Which types of links are more important?
You may have read about the types of links on the Internet, and wonder what you should use on your website. There are three types of links you may encounter: external links, backlinks, and internal links.
In this article, we’ll discuss how each type works and give you an idea of the basic links. After this discussion, you should be ready to improve your strategies for getting #1 on search engine results pages (SERPs)
Determine the types of links on the site
When you get to a webpage, you’ll see clickable items or highlighted words. This can be an internal link or an external link. If you click on the highlighted item or word and are taken to a page on another website, the link was an external link.
Let’s say the link brings you to another page but is still within that domain or website. In this case, the link can be considered an internal link. Basically, external links lead you to pages outside your domain, while internal links lead you to pages within your website.
So, you might be wondering, “How do I locate backlinks then?”
If you search a webpage for backlinks, you won’t see any. The reason is that the backlinks come from another website. A lot of people are confused about the difference between a backlink and an external link.
To give you a simple explanation of this, a backlink is a link from a site other than your own domain, while an external link is a link that came from one of your pages.
External links
There are many ways you can use external links, but the most common is to cite content or resources from other websites. When drafting blogs and putting together factual information, it would be a good idea to prove your claims by citing your source.
When citing, you need to make sure that the site is trustworthy to ensure that the information you include in your content is reliable and trustworthy. You should be wary of the information you place on your site because it is one of the factors web users look at when judging the quality of your content.
Without trustworthy and accurate content, you will not be able to build a loyal readership group. This is why all the factual information you include in your content, you need to back it up with citations.
The impact of external links will be magnified if the sites you reference are authoritative resources, such as sites that have .gov or .edu as an extension of their domain. The reason behind this is that sites like this usually contain information backed by scientific research or high quality data collection methods.
Most of the time, site owners are afraid to use external websites because doing so will allow them to leave your website. When this happens, you can use the setting where a new window opens when you click a link on your site.
Search engines like Google take external links seriously because they check the relevance of the pages linked to your site. Having reliable and trusted sites as your reference can increase your “experience” in this field because it signals to search engines that the network you are creating is full of highly reliable sites in your field.
Internal links
Internal links are what web owners use to link all the web pages on your site and create an organized site structure. It can come in different forms such as text, images, videos, or other items that can be found on websites.
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Link pages within your site
In general, internal links have three purposes for your website. The first is to direct your visitors to content that is relevant to the page they are currently on. With internal links, you can create a clear path for users to take so that they can easily find other pages on your website.
Directing web users to a specific point on your site can mean that you can give them all the information they need or divert them for a specific task. Therefore, this means that internal links are effective in creating a roadmap for users. When users get deeper into your site, they also spend more time on it, which is good for your bounce rate and time on site.
If users find your website easy to navigate, then your website’s user experience (UX) is excellent.
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allow crawling
The second purpose of internal links is to make your pages more visible to crawlers. With internal links, you can help search engines fully understand what your site is talking about, its structure, and its flow.
Additionally, using internal links allows you to maximize the crawl budget allocated to your site. A maximum crawl budget means that spiders can spend more time on your site, which means they can get more of your site’s context and help get your pages indexed.
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Propagation Liaison Authority
Link salad, also known as link juice, can be published using internal links. When a page (page X) is linked by another website (backlink), it receives a portion of the authority that the linked site has.
Suppose page X has received link authority. Through internal links, you can spread this authority to other pages. Doing so can help boost the ranking of the pages you link from page X.
Backlinks
Internal links and external links are essential to your site, but backlinks are more important. Backlinks are one of the foundations of search engine optimization (SEO). You probably need many high-quality backlinks because Google’s algorithm considers them to be a key factor in determining page rank.
Backlinks are like citations in research papers. When a site sends a link to one of your web pages, it acts as an approval vote, which means that they trust your content and consider it reliable and accurate.
However, getting backlinks from random sites may do more harm than good. When the news came out about backlinks and how they increase your rankings, many site owners started turning to Black hat SEO – buying backlinks and placing the URL of your pages in the comments section or similar sites.
Backlinks are not created equally
For example, Sites A and B (same products, within the same industry) link to the same page on your site. The power they pass depends on the authority of their domain. So, assuming site A has more authority, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 is the highest, the link that site A gives to your site could be ten. On the other hand, the power provided by location B can provide up to nine.
Since site A is the most trusted site in the industry, site B can never give more powers to your website unless it outperforms site A’s authority.
Additionally, it can give your site a juice that can be as low as “1”. This means that having 10 low authority sites that provide a “1” will be no better than linking only two sites that can give the number “10”.
That’s why you need to focus on the quality of the backlinks you earn rather than the quantity. You also need to consider the importance of the site to provide a backlink to your site to ensure that you get the most value from the link.
Although search engines have introduced various factors into judging page rank, backlinks are still one of the most important factors. So, you still need to focus on how to get more quality backlinks.
The good thing about having more high-quality backlinks is that it also attracts the attention of search engines. When search engines see that your site’s cookie is good and your content is valuable to web users, they will put you in a place where more people can benefit from what you have to offer.
Simple tricks to get backlinks
One of the best ways to do this is to create quality content that invites more readers. When other websites see that your site is getting attention because of the content you provide, they will naturally link to it. This means that you get backlinks with less effort.
But, if you plan to be aggressive, building a network may be a good thing for you. Once you create a good network, you can reach out to them and request links to your important pages.
Links: Your link to higher ratings
The three types of links (external, internal and backlinks) are important to your website because they serve different purposes. Not using one of them will affect your website, so be sure to diversify the links on your website. When every type of link is present, you can maximize the full potential that links bring to your site.