As we have discussed in the previous blogs, skillful use of links is an important part of an online-business that has good SEO performance. Small changes can go quite a long way in this area, which brings a further incentive to take your time and think through how you want to go about it.
But, there is more to using links than just meeting various criteria set by Google (or other search engines) to boost your SEO attributes. This seemingly straightforward function actually impacts things like navigation, credibility, branding, etc.
Obviously there are quite a few factors involved here, and a lot is going to depend on which particular industry you are in and how you wanna direct the attention of your audience.
Nevertheless, there are a few things to have in mind before you settle on what you deem is necessary or superfluous. In this blog we want to give you a few pointers to draw out the general outline of things you might wanna take a note of. 
Navigation and the functional side
One important factor to consider when using links is their placement. Links placed near the beginning of a piece of content are more likely to be clicked on than those placed at the end. This is because readers are more engaged and attentive at the start of an article or page.
Another important factor to consider is the context of the link. Links that are placed within relevant, informative content are more likely to be clicked on than those placed in a list or sidebar. Placing links within informative content, can provide additional value to your audience and help to guide them to related information.
Also do not forget to use a site map. A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages on your website. It helps search engines crawl and index your website content effectively. 
Finally, it is important to consider the accessibility of your links. Ensure that your links are easily distinguishable from the surrounding text (make sure the contrast is there for the linked portions to stand out) and that they can be accessed using keyboard navigation. This is especially important for users with disabilities who may rely on keyboard navigation to browse the web.
Branding
It is also important to consider the quality of the links that you use. Using high-quality links from reputable sources can help to build your website authority and improve your ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). On the other hand, using low-quality or spammy links will tank just about any progress you have made.
Additionally, it is important to consider the language and tone of the linked page. By linking to pages that use similar language and tone as your own, you can ensure that the linked content aligns with your brand and messaging.
In terms of branding you can also use short, branded links made by Linkers, our platform. Starter packages are free at the moment, so you might want to look int that.
To top it off, social media links allow users to easily share your content on their own social media profiles. This can help increase your content reach and drive more traffic to your website. Be sure to include social media sharing buttons on all of your content pages.
Dead links
When using external links, it is important to ensure that the linked page is still relevant and up-to-date. Broken or outdated links can harm your website credibility and navigation. Therefore, it is crucial to periodically check your external links and make any necessary updates.
They also negatively impact your SEO performance, plus there are quite a lot of tools that help you quickly find any broken/dead links that are on a given web-page - it is obviously recommended that you use them semi-frequently.
If you are interested in other things SEO, you might wanna check out our platform, mySEO, which provides an algorithm that sends automatic monthly reports which go through the issues your website has as well as how to fix them.
The conclusion
As you see, there is a lot to making the most of linking - even on the surface level. A lot of websites do not pay attention to these, which might give you even more incentive to eek out whatever advantage you can in this area.
Even these few points might be a lot if you have previously neglected them, so you might wanna slowly and gradually lean into them. However, make sure to prioritize getting rid of dead links, otherwise you are just piling up the work as well as keeping your SEO scores low.
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