Linking to Other Websites in Content Marketing

By Adam  |  14 Aug 2015 19:00:00

If you're doing content marketing, there are going to be times when it will be appropriate to link away from the article. Maybe you are writing about another business and you want to link to their website, maybe you have made reference to a specific fact or statistic that you'd like to provide a source for, or maybe you've written something about the subject before and you want people to see what you've said before, whatever the reason, there are lots of times when you should link away from your own page. In this blog post I am going to write about a few things to keep in mind when you do this, because there are a few mistakes you could make, which might be detrimental.

Firstly, be careful about how you set your links. When a word is hyperlinked it can either load the page it's linked to right then and there, or it can do so in another tab. You want it to open in another tab so that people are not taken away from your own website. If somebody clicked a link in your blog post and then it lead them to a different website that they deemed more interesting, then why would they return? You certainly don't want to be the one that leads people away from your website! So make sure that the links all open in other tabs; it's less important with links to other pages on your own site, but still best to do it for the sake of convenience.

You also want to be careful about where you link to. If you needed a source for a news story, make sure it's not one on a website with a huge political leaning that might cause offense. Also make sure that there is nothing else on websites you link to which might offend your customers; jokes or bad language, for example. Generally, this isn't very likely to be an issue, and you're not really responsible for the content on other websites, but if you link to another website and something on there offends one of your readers, they're going to blame you, so it's better to be safe than sorry!

One last thing: the debate goes on about whether linking to other sites is good for your SEO or bad for your SEO so you might well go and research that. There's no definitive answer, because the algorithms are always changing, but I think you should always be linking to other sites. If somebody links to you, it would be good for you, and if you link to somebody else, it would be good for them. It could potentially be viewed as selfish not to 'play the game' and link to other pages. If somebody sees you never link to anybody, they might never link to you. I think the best approach is to use links, but to use them moderately; don't riddle every blog post with links to other websites, but put them in when they will highlight and compliment what you have to say. Put them in without thinking of SEO and it will make the content more enjoyable to readers, thus making them more likely to share it with others and that is good for SEO.

So I hope that tells you everything you need to know about including links in your content! Content marketing can be very effective and you should be using it with your eCommerce website. If you don't even have an eCommerce website yet, why not sign up to Sellr now? You can make your eCommerce dream an eCommerce reality without spending a thing.