Linking out to authoritive sites from my ecommerce site

[scamper]

Good afternoon SEOmoz community.

I was looking for a specific answer or advice or opinion about linking out to other sites.

My Site www.tacticalbootstore.com has been undergoing a complete content rewrite.  In the process we have been told and read where it can be good to link out to other authoritive sites.

One of the pages we have rewritten is here.

http://www.tacticalbootstore.com/belleville-boots-sizing-chart-a-97.html

We have not added the graphics yet as they are being built now.

This is just an informational page about sizing of a particular manufacturers boots.  Once you get to the bottom of the text we have added a link to the actual manufacturers page.

Is this helpful for us in the SERPS or not?

Thank you for your time.

Chris

[VividIT]

Hey Chris,

I have actually had this same situation last year and found that it was not beneficial nor detrimental to our search rankings.

I settled on the belief that if it is good for the consumer than we should add the link. Here though, I think you could probably re-write that content and place it on your own domain to provide unique value to your consumers instead of relying on Bellville to do it.

[danrawk]

Agree with Tbrems here. The more info the better (see the zappos page here and click the "about the brand" link)  http://www.zappos.com/nike-roshe-run-squardron-blue-sport-turquoise-gamma-grey-fiberglass#prdBrand

as to an actual link, i don't think i would link out as that takes the visitor off your site which you don't want.

[scamper]

Thanks for the input guys.  It is much appreciated.

So if I am understanding you correctly.  You are saying it is not beneficial to link out to the manufacturers website?

Thank you

[KaneJamison]

Hi Chris,

They're saying that it's better to link to internal resources such as a "Belleville" brand page on your domain, and then you can put the external link on that page.

It's not that linking out isn't beneficial (it is), but rather that it's more important to keep those visitors on the site, and build out those resources yourself. For a site that specializes in boots, a sizing chart is the type of content that you should recreate yourself rather than linking out.

In regards to linking out, try integrating that into blog content and things of that nature rather than core content related to your products and services.

On a usability sidenote, the black color for links makes them very difficult to see compared to the gray text color you're using.