Are you sharing the link love?  Many seo guys out there think that having no external links to competitor sites is the way to go….and no you are wrong, very wrong. You have to have outgoing links on your site or Google will know that something is not quite right about your website.  Linking to other sites that have similar content and that are in the same market or niche that you are in is a basic yet still very integral part of building your web sites popularity and authority in the search engines.

You don’t have to link to competition but many times, you competitors are the best places to link out to. You can simply put links to these sites in an “out of the way” location on your site or get setup as an affiliate with them and if you lose a customer the the link, you still get paid.  The point is, not matter what you website needs outbound links and these links must point to other relevant sites.  So pick and choose carefully. You can find the most beneficial sites to link to by doing a simple search on your set of keywords.  What sites show up?  These sites are the authority sites on your topic, so link them up.

Choosing the right sites to link out to is as important as choosing quality sites for inbound linking. So if you are one of those guys who is being stingy with your links, it may be time to show a little link love.  Google will of course reward your with some love of its own if you do this correctly and don’t go overboard with outbound links.  A handful of outbound links is plenty, there is no reason to list hundreds of links, any page with many links looses “weight” or value on a per link basis.  It is all about balance in the end.

Have fun getting your page to the top of the search engines results page and have fun sharing your link love!