Link building for SEO
Written by: Ryan Walsh
Published: 13/12/2024
What exactly are backlinks?
Backlinks are straightforward: a link and anchor text, and directly linking two websites.
Now, you can have internal links, sure. Still, this article will explain why external links can link to a website and how this can help increase your business search engine optimisation.
Like a big thumbs up
On social media platforms, people want more followers; if you have many engaged followers, you might be deemed an “influencer.”
Well, you have to remember the concept when it comes to backlinks because backlinks are like a vote of credibility; they are like a thumbs-up, a nod of approval if you like your business’s content marketing.
So, if well-known brands such as BBC, Nike, or Admiral Car Insurance let a renowned brand link to your work, this will massively improve that page’s search engine optimisation.
┌────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Business Website │
│ (Target for Improved SEO) │
└───────────────────┬────────────────┘
│
│
White Hat Link Building
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Key Elements │
│ │
│ 1. High-Quality Content: │
│ – In-depth articles, guides, research │
│ – Relevant blog posts and case studies │
│ – Original visuals, infographics, videos │
│ │
│ 2. Outreach & Relationship Building: │
│ – Influencer outreach │
│ – Guest posting on reputable sites │
│ – Partnering with industry organisations │
│ │
│ 3. Earned Media & PR: │
│ – Press releases with newsworthy content │
│ – Interview opportunities │
│ – Expert commentary for journalists │
│ │
│ 4. Content Promotion: │
│ – Sharing on social media │
│ – Email newsletters to subscribers │
│ – Promoting through niche communities │
└─────────────────────────┬─────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ Link Acquisition │
│ (Natural inbound links earned) │
└──────────────────┬─────────────┘
│
▼
┌───────────────────────────┐
│ Authoritative │
│ Backlink Profile │
│ (High-quality, relevant) │
└─────────┬─────────────────┘
│
▼
┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ Improved SEO │
│ – Higher search engine rankings │
│ – Increased domain authority │
│ – More organic traffic │
│ – Greater brand visibility │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
What are backlinks
All right, sock it to me: why are backlinks important to SEO?
Search engines such as Bing, Google, and ChatGPT all have crawlers. Let’s take Google for just a second. They find new companies and pages and navigate the web using backlinks.
Backlinks are, therefore, like a motorway. They allow Googlebot to travel around, visit different websites, crawl and index them, and evaluate how good the SEO actually is.
However, from an SEO point of view, if you have many quality links, then this approves the website’s authority, which means you move up Google’s ranks.
Google rewards high-quality links and content marketing.
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ User Query │
│ (User enters search terms) such as Find Me Nike running trainers │
└─────────────────┬─────────────────┘
│
▼
┌───────────────────────────┐
│ Google’s Search Stack │ “Google the search engine.”
