When it comes to links, there’s one type that everyone is obsessed with. The backlink. Having a well trusted, relevant and popular website link to yours is the stuff of dreams (for anyone responsible for SEO at least), and it’s still very much a strong ranking indicator for search engines.

However, is it the only type of link that matters to SEO? Definitely not, so let’s talk about internal links and external links - and what they bring to the table. How can these links provide SEO value?

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Internal Links

What are internal links?
Internal links are links on your site that link to other pages on your site. Nowhere else, it’s all in the family, all within the same domain.

Internal linking helps map out the structure of your website, so it’s great for search engines when they crawl your site. They will follow your internal links to your other pages and get a better idea of how your website is connected.

Link equity (or value, or juice, whatever you prefer) can be passed through these internal links. The kudos your homepage has for example, can be passed on through any internal links on that page, giving those page some of that authority as well.

From a user’s point of view, internal links that point to relevant parts of your website make for a good experience. It’s good practice to ensure that you include a couple of relevant internal links within your blog content especially.

Internal links are good for:

• Passing value to other pages on your site
• Helping search engine crawlers map out and understand you site better
• Increasing page views and time spent on your site by helping users to other parts of your site they’d find useful and/or interesting

External Links

What are external links?
External links (or outbound links) are links on your site that point to other domains, other websites. Great for those other websites, right? Sure, but it’s still good for you too.

Studies and tests carried out have shown that pages including external links to other relevant websites rank higher than the exact same pages that do not have any of those links. An experiment run by Rebootonline.com makes a good case for including external links on your site.

Putting tests and experiments aside, from a philosophical point of view, it makes sense. Having websites link to other relevant websites is useful to the end user, and Google particularly likes that sort of thing. It also serves as an extra indicator of what your website is about.

Another side-effect is that being seen linking out can signal to other sites to open a dialogue with you. They’ll want to try and get a link themselves and contact you, and this can lead to all kinds of discussions and opportunities.

Why External links are good:

• Makes your site look like a knowledgeable and valuable resource
• There is correlation of linking sites ranking higher than sites that do not link
• Being seen to link out can encourage interaction from other sites and open up new opportunities

Don’t get hung up and obsessed with backlinks alone, think about how you can make use of internal and external links and gain the benefits they can provide too.

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