Here at Altogether Digital we have an SEO team made up of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and this means that the metaphors we use to explain how we think the search engines work can be very varied.

In my case, it means that I often think of the algorithms as being the engines' attempts at replicating a human brain, in so much as they try to predict what a human is likely to find useful; whilst my colleague Wilson recently explained that he thinks of the first page of the search results as being akin to streets in a town, in that you get more custom if you're on the high street (the 1st page) than you do if you're down some back-alley (page 3 and beyond).

It was whilst we were chatting about these things that we came up with a way of explain to, often reluctant, clients why they should not be scared to link out of their sites. I thought I'd share it here so that:

• you can use this metaphor yourselves
• you can call me an idiot and tell me to shut the hell up

When people create content on a site they will, if they are concerned with SEO, think about how to drive links into that content. But often the idea of linking out from that content to external sites will be something that they would never consider.

"We'll lose traffic," they'll say. "People will click off and never come back," will be the refrain you hear. But as soon as you start thinking about the results pages as streets, and the algorithms as an attempt to replicate human thought, you realise that it makes complete sense.

Let's imagine that the engines try to rank pages based on what they think a human would want to see. If there are two pages, both equal in terms of all on-page issues and link popularity, they will, in my opinion, be more likely to rank a site or page which links out to other quality, relevant content. Why? Because users don't want to be sent to a cul-de-sac.

If an engine was to send me to a page which had lots of lovely information, but which left some of my questions unanswered and didn't link out to other sources, I would be forced to go back and search again, because the page I was sent to was the equivalent of a cul-de-sac. And this might mean that I decide that the results I was served with weren't that great, so that next time I was looking for information, I might try a different search engine. The result? Less revenue, shares drop, no more planes for Larry & Sergey.

However, if your page provides avenues (i.e., links out) to other sources that might answer the questions that your page couldn't, then I will be left with a general feeling of contentment. "Gosh," I'll be thinking, "didn't that engine provide me with a wonderful resource." And the result of this would be that the engine would be more likely to reward your page with a higher placement for making it look so good.

On top of this, there is another reason why providing links to other sources is likely to boost your SEO; by making your page a hub of information, it's more likely that others will link to you, rather than to several different pages. Just look at Wikipedia; as a one-stop shop for anyone looking for info on a subject, it attracts thousands & thousands of links (although not that many from SEOmoz, of course). 

Whilst many may scoff at this seemingly unscientific way of assessing SEO, I've found that it's essential because it never hurts to think in ways that clients can relate to, or to remember that at the end of the day, the engines want what they think is best for their users. 

Ciarán is the SEO & Social Media Director at UK online marketing agency Altogether Digital. And yes, he knows that there's only two links out of this post.