEO perspective:
Before I describe the general benefits of outbound links, I’d like to introduce you to the Google related link operator. (This one is depreciated).
Like any other operator in a Google search, you can use Google’s related link operator to see what links are relevant to your site according to Google! A good related site link for your site will list all of the important and popular sites in your niche.
FYI, even a comment link is counted as related links, and if someone is commenting on every post published on your blog, he may even see the benefit of being featured as a related site.
You can search for “related:(your domain name).com” in Google to see related site links.
If you check related links for your site and find some spammy links as relevant links, that means you need to start building links from relevant sites to give a good signal to search engine.
Read our guide on: Blog Comments: When are they Useful and When are they Harmful?
Now that you have a basic idea of why your outbound links are so important, let’s look at the things you should consider when linking out.
Link to relevant Webpages!
A lot of users avoid adding links to their content thinking it would take away their visitors, which is not the right approach. When you start linking to relevant websites in your niche, you basically tell search engines more about your content and it creates a connection from your website to others.
Try to link up with blogs having the same niche as your blog. This will help you to attract targeted visitors to your blog. Try to link to domains that are already trusted and have good domain authority.
Avoid link farms
Avoid two-way backlinks, and when you are linking to any domain make sure it is not a part of a private blog network. Following recent Google penguin updates, Google has been taking down all such private blog networks and devaluing their links.
Avoid having too many outbound links
Having some links pointing out is fine, but having too many outbound links can be annoying from the perspective of your readers.
Try to concentrate more on internal linking, (part of Wikipedia’s SEO Strategy), and link out to only to some websites that are relevant to your page.
Link to fewer blogs and only to relevant blogs. There are some pages that link out to, for instance, “The Top 101 Websites” or “20 Forums to Follow” and other similar pages that rank well despite using multiple outbound links. But in general posts, we want to take care not to link out too much for better reader experience.
Most importantly, make sure your content is useful, and take care of on-page optimization.
Provide and ask for links
In blogging, it is beneficial to everyone to use the give-and-take system. If you have a blog post in which you refer to another author’s blog post, you should provide the link in your post.
You can take it to the next level, by letting the blog/website owner that you have linked to them.
To whom should you link?
There are many strategies that you can follow for linking out.
My suggestion is that when you want to give a reference or explanation in your post but you are not entirely sure where to link out (what information to point to as your reference) link to good resources such as Wiki. (Yes! Wikipedia is still one of the most trusted domains from Google POV!)
Here are a few suggestions for creating outbound links:
- Link to pages that actually add value and cover the topic very well.
- Link to articles having good page authority or domain authority.
- Link to articles that have got a high number of social media share. (Though do consider other factors like the authenticity of the site)
- Link to the bloggers in your network or in your niche, helping you to create a community with fellow bloggers.
One strategy we have long employed here at ShoutMeLoud is that when we use words that are useful but their meaning may not be familiar to our readers, we link to a good and reliable source, or if we have a post on that topic, we interlink to that.
Keeping bounce rate in mind, always try to make outbound links open in new tab.
Also in this post-panda world, I have noticed that most of the top-ranking pages in Google have at least a few outbound links to relevant and high-ranking pages, which helps them to boost their ranking.
What’s your strategy for outbound links, and when do you use nofollow for them?
Also, do you care about anchor text when linking out to any other page?
Outbound Links FAQs
Always focus on linking your content to relevant, trustworthy, and authoritative websites within your niche, allowing your readers to understand more about the topic. A good example is linking to Wikipedia which is considered a credible source for the majority of topics.
There is no set number, but you should maintain a balance and avoid excessive external linking, which can distract readers. Focus on seamlessly integrating meaningful, informative external links that improve the reader’s experience and provide value to them.
If you find the information in this post useful, be sure to share it with your fellow bloggers and friends via LinkedIn and Twitter.
Here are a few hand-picked guides for you to read next:
- Best Keyword Research Tools For SEO: 2020 Edition
- On-Page SEO Techniques To Rank On The First Page
- How To Write SEO-Friendly Content (Beginner To Advanced)
Hi Harsh,
I am blogging in a technical niche (to be exact an engineering design related website) and I have a page containing a list of many articles which I have written for other websites as a guest author. All those links point to the original article on that website from my single page.
