External Links On Your Website: Do or Don't?
In the past, clients have asked me why they should link to other
websites on their own site. Why would they want people to leave
their site and visit someone else's?
First off, you have to be smart about it. Don't link to sites
that are going to directly compete with you. But it is okay to
link to sites with a similar target audience. There can even be
some slight overlap with your own site, and you should still be
fine, given that your website is appealing enough in its own
right.
Second, if you really have so little faith in visitors to your
website, you're in trouble. If they don't come back to your
site, it's not because you had links to other websites. It's
because you're doing something else wrong on your website. If
your website has valuable and unique information, they'll be
back.
I did say unique. Let's say I start a site where people can vote
on their favorite cartoon, and that's the main point of the
site. Including links to sites that discuss some of those
cartoons can't hurt anything, and it can add some volume and
value to the site. My site would then be one of the places that
all those links were collected. Would you rather go to a search
engine and try to track down all the sites, or go to my site
where there's a links page with all the information you already
need?
And the unique aspect of the site is still there. You go to the
site to vote on cartoons and see how they are ranked. The links
are just an added bonus to the site visitors. However, they can
help to increase search engine rankings on a site that might not
otherwise rank high at all.