Exploring Various Types of Links and Their Impact

Imagine being the proud captain of your own digital vessel, navigating the vast sea of search results. Your website’s links serve as your trusty anchors, strategically placed to guide your visitors on a smooth voyage. Yet, picture this: your links, instead of leading your eager visitors to their desired destination, are scattered haphazardly, much like an abandoned mine field, missing many prospects and the potential to blow up at the most inopportune time.

Or, even worse, consider dedicating countless hours to craft a brand new website, only to find yourself adrift amidst the endless expanse of search results, like a lone sailor never landing a valuable catch. Links, whether they be the sturdy ropes that bind your internal pages or the lifelines cast by inbound connections, are the very lifelines that keep your digital vessel afloat in this boundless sea of information.

Neglecting the art of building and optimizing these links is akin to setting sail without a compass; it leaves your website at the mercy of turbulent waves and uncertain currents, missing out on invaluable opportunities for SEO visibility. So, fellow mariners of the web, take heed: in the uncharted waters of the internet, anchoring your website with well-crafted links is the compass that will steer you toward SEO success.

OK, enough sailor talk, let’s dig into the types of links and which elements are the most important to focus on for SEO optimization.

Examples of Types of Links

All links have the ability to impact your website’s visibility. Below are some examples of different types of links, and in particular some we often forget about, that all can play a part in getting your website to rank in organic search results.

• Internal links connect different pages on the same website. They are used to help users navigate the website and find the information they are looking for.
• External links connect to pages on other websites. They are used to provide additional information or resources to users.
• Anchor links are the visible text that users click on to follow a link.
• Image links are links that are attached to an image. When a user clicks on the image, they are taken to the linked page.
• Email links are links that are embedded in an email message. When a user clicks on the link, they are taken to the linked page.
• Social media links are links to social media profiles or pages. When a user clicks on the link, they are taken to the linked profile or page.

And I know you’re here for that SEO juice, but let’s take a moment to think about this. If links are literally everywhere – not just on websites – are you maximizing your backlink profile that already exists? Do you have email marketing teams neglecting title tags and text, yet still driving users to your website? What about social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook? Their link value may be lower, but each link directing users to your site acts as another vote of popularity. When working with businesses, I often find that their social media accounts link out to relevant sites, sometimes even competitors, underestimating the value of redirecting that traffic. So, I encourage you to promote it consistently – encourage everyone to include links back to your site whenever possible, and, as necessary, link out to third-party sites.

SEO Tips for Link Building

In addition to these link types, there are a number of other factors that can affect the SEO value of a link, such as the quality of the website that the link is coming from, the number of other links that the website has, and the age of the link. Addressing these items below will certainly help, but in isolation they can only do so much. Each link opportunity should assessed individually, but always keep an eye on the bigger picture of your backlink profile.

• Inbound links – Frequently called backlinks, these are links from other websites to your website. They operate like a popularity and trust signal and are considered to be a vote of confidence from other websites. Of all the types of links available, these are some of the ones that can help to improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) quickly.
• Internal links – Are links between URLs on your website. Users and search engines use these links to find related content on your website; no page on your site should be a dead end.
• Anchor text – Is the text that is clicked on for any link type. Every link on your site can and should have anchor text to insert some more relevant keywords about the two pages being linked.
• Dofollow links – These types of links get crawled by search engines and share the value from one site to the other. Dofollow links are generally considered to be more valuable for SEO purposes, but even Nofollow links have their value.

While we know the algorithms don’t only use backlinks to rank website in their organic results, backlinks are still an important factor, and they can help to improve your website’s ranking if they are acquired naturally and from high-quality websites along with other SEO initiatives. If you’ve been working on backlinking and you’re still not seeing fruitful results, contact us today and let’s show you how we can help increase your website’s traffic.