I keep seeing company blogs without any kind of external links, not even when they mention percentages and statistics. Are you guilty of that, too?

Perhaps you’re worried about directing your readers away from your business website?

More than one of my clients had your same concern, so I thought I’d tackle external links and SEO once and for all.

Here’s a jargon-free overview of what these links are, how they affect SEO, and whether or not you should link to other websites in your blog posts.

Understanding external links 

It’s actually way easier than you think. Pinky promise!

External link meaning

The meaning of external links is really simple, and you’ve definitely seen them (and used them) countless times:

External links are the opposite of internal or inbound links, which also send them to a different page but within your own website (for example, if you’re writing a blog post on social media marketing and link to your ‘social media management’ service page).

What is an example of an external link?

Here’s a simple example of an external link:

‘Find more information in this SEO glossary of terms.’

The highlighted part in a different colour is called ‘anchor text’.

Again, a fancy-sounding term, but it simply means “the words that your readers need to click in order to navigate to the page that you’ve linked”. 

Easy, right?

In HTML, a hyperlink will lool like this:

<a href=“https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/seo-glossary”>SEO glossary of terms</a>

While this might change depending on your business model and industry, it’s fairly rare that you’ll need to use external links on your main website pages. 

For example, I mainly include them in my portfolio to showcase some of my writing samples on other websites.

When it comes to your company blog, on the other hand, external hyperlinks are way more likely to be relevant.

For example, here are some of the instances in which you might notice them on blog posts:

• To back up some stats and data

• To direct your readers to stuff that you’ve recommended (e.g. in a listicle)

• To help them find more information on a subject that you haven’t/aren’t planning on tackling on your own website

‘But if I link to external websites, I’ll lose readers and customers!’

I’ve heard this concern from more than one client, so let me just say one word (and then a few more):

RELAX.

You know what could actually backfire? 

Using stats without sources or making false claims that you can’t back up with facts. 

Now, that is counterproductive and could compromise your audience’s trust in your brand!

If you say that companies with a blog on their business website receive 97% more links than those without one, you must have gotten that piece of information from somewhere, right? 

Then link to it so that your readers don’t feel like you’re making up your own data.

You’re basically giving them the option to find out more about something if they want to.

But the truth? It’s unlikely that they’ll feel the need to read a massive report and forget about your initial blog post altogether.

That blue colour and underline underneath a stat, on the other hand, can be reassuring on their own.

And if they forget about your blog post, then I’m sorry but it means that it wasn’t interesting and compelling enough.

It’s not that external link’s fault.

Take some responsibility, my friend.

External links and SEO

Now that I’ve—hopefully—addressed your main concern on external links on your blog and website, let’s move on to the top reason why these outbound links are talked about in the magical online world: SEO.

Because external links are also linked (excuse the repetition) to search engine optimisation.

Disclaimer: the main discussion around them concerns external links from other websites to yours. That’s a whoooooole new topic. Since we’re talking about whether or not you should link to other websites on your own blog, we’re gonna keep focusing on this subtopic alone before you bang your head against the keyboard.

Do External Links Hurt SEO?

No, external links per se don’t hurt SEO, so don’t stop yourself from including them when they can be helpful and relevant to your readers. They only penalise your Google rankings when done wrong.

Here are some situations in which external links could actually hurt your website’s SEO:

• If you link to spammy sites: not only isn’t this a great practice for search engines, but you’ll annoy your readers too. Why would you want to do that?

• If you use too many, since this can be distracting for your readers. If your page puts them off, they’ll leave it way too soon, and this sends a message to Google that your page isn’t worth sticking around on

• If you include too many links to pages that aren’t relevant and have got nothing to do with your industry. This can penalise your SEO because it confuses Google and other search engines: what is your website actually about? Mate, they thought you had something to do with marketing, but now they see you linking to Wikipedia pages of raccoons, and hard rock, and articles on how to make bread?!

• If you’re linking to pages that are targeting your same keyword: this is because, if a page receives many external links from other websites, Google thinks that it’s the coolest kid on the blog because it must have lots of useful info, so it’ll help its users find it. Basically, if you’re sending SEO juice to a page that’s competing against you for the same keyword, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. It would be as if I had linked to other blog posts on ‘external links’ in this article

Do external links help with SEO?

Yes, external links can actually help with SEO because they show Google and other search engines that your website isn’t a dead end and offers plenty of useful information to your readers, including backed-up stats and links to more in-depth articles whenever you tackle wider topics.

Here are the benefits of external links and SEO:

• They show Google that you care about your readers (=Google’s users) finding the best info

• It shows that you’re a team player and happy to be part of a larger community by linking to other relevant websites

• When linking to other websites within your same industry, you’re helping search engines truly understand what your own website is about

• If you keep creating excellent content and backing up your sources with relevant external links, you’re more likely to receive external links yourself. If many websites link back to yours, that gives you more SEO juice. It’s actually one of the main SEO benefits of blogging 

So, should I use external links on my business website and blog?

Yes, you should definitely use external links (without worrying about losing your audience), but not just for the sake of including them: only when they’re relevant and can bring value to your readers.

How to use external hyperlinks in your favour: best practices

• To back up your sources and stats

• Whenever possible, link to relevant websites in your same industry

• Link to good domains and websites with a high authority, not someone’s unreliable sitename.wordpress.com URL (psst: you can check a website’s domain authority with many free DA checkers like this one)

• Link to reliable sources and to stats that have been published as recently as possible. A 2005 source for an article on social media isn’t gonna get you far

• Use relevant keywords and descriptive text for your anchor whenever you can (e.g. “as shown in this social media report” rather than “as shown here”)

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