The Importance of External Links and Why They Are Essential for Your Website and Your Business

Važnost eksternih linkova i zašto je baš to potrebno vašem sajtu i vašem poslu?

It is hard to imagine today's website optimization work without including both external and internal links, most often through paid (native) articles. Simply, concisely, and descriptively, links are exactly what enable us to navigate through content on the Internet.

That is why one of the recommended marketing methods is placing PR articles on popular websites: You advertise your company/business with the text, you put a link to your site, allowing interested people to reach your website, and you signal to search engines the relevance of your site, moving it higher in search results. Voilà. Can it get better?

Whether they are textual links or those made via multimedia elements, such as images, links always serve as a way to go further from the current page. Usually to another address or page, but it can also be a jump to another place on the same page (anchor).

For a visitor to your site, this is a functional and now natural way to get acquainted with the content on a site that is usually spread across several different pages.

Basic types of links

One of the earliest distinctions, still well regarded today, is the division into internal and external links.

Internal links

Internal links, as the name suggests, are connections between pages within the same domain (for example, all links leading to some page on the site reporter-info.com). The way pages are structured, their interconnection, and the schema make these links logical, consistent, and functional both for search engines and for site visitors.

Proper linking within one site (internal linking) is the first good step in creating a competitive product — a website.

Smartly created links can significantly motivate site visitors to stay longer. To read everything you intended to present to them. To somehow become attached to your site and become loyal to us.

Creating links on pages is inseparably connected with copywriting, i.e., the form and content of pages, and today it is one of the especially important segments that creates the advantage of your site compared to competitors.

For that reason, site owners should heed the opinions of those dealing with SEO (search engine optimization), because mistakes in designing internal links are most often solved by redesign or a new site, and that costs a lot — both time and money.

External links

External or outbound links direct site visitors to content outside the domain you are currently on. For example, from the site chilli-media.com to the site kuvar.in.rs, or other sites. Links to external content may also represent the author’s wish to show relevant sources from which they drew inspiration — analogous to references in written works.

They can also be links to independent audio content, video clips, graphic elements. Everything that helps faster assimilation of content on the page.

Why use links that lead visitors away from your site?

Because our site is not Google, and it is impossible to have all relevant information that we would like to be available to users of our pages.

Because some things we must do due to established rules of conduct, both for visitors and search engines.

Because this way we create stronger and richer content, since external pages function in support of our pages on the site. Thus, we aim to link our pages with thematically related sites that better bring our content closer to the target visitors.

For now, this is enough, but there is more…

Dofollow and nofollow links

The fight for the greatest number of backlinks has become like politicians fighting for votes. The more, the better, without insight into the essence of the link. Dofollow links are one measure of link quality. They allow spiders (robots of major Internet companies like Google, Microsoft, etc.) to go further and reach your site, thus valuing it more.

Nofollow links do not bring much benefit, neither for the page they are on nor for the pages they point to. They simply stop crawling and break links to other sites — at least from the perspective of search engine programs (Google’s and other robots).

Link building policy

There is no magic formula for the number of internal and external links, but there is the purpose of the page. This means that the number of links will not be the same on a landing page, sales page, or home page.

Backlinks

Simplified, links from other sites that point to some page of your site are backlinks. Ranking machines highly value this parameter as a measure of the quality and influence of the page.

The rule can be paraphrased like this: the more links you have to your page from important sites, the more influential your page is on the Internet.

The quality and quantity of links pointing to your site are taken as one of the very important factors in evaluating your site.

Are links important for site ranking in search results?

Yes, and they are very important. Our goal with this text was to shed more light on this area and point out the importance of smart backlink policy.