Do links really matter?
The short answer - yes! When it comes to optimizing your website’s content, you probably already know a thing or two about the meta data and the page content. But one key mistake that we as an Internet Marketing company have noticed is that not many people are using links to their advantage for search engine optimization! Here’s the long and short of why and how to use inlinks, outlinks and backlinks to your business’s advantage.
Inlinks
An inlink is exactly what it sounds like. It is a link to another page within your website - an internal link. Inlinks can be very helpful for search engine optimization if used properly. Links are helpful to search engines because they provide structure to your website. Without inlinks, how would visitors navigate further into your website? Here’s an example of a proper website link structure:
Say you own a boutique in Savannah. On your website, you have a page optimized for women’s clothing store and another page optimized for downtown Savannah boutiques. When you’re writing your next blog post about the new merchandise you’ve just added to your store, adding a link to the downtown Savannah boutiques page that uses the phrase it is optimized for will boost the optimization of that boutique page. In your blog post, one sentence might be: “Next time you’re browsing through the many fine boutiques that downtown Savannah has to offer, make sure to drop in XYZ Boutique and ask about our new dresses!” By linking the phrase “fine boutiques that downtown Savannah has to offer” to your existing web page downtown Savannah boutiques, you are increasing its optimization, and here’s why: The linked phrase is longtail and has the words you’re optimizing the target page for, but not in the exact order. It seems backwards, but search engines like Google actually don’t like it when it seems you are packing your website with keywords, so spreading the words out and including other words in the link is actually a good thing.
Outlinks
Outlinks are outbound links; they point to web content outside of your website. Sending outlinks to other reputable websites (meaning not spam-filled or malicious websites) can also be very good for your website. If Google or another search engine recognizes the outlinks you have as trustworthy, then your site’s reputability will increase. It’s also an indicator that, while your own web pages are certainly valuable, you can recognize that other people’s work may be worthy of sharing as well (without distracting from your own effort, of course!). Additionally, if you include outlinks in your web pages, other people may do the same for you. Websites can help each other out in this way. For example, if your Savannah boutique has a partner boutique in Pooler, then you could each have links to the other boutique’s website on your own websites. This practice is known as reciprocal linking. More quality outlinks is a win-win situation for everyone because they will help both sites show up higher in Google’s search results.
Backlinks
A type of link that people often don’t think about is a backlink. When other sites have links to your site, those links are referred to as your backlinks. While it’s good to have other people linking to your site (theoretically it will bring you more traffic), it’s not good if websites that Google and other search engines have deemed to be untrustworthy contain links to your site. Having low quality backlinks can decrease the reputability of your own site, even if you are following all of the best search engine optimization practices.
So, how can you determine what backlinks are harming your site, and more importantly, how can you get rid of them? A thorough explanation might take a bit more time than you were anticipating, so we’ll just say for now that a lovely tool called Google Analytics can help you identify what sites are linking to yours. If you determine certain sites that have links to your site to be spammy, and therefore would rather not be associated with them, you can disavow them using Google Analytics. When you disavow links, you are requesting that Google ignore these spammy backlinks when evaluating the quality of your website.
Cautions
If you’re reading this, we think it’s pretty safe to assume that you’re interested in making sure your website’s content is optimized. However, before going crazy with inlinks, outlinks and backlinks, be mindful of the following:
- Don’t use keywords too many times on a certain page. You will risk the content sounding unnatural, and Google will notice.
- It’s great to have inlinks but, as with keywords, don’t put too many on a single page. It decreases the page’s readability and will also affect your ranking in search engine results.
- As with most things in life, do everything in moderation!
Are You Ready?
If you’re ready to start working with a great team of SEO experts in Savannah, GA, contact United WebWorks today. We can’t wait to start working with your website to help it perform better than it ever has.