What are backlinks and how to you go about building them?

Introduction

A lot of businesses will do a bit of research prior to investing in SEO, that’s so they can understand a bit about the process.

And while doing this research into SEO, there will undoubtably be one term that keeps cropping up time and time again, that term is “backlinks”.

Yet, with so much conversation among various seo agencies about backlinks it can be confusing as to know which backlinks your business needs.

That’s to say does your business need no-follow or do-follow backlinks? Does your business require quality backlinks from just a few websites, or do you operate in a very competitive business sector and potentially require thousands of good quality backlinks?

So many questions, so little time!

Without further ado, why not let us answer some of the most commonly asked questions we get asked about backlinks.

Tell us, why exactly are backlinks so important?

Most businesses want to be ranked on the first page of Google. After all, if your business is on the first page of Google then for some businesses this can increase the volume of sales that the business makes.

That’s the obvious bit, what’s less obvious is how a business gets onto the first page of Google.

Well, it all comes down to the strength of your businesses ranking signals. There are thought to be over 200 ranking signals for each website.

And that’s right you guessed it, if your website has the strongest it will rank on the first page of Google.

But, there’s a further layer of complexity, that’s because Google’s algorithm and also most search engines do not treat all ranking signals the same.

That’s to say some are much more important than some others. Backlinks however are widely regarded as one of the most important ranking signals, that’s to say some seo companies believe that backlinks are in the top three, in terms of how important that ranking signal is.

 

So, why does quality matter so much?

So many businesses and also so many marketing agencies still build backlinks incorrectly.

Sometimes this is just due to the fact they do not know how to build backlinks, but sometimes its due to the fact they are just trying to cut corners.

Either way it boils down to this, if your business has spammy links, or low-quality links then its likely your website will be hit with a link penalty.

A link penalty can mean your website drops in terms of where it ranks. If the backlinks are really rubbish, in terms of quality then your business may well be removed altogether.

 

So, what exactly are internal backlinks?

Backlinks can either be internal or external, internal backlinks simply take somebody to another page on your website.

So let’s say for example you run an accountancy practice, and your writing about a new change to corporation tax, well at the end of the blog post you may wish to offer the reader to visit your page which offers more information on corporation tax.

So in a nutshell it’s a brilliant way of keeping visitors on your website for longer. As what might have happened instead is the reader may have found out what they needed to know about the corporation tax change, and then not read about the accountancy services that your business offers.

What exactly are external backlinks?

This is the important bit, and that’s because white hat seo companies, like ours use external backlinks in order to help improve where a business ranks.

So, for example, it doesn’t matter if you run a dental practice or a solicitors practice, often what’s needed to get your business onto the first page of Google is external backlinks.

This means that more often than not the businesses that rank on first page of Google, are ranked there because they have strong backlinks.

Therefore your digital marketing agency should be building quality backlinks for your business.

Can you tell us what are no-follow and do-follow backlinks?

In order to improve where a website ranks you need do-follow backlinks, the reason for this is do-follow backlink send what is called “link juice”.

This means that marketing agencies will be trying to build quality backlinks for their clients, which are do follow.

However, its worth knowing this, and that is most seo companies, including ours believe its important to have no-follow backlinks. These backlinks may not pass “link juice” yet if your backlink profile is completely made up do-follow backlinks then this can look artificial, and therefore not white hat.

 

 

What does “anchor text” mean?

The anchor text is simply the text that you click on in order to follow a link. So let’s say you are reading this SEO article, and you see a term your not too familiar with, such as “white hat”, well the business may offer a link to a page that explains what white hat means.

This is helpful to the reader, yet it is also beneficial to the businesses seo, the reason being is internal links help to reduce a websites bounce rate, and also help to keep the reader on your businesses website for longer.

So, tell us how exactly should my business be building backlinks?

First things first, we cannot stress the point enough that your business should only be building backlinks in a white hat way.

Therefore we think that the best way to build backlinks is to earn backlinks. What we mean by this is if you make your company website really useful, then its likely that other websites are going to what to link to your website.

So lets say for example you run a dental practice, if you offer really good information on how to look after your teeth, then other websites may wish to link to your website.

