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External Links On Your Website: Do or Don't?
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By Tim Priebe
[Hits: 13380]
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In the past, clients have asked me why they should link to otherwebsites on their own site. Why would they want people to leavetheir site and visit someone else's?
First off, you have to be smart about it. Don't link to sitesthat are going to directly compete with you. But it is okay tolink to sites with a similar target audience. There can even besome slight overlap with your own site, and you should still befine, given that your website is appealing enough in its ownright.
Second, if you really have so little faith in visitors to yourwebsite, you're in trouble. If they don't come back to yoursite, it's not because you had links to other websites. It'sbecause you're doing something else wrong on your website. Ifyour website has valuable and unique information, they'll beback.
I did say unique. Let's say I start a site where people can voteon their favorite cartoon, and that's the main point of thesite. Including links to sites that discuss some of thosecartoons can't hurt anything, and it can add some volume andvalue to the site. My site would then be one of the places thatall those links were collected. Would you rather go to a searchengine and try to track down all the sites, or go to my sitewhere there's a links page with all the information you alreadyneed?
And the unique aspect of the site is still there. You go to thesite to vote on cartoons and see how they are ranked. The linksare just an added bonus to the site visitors. However, they canhelp to increase search engine rankings on a site that might nototherwise rank high at all.
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