Posts tagged: Backlink

Outgoing Links and SEO

If you’ve read my article on SEO, you know that inbound links are one of your greatest allies for boosting your small business website’s search engine results. The power of inbound links to increase search engine rankings makes many website owners worry that including outgoing links on their website will have the opposite effect. In fact, you’ve probably heard or read that outgoing links can hurt your Google PageRank. Actually, outbound links on your webpage can be a great SEO tool and can work with other SEO tips to improve your website’s search engine ranking.

Advantages of Outgoing Links
  • Linking to high-quality websites places your site in a “good neighborhood” by associating your site with quality. You can think of it just like your real-life neighborhood–if the people living next door renovate their house, your house will go up in value as well. Similarly, if you link to an excellent website, your site’s perceived value will increase.
  • By taking the time to choose quality links that add value to your website’s content, you show your visitors that you know how to recognize good information and want to be their go-to resource.
  • Linking to other websites is a natural way to increase your incoming links, by drawing attention to your website and encouraging reciprocation. If your website has useful content, sites you link to will be inclined to return the favor.
  • Anchor text for outgoing links can be a great place to include your website’s SEO keywords in your content. If it doesn’t make sense to use your keywords in the anchor text, it may be a sign that the outbound link isn’t relevant enough, and you may want to rethink including it.
Watch out for:
  • Becoming part of a virtual “bad neighborhood” by linking to spammy or low-quality websites. Search engines and visitors will judge your website by the company it keeps, so only link to high-quality, relevant websites.
  • Including dozens of links to irrelevant sites. Always think about your visitors and only include links that you think they will truly find useful or interesting.
  • Sending your visitors to websites offering the same services or products. Outgoing links direct your website’s visitors away from your site, so you want to be sure that you’re not sending them to a competitor. Instead, send them to sites that provide something relevant but slightly outside the scope of your own website. For example, if your website sells baby clothes, you may link to a website that’s all about preparing for a new baby–but which doesn’t actually sell baby items. Your visitors will appreciate the useful information and they will return to your site to make their purchases.
Do outgoing links drain your PageRank?

No one knows exactly how Google calculates PageRank, but the general consensus is that including relevant, high-quality outgoing links will do more to help your PageRank than harm it. The only danger comes from linking to websites which have been penalized by Google, are of low quality, or have no relevance to your website.

Outgoing links can be an excellent SEO tool, and you shouldn’t be afraid to include well-chosen links when you think they will add value to your website’s content.

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categories SEO, Website Content | | datetime June 22, 2010 7:09 am | comments Comments (0)

Understanding and Improving Google PageRank

There’s no question that having your small business website on the first page of Google results is good for traffic. Google has been used for more than 70% of U.S. Internet searches so far in 2010, making it by far the Internet’s most used search engine. One reason Google is so popular is that Internet searchers trust the results it returns. Google’s method for putting together a list of great search results relies heavily on PageRank (PR), a number from 0-10 that reflects a web page’s importance. Average PageRank is 3-5; a PageRank of 6-7 is considered extremely good. Only a few elite websites have PageRanks of 8 or above, and only Google and a handful of others have PageRanks of 10. PageRank is a logarithmic calculation, meaning that each level is harder to reach than the last. For example, moving from PR 2 to PR 3 is easier than moving from PR 3 to PR 4. It also means that a PageRank of 4 is more than twice as good as a PageRank of 2.

The formula for calculating PageRank is patented and a closely guarded secret; according to Google, PageRank is determined by looking at more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. But even though you can’t know all the details of Google’s formula, there are some things you can do to increase your PageRank.

  1. Inbound Links
    The most important factor in determining PageRank is the number of high-quality websites that link to your webpage. Think of it as a voting system: when one page links to another page, Google considers that a vote for the other page. The more votes a page gets, the more important that page must be and the higher its PageRank. Votes from more important pages are considered more important, meaning that a link to your site from a page with a high PageRank will increase your PageRank more than a link from a page with low PageRank. Links from sites that have content related to your website’s content are also more valuable than links from unrelated websites.
  2. Internal Linking and Structure
    How you structure your website is important to maximizing PageRank. Here are a few tips:

    • Make sure your website has a clear hierarchy and important links are made up of text rather than images.
    • Don’t let the structure of your website get too “deep”; having to follow several links in order to get to a page from your site’s homepage generally decreases that page’s PageRank.
    • Make sure every page is linked to by at least one text link, and avoid dangling links (links to pages that don’t contain any links themselves).
    • Include a site map that links to your website’s important pages.
    • Don’t put too many links on any one page.
  3. Quality Content
    Having a lot of interlinked pages is good for PageRank, but only if the content on each page is original and useful. Good website content will encourage other websites to link to your pages (see Tip #1), and Google penalizes websites for containing content that is duplicated elsewhere on the Internet.
  4. Use SEO Techniques
    Don’t forget to optimize for your target keywords, so Google knows what your website is about. Good Search Engine Optimization is key to improving your search engine ranking and is a factor that Google takes into consideration when calculating PageRank.

Following these tips should improve your Google PageRank, but be prepared to wait a few weeks before you see results–with the millions of websites on the Internet, it will take time for Google to reevaluate your website.

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categories SEO, Website Content | | datetime March 23, 2010 6:19 am | comments Comments (0)