This blog post focuses on one aspect of SEO with 4 sections, about links which increase traffic and SERP rank. Links are included in White-hat SEO which refers to an ethical practice that has a more humane approach. Furthermore, Gudivada, Rao and Paris (2015) state that White-hat SEO and Organic SEO are more likely to be clicked since Organic is more trusted than PPC and White-hat has longer visits. Thus to improve Organic SEO the website needs a White-hat SEO approach which has two parts on-page and off-page. On-page is internal such as: keywords, content, HTML. Off-page is external and focus on improving SERP via links. (Gudivada, Rao and Paris, 2015)

There are internal links which are links on your website to other pages of your website, then there are external links which are called inbound and outbound. Sasha Evdakov explains this very clearly in the video below.

SEO can be optimised by having user-friendly and compelling content since that is more likely to be shared which leads to broader reach and increase inbound links. (Hampson, 2018)

1.Inbound and outbound  

Outbound links are links on your website that refers to another website such as this:

(PlatinumSEOServices, 2019) 

Inbound backlinks are from another website that references you. Both types have a large impact on SEO, however, the websites must be trusted. (Hampson, 2018)

(PlatinumSEOServices, 2019)

Great article with a detailed explanation of the difference between inbound and outbound. Read more.

Hampson (2018) states Google crawls websites to assess the relevance and security including the links. High level of inbound links increases SEO, since Google robots will crawl it more and view it as important and thinking the content is useful. Thus, increasing and building inbound links is the foundation of improving SEO. Nevertheless, inbound links have a greater effect when they are from a trusted site, furthermore, companies would not want to be associated with an untrusted website. According to Rushton, Kelehan and Strong (2008), the risk of links from spam or untrusted sites is that Google can Google blacklist them. Samuel  (2013) states the risk of how easy it is to forget the importance of the text describing the inbound link which as an effect on SEO (Rushton, Kelehan and Strong, 2008). Furthermore, it is important to have outbound link in text not on images since that makes it harder for crawlers to read it (ibid).

2. Bad Links 

(McSweeney, 2019)

The risk of association with bad links is high states Gudivada, Rao and Paris (2015) which can be solved by type in rel=nofollow attribute in the HTML anchor to tell Google to ignore the link. If there are links that are bringing down your rank use Ahrefs an excellent website metric and performance tool, which can disavow inbound links.

A video and article by the digital marketing expert David McSweeney, explaining how to disavow inbound links via Ahrefs. Read here. 

3. How to increase inbound links with trusted sites

Online Directories  

• Use online directories which list website and can be broad, specific and niche-oriented
• Register on many high profile directories in the business sector, this makes it more likely to be chosen by other sites
• This can be used as well for the site to chose other websites to have outbound links to since outbound links increase SEO too, but not as much as inbound links.
  (Samuel, 2013)

Beware of the risk of using directories since it can be seen as unethical “link farms” and Google dislikes most of the services. (Gudivada, Rao and Paris, 2015) There are two options, chose a well known and trusted directory or use a search engine to research relevant trusted websites in your field and link to them.

Reciprocal Links

• Two websites agreeing in linking to each other 
• This is very effective since one gain outbound and inbound links.
• Untrusted association is eliminated since the website-owner can research the sites and select trusted ones.
  (Samuel, 2013)

Guest Blogging

• Sending out relevant and compelling content to popular blogs or online news that will be linked back to your website.
  (Samuel, 2013)

Tips:

• To increase links use WebMaster which asses how appealing your website is to external websites. By optimising the appeal the higher the probability is of increased inbound links.
• link to Wikipedia, Investopedia and Techopedia for deeper explanations. ( Funny fact, Google sees Wikipedia as a trusted website, thus having outbound links to Wikipedia can increase SEO.) 
• Create a page on Wikipedia about your business/website and link back to the website (Rushton, Kelehan and Strong, 2008)
• Link to Social Media accounts.
• Use links related to the business/website
• Link to high authority websites such as Gov.uk, BBC and The Telegraph. 

4. Metrics

Google Analytics shows how many inbound and outbound links, how many clicks, Organic SEO and more. Google measures the quantity and quality of inbound links “interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B.” Marketleap can be used to see how many inbound links there are to your websites. (Rushton, Kelehan and Strong, 2008)

Interesting article about how to find and monitor your inbound links Read more. 

Tips: 

• Use Google Analytics
• Use these free services:  Marketleap and Link Popularity Check.
• Create a spreadsheet to track which inbound links search engines pick up on. Since there is a risk that search engines miss certain inbound links and decreasing the potential SEO rank.
  (Rushton, Kelehan and Strong, 2008)

Bibliography 

Evdakov, S. (2019). Inbound vs Outbound Links (Internal vs External Links): SEO for Beginners Tutorial. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKBwFGWhVMU [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].

Gudivada, V., Rao, D. and Paris, J. (2015). Understanding Search-Engine Optimization. Computer, 48(10), pp.43-52.

Hampson, A. (2018). How to improve your organic search engine optimisation. Journal of Aesthetic Nursing, 7(1), pp.48-49.

MarketLeap. (2019). homepage. [online] Available at: http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].

McSweeney, D. (2019). An In-Depth Guide to Link Quality, Link Penalties and “Bad Links”. [online] SEO Blog by Ahrefs. Available at: https://ahrefs.com/blog/bad-links/ [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].

McSweeney, D. (2019). How to Disavow Links Using Ahrefs and Google Webmaster Tools. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l72XPkdgAo4 [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].

PlatinumSEO Services. (2019). Internal and External Links and Why. [online] Available at: https://www.platinumseoservices.com.au/blog/difference-between-external-and-internal-link [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].

Rushton, E., Kelehan, M. and Strong, M. (2008). Searching for a New Way to Reach Patrons: A Search Engine Optimization Pilot Project at Binghamton University Libraries. Journal of Web Librarianship, 2(4), pp.525-547.

Samuel, S. (2013). Search engine optimisation to improve your visibility online. In Practice, 35(6), pp.346-349.

Web SEO Services. (2019). What Are Inbound Links | What Are Outbound Links in Link Building. [online] Available at: http://www.webseoservices.in/what-are-inbound-and-outbound-links/ [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].

Webmaster-toolkit.com. (2019). Link Appeal :: Webmaster Toolkit. [online] Available at: http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/link-appeal.shtml [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].