For example, a website which offers medical advice on how to prevent tooth pain, such a website may link to your work because they believe the article is well written, and will be useful to their readers.

If your business requires help with its seo, then why not give us a ring today?

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7 ways to improve your businesses onsite SEO

Introduction

It’s fair to say that SEO can be super complicated sometimes, after all building high quality backlinks is not easy to do.

Yet, with that said, there’s also some areas of SEO that are much easier to implement.

This means that as long your business is implementing white hat methods, well implementing these easy methods could help to improve your seo.

So this had us thinking, what do we think are seven easiest ways you can improve your websites onsite seo? And here they are:

 

#1 Separate pages

Sometimes some website designers want to build a website quickly, so this can sometimes mean that each group of products, or the group of services that your business offers are all listed on one page.

So for example, perhaps you run a plumbing business, and you offer emergency call outs, boiler repair and bathroom installations.

This is all well and good, yet if all these services are grouped together and advertised on one page on your website, well it becomes much harder to implement seo.

So instead you may wish to talk to your seo agency and have each main service placed on its own page.

This will allow each separate page to have its own service or product description, meta titles and meta description, unique url, alt tags.

 

#2 Adequate product or service descriptions

Again this leads us back to our previous point, and that is sometimes a website will come back from a website designer with its main pages that only have a few lines of text.

This means that when Googlebot crawls the page, it may have a hard time figuring out what the business is offering.

This is as opposed to a page which has a quite a wordy description, perhaps even answers some frequently asked questions that a customer may have for example.

So, for example, let’s say the business in question is a dental practice, and lets say the business offers teeth whitening.

Well this would present an opportunity to explain how the dental practice offers teeth whitening, who the staff at the practice are, and also answer some commonly asked questions also.

This would be a much better marketing strategy, that’s opposed to just having a few lines of text that explain the dental practices teeth whitening service.

 

#3 Meta titles and meta descriptions

Meta titles and meta descriptions are very easily to add to most websites. If you have a WordPress website, well they are super easy to add to any blog post or main page.

And they are an important part SEO.

If you don’t know what meta titles and meta descriptions are, well they are just the few lines of text that describe what that page offers.

So let’s say your looking for a new mountain bike, you search for businesses that sell “mountain bikes” and you will then be presented with loads of businesses. Some will be PPC adds and some will be organic business listings.

Now even though your business may well be on the first page of Google, your business still needs to standout.

To do this you should write a really good meta title and meta description, which will interest someone looking for what your business offers.

Also, you may wish to work with your digital marketing agency to implement what is called Schema.

This sounds complicated, but Schema is a form of structured language, and this means that if implemented correctly, then your business listing can feature more information, such as its star rating in terms of what customers think of your business.

Many SEO companies believe that by implementing Schema you can improve your businesses CTR.

CTR stands for click through rate, which simply means if your business has a organic business listing that stands out because of Schema, this can improve your companies’ CTR.

 

#4 Internal links

Let’s say you are writing a blog post, and you mention a few terms that people may not know the meaning of, well this is a great opportunity to use an internal backlink.

So let’s say you run a successful family law practice, and your writing blog posts about divorce, and you mention the word “mediation”- well, a lot of people will know not know how mediation can help them through the divorce process, so this is a good place to use an internal link that allows people to click the link, and read more about mediation on your website.

 

#5 Blog

Blogging or adding articles to your website is an important part of the SEO process. Yet, what sometimes happens is a business just won’t know what to talk about, or they blog only when they have the time.

What you often see is a business will have a really good seo strategy, so they are adding work on a regular basis, then they get onto the first page of Google, and just stop adding blog posts.

This often means that the website will soon drop in terms of where it ranks, as with organic seo often continuous effort is required.

So, this is often why so many businesses partner with seo companies like ours, this is so blog posts can be added on a regular basis.

 

#6 Loads correctly on smartphones

Some websites may well be mobile friendly, yet this doesn’t always mean they are easy to use. So work with your seo company to see if you can make your website easy to use on smartphones.

 

#7 FAQ

This is something that so many businesses just do not think about! It’s simple to implement, and it may just mean you generate more sales.

