SEO Secret: Linking OUT - How it Helps

by Scott Allen

One great link building technique, that often gets overlooked, is linking out to other high-quality web sites and blogs. “Linking out?”, you ask…”I thought the goal was to get inbound links…” Yes, linking out. You might be surprised how this can help your SEO efforts in both the short-term and the long-term.

Let’s start with blogs. If you’re using WordPress (or a similar blogging software platform that uses Web 2.0 ping or trackback features), link out to other relevant posts from blogs using WordPress! The ping or trackback feature will alert other sites that you’ve linked to them and create a link (albeit nofollow) back to your site on their blog post in the comments section. Think of the whole thing as a conversation between blogs. At first, this has more value for visibility and traffic than direct SEO value. HOWEVER, this IS good for SEO because often the author will visit your blog and if they like your well-written article, they may link to you. Also, other readers of their blog may follow the link to your site, and become a subscriber or link to you. We have gained many links this way for various client and internal blogs, not to mention traffic and Social Media votes (Del.icio.us, Digg, StumbleUpon, Netscape, etc.) without even asking for them. Some of the other blog authors we’ve linked to have even become good friends of ours as we got to know each other over time.

It’s important to link to relevant authority sites when appropriate. This helps establish what neighborhood your site is a part of. You have a choice in what sites you link to…Choose wisely. Linking out has definite value, even if you don’t get a link back.

In SEOmoz’s Search Engine Ranking Factors, they interview industry experts on the overall importance of various SEO elements. (In my opinion, this is one of the most important documents a search engine optimization professional should read.) Even though I am advocating linking out to relevant high quality and authority sites, don’t take my word for it, see what experts have to say about linking out. Here are a few quotes from it:

Your outbound links help define what community your site belongs in.
  - Aaron Wall

Linking out to relevant trusted pages can be a big help.
  - Michael Gray

Who you link to says a lot about who you are and what your topic is - especially in an engine like Google.
  - Rae Hoffman

The overall consensus of SEO experts in this panel was that linking out had a high importance.

So, when appropriate, don’t be afraid to link out to some other high quality sites and blogs that are relevant to yours. Don’t be excessive, but don’t worry too much about losing link juice by linking out to others. The payback will be worth it. Give, and you will receive. I guess you could say that search engine optimization has its own version of the Golden Rule.

On that note, I will offer one piece of advice with this: Don’t be selfish. Make sure that what you’re doing benefits your readers and the blog authors you’re linking to, because “what goes around, comes around”. It’s important to build relationships with other bloggers, web site owners, and your readers. Andy Beard has a great post on common linking mistakes to avoid.

Ok, so maybe linking out is not exactly a “link building technique”, but you should definitely consider how linking out to other high-quality sites and blogs will fit into the big picture when establishing your link building strategy.

Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below.

Tags:
seo | link building | webgeek

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