Should we use Outbound Link in SEO?

 What are outbound links?

Outbound links or External links are links that point from one website to another. When a website includes a link to another website, it is considered an outbound link. For example, if website A includes a link to website B, that link would be an outbound link for website A and an inbound link for website B. Outbound links provide credibility and increases traffic for a website.

Should we use Outbound links in SEO?

Yes, Using Outbound links are beneficial for SEO. Outbound links help search engines identify the context of the website, and add credibility and trustworthiness to the source of the content.

Additionally, outbound links can also help to increase the number of backlinks to your website, which can boost your search engine rankings. However, it is important to use outbound links sparingly and only link to relevant and credible sources.

Can outbound link help SEO?

Outbound links can have a positive impact on SEO, but their effect is generally less significant than that of inbound links. Here are a few ways that outbound links can help SEO:

• Credibility and authority: By linking to reputable and authoritative sources, you can signal to search engines that your website is a valuable resource on a particular topic. This can help to improve your website's search engine rankings.
• Backlinks: Outbound links can also help to increase the number of backlinks to your website, which can boost your search engine rankings.
• Improve User Experience: Outbound links that lead to high-quality and relevant content improve user experience on the website. It is a positive signal to search engines that the website is providing valuable information to the users.

When are outbound links useful?

Outbound links can be useful in a variety of situations, here are some examples:

• Citing sources: When writing a blog post or article, it is often necessary to cite sources to back up your claims or to provide additional information. Outbound links can link direct readers to the source material.
• Providing additional resources: Outbound links provide readers with additional resources or information on a particular topic. For example, if you are writing a blog post about a specific product, you might include outbound links to reviews or other articles about that product.
• Building relationships: Outbound links can build relationships with other websites and content creators. By linking to their content, you can help to establish yourself as a valuable resource and potentially gain backlinks in return.

Outbound Link Building

How to use Outbound links?

Here are some best practices for using outbound links:

• Link to relevant sources: The sources you link to should be relevant to the content of your website. This will help demonstrate the relevance of your website's content to search engines and improve your search engine rankings.
• Use anchor text: The text that you use to link to an external website is known as anchor text. It is important to use relevant and descriptive anchor text, as this will help establish the link’s context and can improve the user experience.
• Use outbound links sparingly: Overusing outbound links can have a negative impact on your website's search engine rankings, so it is important to use them sparingly.
• Use the "no follow" attribute: If you are linking to a website that you don't want to endorse or think is low-quality, you should use the "no follow" attribute. This tells search engines not to follow the link and not to transfer any "link juice" to the linked website.

Best practices for outbound links?

Best practices for outbound links include:

• Use descriptive link text: The text used to describe the link should be descriptive and give the reader an idea of what the linked page is about.
• Use target="_blank" for external links: This will open the link in a new tab, which is a good user experience.
• Use rel="nofollow" for sponsored links: This tells search engines not to follow the link and not to pass any link juice to the linked site.
• Limit the number of outbound links on a page: Too many outbound links can detract from the user experience and dilute the link equity that is passed on to other sites.

In conclusion, using outbound links can be beneficial for SEO as it helps to establish your website as a credible and trustworthy source of information. However, it is essential to ensure that the outbound links are relevant and high-quality, as linking to low-quality or spammy websites can harm your website's SEO. Therefore, it is vital to use outbound links strategically and with caution to make the most of their benefits while minimizing any potential negative effects.

Core SEO strategies for 2023 – Skyrocket traffic to your website

SEO Strategies 2023 - SEO Trends 2023

SEO STRATEGIES 2023

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is nothing but optimizing a piece of content or Your website to rank in the Search Engine Result Page (SERPS). The objective of SEO or searching optimization is to increase the traffic to a website on SERPs of Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Today I would like to take you through the Core strategies or SEO Trends 2023 that can boost your website traffic:

Trend #1: SEO Optimization for Online Shoppers:

SEO Optimization for Online Shoppers - SEO Trends 2023

Covid Pandemic and the revolution in technology have made more people shop online. The heavy competition in online shopping has made retailers analyse data and add the latest technology with a personalized shopping experience for customers.

To cope with the SEO trend, online shoppers in SEO are nothing but improving the ranking of products and services in SERPS specifically for people shopping online. Here are a few ways to optimize a website for online shoppers:

• Product Page: Optimize your product page by including unique high-quality product images, with detailed product descriptions, and provide structured data to bots and crawlers of search engines to understand the content of the page.
• Reviews and Ratings: Page optimization should start with Customer reviews and ratings. Customer reviews of the product improve purchasing decisions of potential customers and increase visibility in search results.
• E-Commerce Tracking: Conversion tracking for E-Commerce should be set in Google analytics which would help to track important data such as sales, conversion rates, bounce rates, etc. This helps you to optimize websites based on well-performing products and pages based on netizens’ page visits.
• Loading time: As pages and products increase the loading time may increase and this would affect the user experience of page visitors. Always focus on loading speed, if pages exceed the threshold try to migrate to technology like react.
• Shopping Feeds: Adding shopping feeds to the website helps to list products like products in Google Shopping. This increases visibility and User Experience and drives more traffic to the website.
• Payments & Shopping Options: Adding all sorts of payment and shipping options is crucial for online shopping. Use structured data and make all the options visible to users on your website. 

