In the current business landscape, having a healthy web presence is integral to succeeding. We live in a time where ranking well in search engines can make or break a business — be it a new business or an existing business.
This is why being aware of good SEO practices is important to your business, as employing positive SEO techniques can boost your web presence in search engines.
However, over recent years, SEO has changed dramatically as the algorithms which search engines operate through have changed and become more intuitive. One thing that you should be therefore aware of is the importance of links in relation to SEO practices.
Below, we will go through some of the information that you should be aware of when utilising links in your webpage. We will look at types of links (such as internal links, inbound links, and more), building links, and how links to pages on your website can boost your ranking factor within your SEO strategy.
If you find that you still have more questions about implementing SEO on your webpage, then you can always reach out to MaxWeb Solutions through our website to find out how we can help you with your business.
Why Are Links So Important For SEO?
One of the main facets of SEO used to be simply using keyword research to boost your presence on a search engine ranking. This principle was based around the idea that, by cramming a webpage full of keyword phrases, a business would be able to boost its presence.
However, many businesses started to abuse this algorithm through a process known as ‘keyword stuffing.’ As the name suggests, business would simply cram their webpage full of keywords without a thought for whether the words were actually being used in a cohesive manner or not.
In the current digital marketing landscape, search engine algorithms take into consideration much more than just keyword usage — and pages can even be suppressed by search engines if they believe that the webpage is implementing unethical SEO practices.
One of the more current facets of a webpage that a search engine will take into consideration is the webpage’s use of links. Positive use of external links, internal links, inbound links, and various other types of links will mean that your webpage can rank higher in a search engine in an ethical and user-friendly manner. It is also key to fix broken links to maintain good SEO practices.
Internal, Inbound & Outbound Types Of Links
At a very basic level, a link (or hyperlink) is a part of your website that an individual can click on which will lead them from their current page to a new one. Common forms of link include images, text, and specific buttons.
Different classification of links depends largely on where the link will take a user to. As the name would suggest, and ‘internal link’ is a link that takes a person between pages on the same website. A search engine will determine if something is an internal link by looking at the domain name — meaning that links to pages with the same domain name are thought to be internal links.
‘Inbound links’ are classified as links that bring people to your webpage from a different domain.
‘Outbound links’ therefore are classified as links on your webpage that lead people to a different domain named webpage.
High And Low Quality Links
When looking at the three different types of links stated above, inbound links are considered to have the greatest value in terms of SEO. However, they can be the most difficult kinds of links to obtain. Also, it is important that you are not simply putting low-quality links into your webpage, as they can be detrimental.
While you want to make sure that you getting the most out of links, do not try and force your way up the rankings by cramming any links you can into your page. Some examples of what may be considered ‘low-quality links’ include the sorts of web pages that may appear to be valuable sources of information on the surface, but in actuality can be easily forged/manipulated.
These sorts of pages include the likes of social media accounts, comments found on blogs, guestbooks, Q&A websites, social bookmarking, or wiki pages. Think of the sorts of established, trusted sources that you would trust to get your information from and use those resources.
Furthermore, try not to overdo your anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable section of text which takes people to the next page. It is important for the use of anchor text to be natural in the flow of a sentence — however, do try to input some variety in even the use of common anchor text such as click here, visit here, and other such generic anchor text examples.
Referencing Your Sources
Generally, when inputting links on your webpage, try to keep the links as high-quality as possible. Google analyses the quality of the links your are using, so make sure that the web pages you are linking to are trusted sources of information, not questionable sources. Link to the content that supports your webpage and is a trusted source, whether you agree with the content on the webpage or not.
Getting The Most Out Of SEO
In summary, one of the most important things to bear in mind when it comes to inputting links to your webpage is to include links naturally. Do not try to force any links you can into your webpage, as this can actually have a detrimental effect on your website’s ranking. Use links naturally to trusted, established sources of information.
Using links effectively is just one part of employing good SEO practice, even if it does inform a large part of current SEO practices. If you need more help putting in place an effective SEO strategy for your website then you can always reach out to Maxweb Solutions to see how we might be able to help your webpage to improve its standing in a search engine’s rankings.
Posted on Wednesday, December 22nd, 2021 in SEO.