That is most businesses should have an FAQ. An FAQ allows you to answer commonly asked questions that your customers have, well having to improve how long a person spends on your businesses website.

Also if you have an FAQ and this does answer the persons questions, then this may have to reduce the websites bounce rate. The reason the bounce rate may well be reduced is the person may find an answer to their question, so they haven’t got to go to a competitors website to find the answer.

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What were the Google Penguin updates all about?

Introduction

From a business owner perspective, it can get mighty confusing when trying to keep up with all the changes that are made to how SEO should be implemented. This means that a lot of business owners can walk away from a meeting with their respective marketing agencies and feel rather bamboozled by all marketing jargon!

That’s to say all that talk about Hummingbirds, Pandas and Penguins, well anybody might think they are visiting a zoo not an SEO agency!

Yet these names all have real significance to how SEO should be implemented. That’s to say if any business was to ignore what any of these updates mean, well they are probably not implementing seo correctly.

And because every update to Google’s algorithm warrants its very own blog post, we are going to concentrate on the Google Penguin update here in isolation.

So, what exactly is the Google Penguin update?

In a nutshell how you implement SEO falls into one of two boxes, that’s the box labelled “white hat seo” and the other box is labelled “cutting corners”.

Now, we only ever recommend implementing white hat seo, which means to do the job properly.

Yet, with that said there are so many digital marketing agencies that simply decide to cut corners, that’s to say they try and fool Google’s algorithm.

However, trying to fool Google’s algorithm only results in one thing, and that’s a penalty being applied to the website.

Now an old tactic that some businesses used to use, and some agencies still do use is to try and improve where the business is ranked, is to build as many backlinks as they can to a page or the homepage of a website.

This means some businesses-built links regardless of whether they came from a quality source or not- this later proved to be a totally flawed seo strategy.

The reason being is these links would most likely be deemed as rubbish by the algorithm, so the website would most likely incur a Google Penguin penalty.

So what backlinks does your website need instead? Well, that’s a really good question! The backlinks your website really requires are quality backlinks, that are relevant to your business.

So, let’s say you run a solicitors practice, and you specialise in the area of employment law. The best backlinks for your law practice would be from a respected website that publishes employment law news.

This will be the sort of website that most employment solicitors will have heard of, and the news is deemed as reliable. This is the sort of website that your law practice should obtain a backlink from.

So, when an SEO agency states they will build thousands of links for a pittance, this wont be the type of backlinks that my business needs?

Building backlinks takes a huge amount of time. The reason being is the only backlinks your website requires are quality backlinks, as mentioned earlier.

So, if you approach an online marketing agency for a quote, and they say they can offer thousands of backlinks for very little money, well this is normally a sign that they might be building the backlinks incorrectly.

Instead you need to find an seo company that uses white hat methods, that’s to say they will normally build fewer backlinks, but the backlinks should be quality. You must partner with a respected seo agency, as if your marketing agency doesn’t build the links correctly then this could result in a link penalty.  

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

So, if a business did build the backlinks incorrectly, what would happen next?

A lot of businesses were affected by the Google Penguin updates when they were first rolled out, and it basically meant that if your website had spam links, or low-quality backlinks then your website may see its rankings drop.

So for example, say you run a dental practice, and you ranked number one for “dentists that offer teeth straightening” –  yet after the Penguin update, because your backlinks were low quality, you may drop to say page 11 of Google.

Sometimes if the backlinks were really low-quality, then your website may be removed altogether.

What does it mean to disavow backlinks?

If your website was affected by the Google Penguin updates, or has been hit by a penalty lately, then you really should consult with a respected white hat seo agency.

They will be able to tell you whether your backlinks should be disavowed, which means a request is sent to Google to ask them to ignore some of your business’s backlinks.

However, this should only be done by an expert, as disavowing the wrong links, well this could cause more of a problem.

Why should my SEO business be checking our backlinks on a regular basis?

If your website accumulates spam links, or your building low quality backlinks, this can result in a penalty being incurred.

With this in mind, your SEO agency should be checking your businesses backlinks. That’s to say if spam links, or low-quality backlinks are spotted, well your seo company should be doing something about this.

Does your business require help with its seo, then why not give us a ring?

 

 



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