Trend #2: Include Video Marketing to boost SEO traffic:

SEO Optimization through Video Marketing - SEO Trends 2023

Video Plays a major role in Engaging the users and helps to improve conversion. Video Marketing helps in SEO optimization by improving the Website’s visibility In Search Results. Here are a few Video Marketing Strategies to boost your website traffic:

• Video Content SEO Optimization: Optimizing Video content is like other content of a website. The video should be useful to the viewers. Besides, you should include keywords the in the video title, description, and tags, as well as provide a transcript of the audio files.
• Video Thumbnails: Always use a relevant thumbnail image with a text overlay that represents the content of the video. This helps to improve the click-through rate of the video.
• Video Hosting: Always host videos on third-party sites like YouTube owned by Google. This helps to improve traffic to the website. Besides hosting videos on YouTube reduce the loading time of the website and increases engagement and reduces the bounce rate.
• Video Metrics: Hosting videos on a platform like YouTube provides access to analytics. This provides performance of videos which helps in further optimizations. Details on Views, engagement, and demographics help to improve targeting and further optimizations.
• Video Promotions: Share your videos on social channels along with calls to action such as links to the website or product page. SEO Optimization using Videos helps to increase visibility and traffic to the website.

Trend #3: SEO Optimization using Voice Search and Conversational Queries:

SEO Optimization through Voice Search - SEO Trends 2023

Voice Search and Conversational Queries are popular among people by use of Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri, or other AI Voice search tools available in the market. Thus, Voice Assistant turned out to be an important piece in SEO Optimization by improving the visibility of websites or products in SERPS. Here are a few ways to optimize a website for voice search and conversational queries:

• Use Long Tail Keywords: Voice Search Queries are usually longer and conversational. Using long tail keywords in content and meta tags helps websites to rank higher for relevant voice search queries.
• Use Natural Language: People use natural language for voice searches. So, Content with natural language and relevant information will more likely to match users’ queries more relevant to the search.
• Optimize for “near me” Queries: People tend to use “near me” queries in voice search for nearby businesses or information. So always optimize your website for local SEO Optimization by including the business's name, address, and phone number (NAP) and building citations.
• Optimize for featured snippets: Featured snippets are nothing but an answer box that appears next to the search result page for a voice query. Featured snippet optimization and bring more visibility and traffic to the website for search queries.
• Use Mark Up Schema: schema markup can help search engines understand the content on your website and match it to voice search queries. Use structured data to indicate things like business hours, reviews, products, and services.
• Use conversational language: Voice search is conversational, so it is important to use conversational language in your content and make it easy for the user to get the information they want naturally.

Trend #4: SEO Optimization using Semantically Related Keywords:

SEO Optimization through Semantically related Keywords  - SEO Trends 2023

Semantically related keywords are keywords that are related in meaning to the main keyword that a user is searching for. Using Semantically related keywords improves ranking and traffic to the website. Here are a few ways to optimize a website for semantically related keywords:

• Use LSI keywords: LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) are semantically related keywords that help provide context to the main keyword on a webpage. By incorporating LSI keywords into a webpage's content, meta tags, and headers, search engines can better understand its content and relevance to a user's search.
• Use natural language: Many searches are in natural language, so using natural language-integrated keywords on a website can help to make it more relevant to a user's search.
• Use Competitor and keyword research: Keyword research and Competitor Research help to identify semantically related keywords that are relevant to the content. This helps to identify the user’s needs and the data can be used to optimize content for the website. This brings traffic and better conversion for the website.

Trend #5: SEO Optimization through images:

SEO Optimization through Images  - SEO Trends 2023

Optimizing images on a website helps to improve the visibility of the website by providing relevant information to users through the optimized images. Here are a few ways to optimize images for SEO Optimization:

• File Name: The file name should always be descriptive and should include relevant keywords. This helps bots and crawlers of the Search engine to understand the content of the image.
• Alt Text: Alt text describes the content of the image to netizens who may not be able to see the visual or image.
• Image Size: Lage image files increase the loading time of the website which affects the user experience of netizens. So always use compressed images without reducing the quality.
• File Formats: Some file formats are better suited for the web than others. JPEG, PNG, and GIF are common file formats used on the web, but JPEG is the best option for photographs, PNG for graphics, and GIF for simple animations.
• Image Sitemaps: Creating and submitting an image sitemap to search engines can help to ensure that images on a website are indexed and appear in image search results.
• Optimize images for mobile: With most of the internet traffic coming from mobile devices, it's important to optimize images for mobile by making sure they are scaled appropriately and loading quickly.

SEO Optimization (search engine optimization) trends change over time as search engines update their algorithms and how they rank websites. The bottom line is SEO Optimization should be the backbone for any marketing campaign to see better results. Following the above SEO strategies would always help you to lead in the competition.

A well-defined SEO plan would always bring performance in Search engine results, bringing more conversions and traffic to your website.

Always keep in mind that the SEO strategies that work today will differ tomorrow based on the late Algorithm updates. So always stay UpToDate with the change if you are an SEO expert or a website owner. Stay tuned for my next blog on Google Algorithm Update 2022 covering all the latest trends and updates on SEO.