Link in my blog to external pages - no follow?

[ESB]

Hi everyone.

I'm quite new to SEO (started 6 months ago, but I'm very lucky to work the company that is willing to pay while I'm learning).

I also create some content for the website - I write wood flooring industry blog.

Following some advise from few SEO experts around the world whom I follow I have decided to write 1-2 off topic blogs/month but I have found the way of writing off topic but in reality bringing together wood flooring industry and let's say fashion industry.

My question is - if I want to link to one or two pages (let's say bug fashion brands) shall I use no-follow link?

I do not want to harm my website or theirs. Can those type of posts be the part of building my position within my industry and in general, building authority of my website? Of course appart from getting links TO my website.

Tom

[irvingw]

You can safely have follow link to other websites in your blog posts. However, as a general rule, the anchor text links should be on the brand names of the companies you are linking to. These links should not be reciprocal or paid links.

[TommyTan]

Hi Tom,

Question, are the sites you linking to relevant to the post or your industry?  How are you bringing wood flooring industry and let's say fashion industry together in the post.  If you are explaining how wood flooring and how it's affected by the fashion industry or something related, then there is no harm using follow links and it makes sense to link to the fashion site.

However, if the sites you are linking to are irrelevant to the post, i would not link to it in the first place.  You should only link to other sites/pages only if it helps your readers understand more about the subject or anything relevant.

Hope this helps.

Thank you!

[ThompsonPaul]

There are only three reasons to no-follow a link, Tom.

1. The link is untrusted - e.g. User-generated content like blog comments or forums
2. The link is being paid for or is otherwise part of a business arrangement (this is a little broader - can include large-scale guest-posting and press releases)
3. In specific cases to help manage crawl budget for a site (note: NOT to be used to try to manage flow of "linkjuice" internally through a site)

Anything other than these uses could actually cause overuse of no-follow to make your own site look spammy/questionable.

Here's a really good overview post from Raven Tools blog on exactly the question you're asking about what constitutes effective, safe use of outbound links.

Hope that helps?

Paul