Why are External and Internal Links Important for SEO?

Most people believe that optimizing keywords, putting attractive and crisp content on the website, improving the UI, and including proper multimedia are some of the strongest SEO strategies. However, this is not the reality because many more aspects influence the SERPs, and link building is one of them. 

A recent study revealed that 58.1% of digital marketing professionals consider link building to have huge contributions towards ranking and visibility. Since many are struggling with SEO rankings, here we have highlighted the importance of external and internal links for websites.

What are external and internal links in SEO?

Links are simply references or gateways to web pages and websites. When you include links to different web pages from the same website, they become the internal links. This is because when a user clicks on the link, he will be redirected to the dedicated page of your website only. 

On the other hand, the external links point to web pages from other websites. They may or may not have complete relevance with your website, but they surely help users visit the software with a click. Therefore, external linking is crucial for building a vast network and giving your domain a certain level of authority. 

How can external links impact the SERPs?

Here are some of the prominent ways through which external links can have a positive influence on the Search Engine Page Rankings of your website.

1. Helps to add more relevance to your website

When you add external links to your website, you are creating relevance, which is one of the main SERP judging factors. For example, if you have an online jewelry shopping website, adding links to Tiffany and other brands will tell the users more about your business. 

This will further improve trust and credibility as the external websites have higher authority. 

2. Important for crawler algorithm 

The Crawler program relies on an algorithm, which checks and evaluates the websites from top to bottom. Therefore, when you are adding external links, it will lead to the creation of a similar backlink on the linked website. As the Crawler program scrolls through that website, it will come across the backlink. 

Eventually, it will move to your website for further evaluation. This way, you can ensure that your website is within the radar of the crawler since it will affect your SERP. However, make sure that the outbound links are from authority pages, popular and relevant sites. 

3. Will redirect audience from other websites

Just like the external links will redirect the crawler to your website from others, they will also do the same for audiences. When going through a website, the visitors will come across the backlink. On clicking, they will get redirected to your website. 

This way, the outbound link will increase your website’s visibility. However, user retention is completely a different concept, and you need different strategies to engage the visitors. 

4. Builds brand reputation over time

The external links will enhance your brand’s reputation amongst a large section of the audience. With the inclusion of higher authority links, you can easily attract the attention of other visitors and make sure that they can explore your brand further. 

However, building a proper reputation will take time along with the best outbound linking practices. If there is a slight mistake in linking, it will prove to be a disaster. 

In what ways do the internal links help in SEO? 

Let’s now delve deeper and find out multiple ways in which internal links can help to boost SEO.

1. Improves the user experience and engagement 

With the help of internal links, you can improve the user experience in the best possible way. For example, let’s say they have visited a blog page on your website but couldn’t find appropriate information. So, if you add a proper internal link on that web page that points towards another blog with more detailed information, you can easily meet the user requirements. 

Besides, the internal links will build a staircase architecture where the users can explore your website further. Thus, user engagement will improve by ten folds. 

2. Drives more conversion ratio

As the user engagement and experience increase with internal links, so will the conversion ratio. As a result, you will have a competitive advantage in converting the visitors to prospective leads. This will also improve the visibility of different web pages on your website. 

Internal links play a huge role for ecommerce websites, retail websites, blogger sites, and so on. Besides, they can also help users find exactly what they are looking for without spending too much time. 

3. Builds the link equity in a better way

A website comprises several web pages, each dedicated to a particular purpose. You cannot expect all the web pages to rank similarly on the search engine ranking algorithm. Some pages will perform just the way you expected, while others might not have that much appeal.

So, if you include internal links of high-performing web pages in ones having almost no visitors, you can build link equity easily. The authority of all the pages will remain balanced and can meet the requirements of ranking programs effortlessly. 

4. Attracts users to particular points of interests

Another major advantage of using internal links is to attract visitors to particular areas. For example, let’s assume you want to highlight a few recently posted blogs. 

Therefore, if you include the links of the blogs in other popular web pages, you can facilitate smoother traffic mobility within your website. This also enables you to fulfill the user’s requirements and offer them exactly what they want. 

Takeaways 

Link building might not be easy, as it requires you to consider multiple factors, like authority, link equity, relevance, popularity, and more. But it is crucial and imperative not to ignore it. You have to understand the manner in which the internal and external links will improve your SEO ranking. Evidently, you can devise a proper link-building strategy, to ensure that all the added links are functional, relevant, and have higher authority. 

If you found this interesting, have any questions, or would like to learn more, our Branding Agency in Dubai can help, please drop us a line at puneet.ae