Linking in Hubs? Yes, No or How?

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   tsmogposted 11 years ago

   I left Hubpages for about nine months for stuff in life type reasons. Now back and writing again. I use to use links in hubs all the time in paragraph structures as a referencing too. I am illiterate with SEO other than social media.
   
   Does linking within paragraph structure offer a benefit with web crawlers? Logic tells me if they leave the article with a link many will not return to the article. Is that the purpose of that kind of linking? I understand it generating views to a blog I may have or website or that of a business entity I work with in those forms, but does that affect SEO stuff and what web crawlers do?
   
   Any discussion or help is appreciated. I guess a good book would be a great idea too. If there are recommendations please advise with a big thank you in advance.

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   1. 87

      Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      You're right.  Putting links in your Hub requires a fine balance!   Ideally, you want your readers to leave your Hub by clicking on an ad, or going to your own website - not following a link that doesn't benefit you.  However, it's important to ensure you're being helpful to your reader, and links are often part of that.
      
      I avoid the whole problem by putting all my external links at the bottom of my Hub, either as a "References" capsule or a "Further Reading" capsule, depending on what the links are for.  If readers have already got to the end of my Hub, they've already bypassed all the ads, so I'm not missing out!   You may get a warning about having too many links in one place, but don't worry - it's automated, it doesn't apply in that situation and you won't be penalised for it.
      
      As for books - don't waste your time buying books about SEO.   Things change so fast on the internet these days, by the time a book is published it's out of date.

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      1. 76

         tsmogposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         First I see wisdom with a book. So, that means the one I bought two years ago and did not read is best donated LOL. Thank you for the kind advice Marisa. When I first became a hubber three years ago my hubs were full of links. I remember I tried once to with Google Analytics seeing how much time on an article and if it correlated with links (using both avg reading time and about half for skimming an article). I did see parallels with links and ads.
         
         I will take heed to your advice and anymore to develop a strategy. Thank You!

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         1. 87

            Marisa Wrightposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Definitely donate that book - or better yet, burn it!   I would never normally say that about a book - but the landscape has changed so much in the last two years, I'd hate to think you'd be passing it on to someone else who might be fool enough to trust it!
            
            I do recall another Hubber doing some experiments.  He added 10 outgoing links to each of his Hubs and claimed that it dramatically improved his traffic.  Of course the links were all relevant and to quality sites.   The trouble is, it's always hard to know for sure why traffic improves - it could've been some other reason entirely!   The other risk is that you create a maintenance headache with that many links on every Hub, because of the risk of broken links.
            
            One other observation - it looks as though you write mainly humorous and reflective pieces.  Most of them won't do well in search engines whatever you do (to see why, ask yourself, "what would someone have to type into Google to find this?  Are they likely to?").  So, unless you're going to change direction and start writing more searchable topics, you might be better to stop worrying about SEO and start thinking about how to build a following in other ways.

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