Writen by Tim Priebe
In the past, clients have asked me why they should link to other websites on their own site. Why would they want people to leave their site and visit someone else's?
First off, you have to be smart about it. Don't link to sites that are going to directly compete with you. But it is okay to link to sites with a similar target audience. There can even be some slight overlap with your own site, and you should still be fine, given that your website is appealing enough in its own right.
Second, if you really have so little faith in visitors to your website, you're in trouble. If they don't come back to your site, it's not because you had links to other websites. It's because you're doing something else wrong on your website. If your website has valuable and unique information, they'll be back.
I did say unique. Let's say I start a site where people can vote on their favorite cartoon, and that's the main point of the site. Including links to sites that discuss some of those cartoons can't hurt anything, and it can add some volume and value to the site. My site would then be one of the places that all those links were collected. Would you rather go to a search engine and try to track down all the sites, or go to my site where there's a links page with all the information you already need?
And the unique aspect of the site is still there. You go to the site to vote on cartoons and see how they are ranked. The links are just an added bonus to the site visitors. However, they can help to increase search engine rankings on a site that might not otherwise rank high at all.
Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design. His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com.
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