As long as a company does not link within an article too much (more than five links per page), linking should bring many benefits to a company. Linking too often can look like spam, but linking three or four times will only help your company’s SEO efforts. Before jumping onto the linking bandwagon, consider the differences and benefits of internal and external linking:

Benefits of Internal Linking

Internal linking is the linking between web pages within your website. It is important to use internal linking because it allows visitors to easily move from one page to the next, and improves the overall design of your website.  An example of a useful internal link is called a contextual link, which lead visitors to another webpage based on the content they are currently viewing. This should help increase your sales because visitors will be lead to pages that are most relevant to their needs. Visit SEOMoz for information regarding the expected trends of internal linking.

However, one of the more important uses of internal linking is to increase SEO of your website. Some of the advantages of internal linking on SEO include: 

• Efficient Indexing: Search engine bots, also known as spiders, are sent to examine whether your site is easy to navigate. Effective internal linking will allow bots to quickly move from one webpage to the next. By providing links that make it easier for bots to crawl and index your website, your SEO rank will increase.
• Easy Navigation: Internal links allow webpages to be linked together, giving content and ideas on your website a natural progression.  These links allow visitors to quickly find content they are looking for, improving their experience on your site.
• Visitor Presence: Internal linking, when done effectively, can encourage visitors to stay on your site longer.  More links that lead to quality content give your visitors incentive to continue clicking through your site, increasing the rankings of each individual page they visit.

Benefits of External Linking

External linking involves the linking between two different webpages. This exchange is important because it allows webmasters to increase the SEO of their websites. Some of the benefits that are derived from sharing links are: 

• Increase Page Ranking: Link sharing between two websites is one of the more effective ways of increasing your page rank (thus helping you inch toward that number one spot on Google you’ve had your eye on).  If you exchange links with an established website with a high page rank, this will have a substantial effect on your website’s search engine results.
• Promote Your Website: When another website agrees to put up a link to your website, they are increasing your website’s visibility. By allowing visitors to follow links to your site, the consumer awareness of your brand increases. Chances are anyone who visits a well-known blog regularly trusts that information, so your credibility will also increase.
• Drive Traffic: One of the main reasons why websites use external linking is to increase their traffic and promote visitors to their site. When two related sites exchange links and put them up on their site, they encourage their audience to visit the sponsored site. This is a great way for webmasters to quickly and effectively raise the popularity of their sites.

Linking is as easy as highlighting a word, right clicking, scrolling down to hyperlink, and adding in a URL. You will also be prompted to either have your link open in a new window or the same window. According to speedadverts.com, “make sure all external links will open in a new window. On the other hand, you do not want users to close lots of windows which all related to your website, so in this case, always make sure that internal links will open in the same window.”

Linking is truly one of the simplest ways to help get your website ranked when it comes to organic advertising (as opposed to pay per click advertising). Companies who do not take advantage of the benefits linking has to offer now will soon find themselves working to catch up to those who have been working on ranking for a while. In other words, women entrepreneurs, get to linking!

Amanda DiSilvestro is a writer on topics ranging from social media to business phone service providers. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including voip business phones to small businesses and entrepreneurs for the leading Business Directory, Business.com. (Photo Credit: e-marketercentral.com)