What is the Best Practice for External Links?
-
We are currently in the process of reviewing our site on a number of fronts, and part of that involves adding quality content to our product category pages where necessary. Our practice so far has been to add relevant content, and in this content externally link to a couple of relevant, related sites for that category (avoiding the use of keywords we are trying to rank for). Should we be doing this (externally linking)? And, if so, should these external links be NoFollow?
So far, we have seen mixed results for our efforts.
-
Thanks for the feedback.
In this case, we're talking about a birthday supplies site, and we are placing this content at the bottom of product pages. The content is generally helpful (themed party game suggestions, unique recipes, etc) if someone reads it.
The external links are in the body of the content and may link to someone's helpful video or blog post on baking a themed birthday cake (for example), but I doubt that much traffic is leaving the site through them (obviously need to test). The point of these external links is to link to relevant sites, so that hopefully in turn, Google,etc sees that we are also relevant to that subject.
The inspiration for this practice comes from post like these: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/external-linking-good-for-seo-whiteboard-friday
It sounds like you are saying we shouldn't link out at all, but if we do, it really doesn't matter if the link is follow or no-follow. Is this correct?
-
This is always a tough question to answer. The question about linking is, will it make the customer more likely to buy, should they visit the link? Or will they leave and never come back.
I know some people argue about the value of linking to external sites to either justify your product/service, but I've always felt that by doing that, the only one getting anything out if it is the site that was linked to. Even if you apply the nofollow element, the search engines still see that you are linking out.
So, you'll have to reach your own conclusion on this. Personally, I never link out on pages where I am trying to sell something. But, if you are composing an informational type article, it might make sense to do so.
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Best SEO Approach for Scanned PDFs
I've just found a large number of great technical papers that we have written over the years. They are all scanned pdf's but still relevant. Currently they exist as a download but it seems to me that as each is approximately 5000 words of unique content we ought to be able to get some mileage out of them So I'm thinking of OCRing them, editing and putting them up as blog post with lots of links (10 - 20 max over the post length) to product pages (as it discusses a lot of the technical aspects underlying the products). Is this the best way of maximising benefit from them? Are there any other ways that would be good to use them?
Content Development | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
What if your content is getting social shares but no links?
Suppose you have a weekly blog article and sometimes your articles earn social shares (e.g. 23 +1's on Google Plus on one article but normally 3-5 social shares). One out of 10 earns an organic link from a random blog. Would you continue publishing these blog posts?
Content Development | | ProjectLabs0 -
Blog setup best practices
Does SEOmoz have any "best practices" on setting a wordpress blog? Things such as essential plugins, best practices on category structure, what to do and not to do? Thank you!
Content Development | | seomozinator0 -
Best Websites to help discover Topics
Hi I know I can use Twitter and latest posts on Google & Blogs, but I was wondering what are the best tools at the moment to use if you are looking to write about up to the minute information about a certain topic. Say the topic is London, is there a website or tag cloud to understand what people are saying about London right now? Anything better than Social Mention?
Content Development | | xoffie0 -
Too many links on page?
Hello, Can my rankings suffer if some of my inner pages have too many links/anchor text? Or would link juice just stop being passed after X amount of links? I have content on these inner pages, and it all flows. Thanks!
Content Development | | TP_Marketing0 -
What is the Best Way to Become a Guest Blogger?
What have you found to be the best way to convince quality blog sites with authority to let you become a guest blogger for their site? I know that providing samples of quality writing is key. But other than that, what is the best way "in"? I have a handful of quality writers at my disposal and also write myself, but I'm trying to find effective ways of convincing established blogs to let me write for them. Please send me your best, most creative suggestions! What has worked for you? Thank you, Afshin Apples of Gold
Content Development | | applesofgold0 -
Setting up a blog for client, should I build external links to the blog
I have a new client in the holiday industry and want to setup a wordpress blog, we will be writing the first few blogs and linking back to the relevant site page. But I am wondering how I should promote the blog so that the links are more powerful back to his own site. Blogging is not my forte and doesn't come naturally so I really need some good advice to how I can start offering this service to my clients. Thanks
Content Development | | iprosoftware0 -
What is the best way to bring a blog into my SEO strategy
We have a blog set up with Blogger and generate some great content on it. What is the best way to optimise the blog from an SEO standpoint? In particular the domain name, it is currently .blogspot.com address, is there a better way to work with that? Obviously the blog is branded with our company logo and name etc but is about the book industry. I'm basically concerned about linking people to our blog and not the website and so not getting much benefit?
Content Development | | Benj250