I was wondering whether it is a good practice or should I avoid adding links on that page. I would highly appreciate your comments on this.
Hi Harsh Agarwal. Iam a regular reader of shoutmelod. This this really a very Informative post. Thanks for writing this. I have a small question. Should I nofollow or Dofollow the Outbound links? Waiting for a reply
Hey Sai,
It depends. If the sites are authority sites, you should use do follow links. However, if the site contains malicious content, it should always be no follow.
Having some links pointing out is fine, but having too many outbound links can be annoying from the perspective of your readers.
I am a bit skeptical, Is it okay if I write an article of around 700 words and have outbound links upto 8 or 9. Is that ok?
@Dave
I don’t see any problem as long as those links are relevant & adding value to the post.
Outbound linking is a commonly under-utilized strategy. I try to outbound link to a useful and relevant resource in every single new article that I write. It not only establishes the relevancy of your brand in your niche but also helps build up authority. If you are unsure about when or what types of outbound links to use, think about the topic that you are writing about. Do you need to support something you are saying with a reliable and credible source that supports your statement? This is where sites like Wiki can be very valuable because they are high-authority sites and show Google that you are providing value to your readers.
I always wondered if there is any value in the anchor text that you use for your outbound links. Obviously, anchor text is important for incoming links but I am not sure that there is a ton of added value in anchor specific outbound links. I use it where it fits and always keep in mind that if you are referencing a competitor, even a very large one, you only need to help them out so much, lol. Awesome article and very glad I found your site. Some great insight and information here! All the best!
thanks for this post ,i really unaware about this seo benfit
Hey Harsh !
Thanks for sharing the importance and outcome of outbound links. I wanna ask, does out-linking sites with anchor text really matters more?
This was a pretty good explanation. Thank you.
Hi,
If my outbound dofollow link directs to high authority site relevant page like Amazon but has affiliate id, will it be good for outbound authority or will it be taken as “sponsored backlink” by google ?
Thanks for sharing this information, but I would like to know that how many outbound link can I use in a page?
Thank you for sharing this informative post! Yes, Outbound links will enhance your rankings too. But you have to make sure that it is used carefully on your website’s content because it may sometimes appear annoying and irrelevant to the view of person who reads it. Just always keep a clean, clear and relevant link to your contents to keep the bounce rate as low as possible and get continuous traffic. I would love to share my thoughts about other possible SEO trends and practices good for 2016.
Hi, I just wanted to ask if it’s good to put many outbound links in my blog articles considering that we are a new blog and don’t have many backlinks till now?
It’s extremely useful, I have tasted the technique and it works for me. I have mostly provided out bound links to Facebook and Twitter. Just for better understanding on social topic post. It was index faster than other content and ranking on my targeted keywprds in very short time…
Outbound links are very important for your blog. It is a good SEO technique. I didn’t use outbound links when I was a newbie blogger. Now I understand how important the outbound links are? So I try to use outbound links in my every post. Your article helps me to realise the importance of outbound links.-
I haven’t really used outbound links before, mainly using internal ones
Will give this a try and see if it helps improve my ranking!
Thanks for the tips
Hey Harsh !
Thanks for explaining the role of outbound links in such a detail.
Will definitely implement some more good quality outbound links on my blog.
Thanks again for such a great post.
Hello, great article! I want to make my contribution:
Backlinks youtube videos as diversification has helped me more trust flow.
Since build links to your videos too 🙂
It is the tip!
Hugs and Success
This post is amazing but I have a doubt that if I am writing a post about health then may I leave a link to other health related websites or other websites.
@Shubham
Yes, you can!
Thanks for this clear guide about outbound links. One question to you what Should I make these links nofollow or dofollow?
Thanks a lot,For this type of article.By reading this I well understand the value of good outbound link..
But the question is that,how to to well know that the link I am going to add in my post is good to add?
Is there is any trusted methods to test the link rank..?