The most important facts in brief:
- An external link refers to another website.
- These backlinks are an important ranking factor for search engines.
- Not all links have a positive effect on the ranking of the website in question.
- Even negative effects due to the "wrong" links are possible.
- The hyperlink must be correctly integrated into your own page using HTML code.
- Links should always have added value for the user and increase the usability of the website.
Definition:
An external link is a hyperlink that leads from a website to another website that does not belong to your own domain and thus refers the user to external content on the Internet.
The difference between outbound links and inbound links
When evaluating links on the World Wide Web, it is important to assess whether it is an outbound link or an inbound link.
Outbound links lead away from the page to another website. Such external links give users the opportunity to delve deeper into the topic and obtain further information from other sources.
An inbound link, on the other hand, comes from another website and leads to the page in question. Such an external link is a very good way of assessing the “value” of the page for Google and other search engines:
If many sites rated as reputable link to the website, this is a clear plus point for the site, which is also seen as a site with valuable content. Links from dubious sites, on the other hand, can in the worst case even lead to search engines such as Google downgrading the site, making it harder to find and reducing the number of visitors.
Site operators should therefore pay more attention to quality than quantity when building links and decide wisely from which websites they would like to receive a backlink.
Link building implemented correctly - here's how it works
There is hardly a website on the Internet today that does not contain external links. After all, links to other relevant pages are a valuable contribution for the reader and they contribute significantly to search engine results.
If implemented correctly, targeted link building can significantly increase the visibility of your own website. In the following sections, we show which 4 factors need to be considered for an effective SEO strategy with external links.
Basic principles of effective link building
Good link building and thus effective search engine optimization are based on linking to pages whose topic is relevant and whose quality is high.
Instead of focusing on the number of links, website operators should therefore focus on links with added value. These links must be placed in the content of the linking page in an authentic way so that they appear as a natural recommendation.
Trust and building a reputation as a reputable source with helpful content are the keys to success.
Selecting the right websites and platforms as partners
When looking for suitable partners for external links, the quality of text and other content as well as the thematic relevance of the page play an important role. The URL must be trustworthy and must not lead to pages that have nothing to do with your own offer.
The link source is used by search engines such as Google to measure the quality of the actual website. It is therefore better not to use external links with a dubious background than to use such links.
The role of anchor texts and link context
Anchor texts provide search engines and users with valuable information about the content of the target of an external link. They should be concise and capture the topic of the linked website.
A well-chosen link target, integrated into a relevant text, significantly increases the chance that the link in question will have a positive effect on search engine optimization.
The correct embedding of the link in the HTML tag is essential. It is therefore advisable to check the HTML tag again carefully after creating the link.
The aim of the link must offer added value, which should already be made clear by the text of the anchor. The position of the link and the associated anchor also plays a role. Ideally, the link is naturally embedded in an article and arouses the reader’s interest or a question, which leads to the link being clicked on.
Monitoring and analyzing the quality of backlinks
The quality of existing external links should be regularly analyzed and monitored. Targeted tracking can be used to determine what influence external links from other websites have on the position of your own site within search results.
Google’s search engine optimization guidelines emphasize the importance of links that come from high-quality sources.
It is the responsibility of website operators to check data and protect users from bad links. Data protection aspects are also relevant here.
Data protection and external links: What to consider
When setting external links on a website, sufficient consideration must be given to data protection. When incorporating hyperlinks that lead to external sources outside of your own website, the data protection provisions of both your own website and the website linked to by the link must be observed.
It is the responsibility of the website operator to ensure that external links do not disclose any sensitive user data and comply with legal data protection requirements. This could lead to problems with affiliate links, for example.
When designing the article, it is advisable to provide clear information about the purpose of the link and to let the user know that they will be redirected to a page outside your own website. For example, when clicking on external links, a notice can be displayed that the user is leaving the previous website.
Time frame for building external links
Building external links is a marathon, not a sprint. In order to maintain or even increase the credibility of the website, it is important to adhere to certain rules.
An excessively rapid increase in links can be classified by search engines as manipulative behavior. After all, it is difficult to explain why numerous websites suddenly integrate external links into their content as a reference to the website in question.
Instead of “acquiring” one link after the other, it is therefore much better to gradually increase the number of hyperlinks. For search engine optimization, it is important to build links in such a way that everything looks like organic growth of the website.
It therefore does not work in the long term to build up a profile of external links that is relevant for a good ranking by creating a lot of content at once. Rather, the recommendation is to stick to the following procedure:
- Building a foundation: In the start-up months of a website, a moderate but steady increase in external links should be aimed for.
- Evaluate and adapt: Every existing link should be regularly checked for quality. If necessary, an external link must be adjusted or replaced if the link no longer meets the quality criteria for good external links.
- Long-term maintenance: Over time, the number of hyperlinks added per month can be increased depending on the strategy. Nevertheless, an external link must always be of high quality. There is no reason to be happy about every outbound link from any site. Rather, the link profile must always be of high quality and should serve the user with topic-relevant information.
Find high-quality pages for external links
For an effective SEO strategy, it is crucial to find high-quality websites for the placement of external links. Relevant examples of such sites are popular blogs, industry portals or even (moderated) forums whose content has a strong connection to your own site.
External links are generally only valuable from pages whose content offers added value for visitors. Linking to irrelevant pages, on the other hand, can even lead to a massive devaluation in search results and, in the worst case, ensure that the page can hardly be found on the Internet.
Guest posts for a blog - a good way to place external links
Guest posts are an excellent way to place external links strategically and with added value. For the owner of the blog, such a contribution can also be beneficial: he receives free content with helpful and readable information for his users.
However, it is important that the external links to be placed are not directly recognizable as the main objective of the post. Instead of the link, the focus should actually be on the content of the post and the information it contains.
Create helpful subpages to promote external links
A sensibly created subpage can provide additional external links. Among other things, special topics that are interesting and relevant for visitors can be linked to here.
A topic-relevant subpage can both provide organic links and be a good target for deliberately created links as part of link building. The credibility and ranking of the main website can also be effectively improved in this way.
