INBOUND LINKING, OUTBOUND LINKS, NO LINKS
I often hear talk in the SEO industry about the benefits of inbound and outbound linking from your website and blogs.

I thought I would put together a quick illustration below to help discuss this topic.



A SITE WITH 0 LINKS
Sites with 0 links are usually those which are brand new, or where the owners don't know about the importance of linking.

This may also be the case where the owner of the website wanted this site to be solely a "brochure site" that is only promoted off line, via business cards, news paper ads, magazine ads etc. They don't rely on search engine traffic or traffic from other websites and directories as their source of sales and income.

We'll assume for this discussion that you need your site to be visible on the search engines and with other sites.

THE INTERNET IS A BIG WEB OF LINKS
When you really sit back and think about it, the whole internet is based on links back and forth from one site to another. Even google and Yahoo are just big buckets of links. It's pretty basic: You click on links to take you from one site to another.

Linking is so basic and fundamental on the internet that sometimes it's just good to have a basic fundamental look at why we need links.

The links on a site talk about the relationships that a site has with others. You can tell how well a site is "socialized" by the amount of inbound links and outbound links it has.

Simply stated, a site with no inbound links or outbound links will have no organic traffic, ever. Even if you have the most valuable information on the internet published on your site, if you have no inbound links of anytype, you'll never receive any traffic.

SITE WITH INBOUND LINKS ONLY
There are some who believe that only having inbound links will help you do the best with the search engines. Google has indicated that it's search engine algorithm is heavily based on inbound links to your site.

A site with inbound links only is like a spoiled child sitting in the middle of the livingroom at a family gathering screaming at the top of his lungs, "LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!!" That child will get immediate attention from everyone in the room, but will soon be overlooked because of their selfishness.

It's also the same when you're having a discussion with another person over coffee. If you're constantly interrupting your coffee partner to talk about yourself (ie... the links are pointed back at you all the time), the other person is soon going to tire of listening to you about you.

The website with only inbound links is not offering its visitors the all important valuable resources and networking that comes with outbound links.



SITE WITH OUTBOUND LINKS ONLY
Outbound links are a great source of value for your readers, especially when you're writing a good quality article or post and referencing other good quality websites.

Just as people love it when you talk about them, visitors to your site love to see good quality links to other.

People love to visit people who are interesting and have similar interests. A good and fulfilling conversation is usually about common interests and people that you both know.

CONVERSATIONS ARE ALL ABOUT VERBAL LINKS
A typical conversation amongst family and friends is about how other family members are doing and the activities you did with your friends. You'll also talk about restaurants you visited, places you travelled, movies and TV shows you watched and alot more.

The whole idea behind a conversation is to talk about painful or pleasurable times and with whom or where they occurred. Translated, these are verbal links that you share with your family and friends.

The same thing should occur on your site. You should have a healthy amount of out bound links to other sites you're referencing to enhance the article or post you're writing.

It's bad to have only outbound links. A site needs to have a balance of both inbound links and outbound links.

If you don't have inbound links there is absolutely no way for other sites to find you. Your site won't have any traffic at all, and visitors would probably love to see your site will never have a way to find it.

HIGH-QUALITY-LINKS.COM = RELATIONSHIPS AND LONG TERM LINKING PARTNERS.
We built this site with these long term relationships between bloggers and webmasters in mind. We understand the importance of linking relationships and want to help our members generate healthy linking relationships.

If you haven't done so already, please take a moment to Register to find other active bloggers and webmasters who are want to share blog comments and article links with you.

Articles from January 2007
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