Outgoing links influence search engines

The web pages to which you link form the "neighborhood" of your web site. If you link to spammy web sites then search engines might think that your web site is also spam.

Links to link farms and automated linking systems can actually hurt your Google rankings. For that reason, it is important that you take a look at the quality of a web site before you link to it.

Outgoing links influence web site visitors

The web sites to which you link help your web site visitors to put your web site into a larger context. If you link to high quality sites with useful content, web surfers will associate your web site with these high quality sites.

If you link to other web sites show your web site visitors that your web site can be trusted. You wouldn't send visitors to other pages if they could find negative information about your products or services on other sites.

Links add value to your web site, they show your visitors that you have nothing to hide and that you have confidence in your site.

Give, and you shall receive

You do not lose visitors by offering links to other pages. Links to other pages will bring you more and repeat customers. All visitors will leave your web site sooner or later. No matter how great your web site is, no one will stay on your web site forever. The question is what web surfers do when they leave your site.

If you don't have outgoing links or if you hide your links, then you send your visitors back to search engines (which give you nothing in return). If you offer your web site visitors links, you can send leaving visitors to other web sites that can send you their visitors in return.

Carefully chosen links to outside resources can improve the experience of visitors who visit your web site. Give, and you shall receive. This is true for many aspects of life and it also works for web site promotion.

If you want to learn more about building good inbound links and outgoing links, take a look at our free link popularity ebook.