What is the Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Links?

To achieve high search engine rankings you need to get lots of incoming links pointing to your website from other websites. The quality, quantity and variety of links determine how high your site will rank.

Should you just focus on getting inbound links or get outbound links as well?

What is an inbound link?

This is a link to your website that resides on another website. For instance if I add a link to my website from a directory site it will be considered an inbound link.

How many links do you need to outrank your competitors?

First you need to research how many inbound links your competitor’s site has and what type of link it is (link quality). Your competitor’s site will usually rank ahead of yours if it has a higher number of inbound links than your own. If you want to outrank them get a greater number of inbound links.

Another factor is quality. If a competing site has a link from a popular directory like DMOZ it may rank ahead of your site even if you have more inbound links. Inbound links from well established sites carry more weight than links from general directories or sites that don’t have many inbound links.

How do you build inbound links to your website?

These methods include adding a link to your website from another site. There are 100s of ways to achieve this however here are my top 7:

• Submit your articles to article directories
• Write guest posts for popular blogs in your niche
• Create YouTube videos that link back to your website
• Link to your site from content submitted to social media sites ie Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.
• Submit your site to niche directories
• Link to related content within your blog or website (internal links)

Write such great content that it will want to be passed on (often called “link bait”). For example write an article on product comparisons or write a list article i.e. “50 ways to get effective inbound links.”

What is an outbound link?

These are links that link from your site to another website. For example if I have a site on camping I may want to link to a camping directory because it shows all the best places to camp in America.

When should you include outbound links on your website?

Include outbound links when you want to provide extra resources for your visitors that don’t appear on your own site.

Outbound links may also include links to other sites you own. For example you may want to provide a link to your product website at the end of your content or link to your autoresponder to capture their contact information so you can send follow-up messages.

Does getting outbound links improve your rankings in the search engines?

No, but they help provide more information for your website visitors and taking care of your visitors is more important than rankings.

Link building needs to be an ongoing process. If you just get a few inbound links then stop your competitor’s sites may eventually outrank you and your site may disappear from the first page of the search engines. To prevent this from happening create a plan to add new inbound links every time you add new content.

Related Articles
How to Build a Quality Links Program
How to Build Link Popularity and Increase Rankings
How to Use Articles for Link Building
Advanced Link Building Strategies – Submit to Top Directories

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