An external link is a hyperlink that points from one website to another, also called an outbound link.
External links are important because they hugely impact ranking power. If a website has a good selection of high-quality external links from reliable and popular sources, this will boost their credibility and authority.
This in turn will see the website rank higher in SERPs and higher ranking means better page visibility, an increased chance of users clicking, more traffic, and a higher conversion rate. Basically, good external links can transform your site’s potential.
While external links can massively boost the performance of your website, there are a few best practices you must follow in order to make the most out your links.
While there are some best practices to stick to, there are also some things you need to avoid.
This may be tempting but in the long run it won’t benefit you. In fact, you’ll find yourself hit with a Google Penalty in the form of the Penguin update, and this can ruin a website, and will see you plummet in the rankings.
These go hand-in-hand with buying links, and Google does not look fondly upon them. Using them will see your website deindexed. Just don’t do it.
Creating a network that only links back on itself is another sure fire way to land your website in trouble. Again, this will see you winding up with a Google penalty, or even worse, completely deindexed – and that’s hard to come back from.
There are quite a few ways that you can build up your network of external links.
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