Remove This Unnecessary Link from Your Site
Writing by Brick Marketing in Link Building
A huge part of website development and SEO are links. Inbound links from other relevant websites help to improve your search engine authority and help generate traffic to your site. Outbound links to other websites provide visitors with additional information. Internal links from one page of your site to another are necessary in order to be a user friendly site that allows visitors to easily navigate to the page that best suits their needs. Obviously, links are important but there are links that many websites include within their footer that just aren’t necessary: the links to the business pages of the website developer, website designer, SEO firm, or marketing agency that worked on the site.
How many times have you visited a website and noticed at the bottom a statement that reads something like this: “Website design by XYZ Designers” or “Online marketing by ABC Interactive Marketing Firm”. These statements are accompanied by links to that business site. Here are some reasons why these links should be removed:
It’s sneaky
In many cases these links are just added in there without permission of the website owner. The web designer, developer, SEO, marketing specialist, etc. knows that the website owner probably won’t even think twice about it being there or may even think that it’s necessary for it to be there depending on their level of knowledge about website development. To the professional that added in the link, they know that it’s an easy way to get an inbound link from a trusted source and help boost their inbound link portfolio. It’s like the auto dealers that slap a promotional sticker or add a promotional license plate holder onto each car that they sell. They assume that the car buyers won’t notice or won’t care and it’s a free form of advertising.
It’s cheesy
Web designers, developers, SEOs, and online marketing specialists should know better. If a client is paying for a service, they really have no right to add this link to their site. It’s a lazy way to get an inbound link and reflects poorly back on that professional that they were willing to put this SEO tramp stamp on a client’s site.
It’s not relevant
When it comes to linking for SEO purposes, it’s all about relevancy. If a web designer creates a great site for a company that sells pet food- is that really relevant to the web design industry? That link doesn’t do much for SEO purposes and instead is just more like a big ad at the bottom of the page.
It’s a distraction
For any business and website owner, the business website is the hub of all online marketing activities. All efforts attempt to get someone to visit the website to learn more, fill out a form, purchase something, or convert in some other way. You want each visitor to be focused on your company and your products only. An outbound link to another service provider can be an unnecessary distraction. You don’t want a visitor to leave your page for any reason, especially not to check out the work of your web developer.