└───────────▲───────────────┘
│
│
┌───────────────────────────┐
│ Crawling & Indexing Stage (Googlebot)│
│—————————│
│ Googlebot (crawler) visits│
│ web pages, follow links, do-follow and no-follow│
│ discovers new content marketing, and │
│ stores information in its │
│ vast index. │
└───────┬───────────────────┘
│ Indexed Pages
▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Ranking Factors │
│————————————-│
│ – Relevance to the query (keywords) │
│ – Quality & depth of content- Is the work of high quality? │
│ – E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, │
│ Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)│
│ – User experience (mobile-friendly, │
│ page speed, interface) │
│ – Backlinks (inbound links from │
│ authoritative sites- how many quality links does the business have) │
│ – Other technical signals │
└─────────────────▲───────────────────┘
│
│
┌────────────────┴─────────────────┐
│ Backlinks: │
│ Why They Are Important │
│———————————–│
│ – Backlinks act as “votes” of │
│ confidence from other sites- to show they have wanted to link to your work. │
│ – The quality and relevance of │
│ those links matter more than │
│ sheer quantity. So, think quality over quantity. │
│ – Trusted, authoritative sites │
│ linking to your page signal │
│ credibility to Google. │
└────────────────┬──────────────────┘
│ Strengthens Trust
▼
┌───────────────────────────┐
│ Algorithmic Scoring & │
│ SERP Placement │
│—————————│
│ (Google E-EAT) Google’s algorithm assigns │
│ scores to pages based on │
│ relevance & authority- how well written is the work │
│ Backlinks help boost a site’s│
│ authority score, check this using Moz Pro, potentially │
│ leading to higher SERP │
│ (Search Engine Results Page) │
│ rankings. │
└───────────┬─────────────────┘
│
▼
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ Search Results Page (SERP) │
│———————————│
│ – User sees ordered pages. For example, pages 1 to 10 on Google.co.uk │
│ – Pages with stronger ranking signals rank higher │
│ including quality backlinks, │
│ rank higher. │
│ – Higher rankings = more visibility│
│ and organic traffic= more sales when the SEO is done right (white hat) │
└──────────────────────────────────┘
PageRank
Backlinks are nothing new
Google PageRank
SEO agencies globally like to discuss the most recent and up-to-date Google algorithm updates, and this makes sense; we all want to stay up
to date with the latest advancements in SEO.
But backlinks are nothing new.
They have been a major ranking factor used by search engines like Google.
So, even before Google PageRank, Google used backlinks as one of the main ways to determine a page’s importance.
┌───────────────────────────┐
│ The Web │
│ (Interconnected Pages- so all businesses) │
└───────────┬───────────────┘
│
▼
┌───────────────────┐
│ Set of Web Pages │
│ (Pages A, B, C, │
│ D, etc.) │
└───────┬──────────┘
│
┌─────────────────┐ │ ┌────────────────┐
│ Page A │ │ │ Page B │
│ (links to B, C) │ │ │ (links to C) │
└───▲─────────────┘ │ └───────▲────────┘
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
┌───┴─────────┐ ┌─────────────────┴─────────┐
│ Page C │◀─────┤ Page D │
│ (links to A, D)│ │ (links to A, B, C) │
└──────────────┘ └────────────────────────────┘
**Link Structure:**
Each page “votes” for the pages it links to. The more links, the more link juice is sent to a page; however, the links must be quality.
– The importance of a page’s “vote” is based on its own PageRank.
– The more quality inbound links a page has, the higher its Google PageRank.
– High Google PageRank pages are more valuable than links from low-PageRank pages.
│
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────┐
│ Iterative Calculation of │
│ PageRank │
│—————————– │
│ Initially, all pages have │
│ equal PageRank. │
│ Then, PageRank values are │
│ computed repeatedly based on the following:│
This is where it gets complicated:
│ │
│ PR(Page) = (1 – d) / N + d * Σ [PR(LinkedPage)/L(LinkedPage)]
│ │
│ Where: │
│ – d is the damping factor (e.g. 0.85) │
│ – N is the total number of pages │
│ – L(LinkedPage) is the number of backlinks │
│ from that linked page │
│ – The summation (Σ) is the overall pages │
│ linking to this page │
└─────────────────────────────┘
│
│ Iterations Continue
▼
┌────────────────────────────────┐
│ Convergence │
│——————————–│
│ After multiple iterations by Google PageRank, │
│ PageRank values become stable. │
│ Each page’s Google PageRank reflects │
│ the “collective wisdom” of the │
│ the entire link structure of the │
│ web. │
└────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ Practical Outcome │
│———————————–│
│ Pages with higher Google PageRank are │
│ generally considered more │
│ authoritative, which are the links you want. This influences │
│ their visibility in search results (SERP’s)│
│ (along with many other factors). │
└───────────────────────────────────┘
Fast forward to today:
Google has confirmed, and many employees have said, that backlinks are still a ranking factor used by Google’s algorithm.
In fact, backlinks are still considered one of the most important ranking factors—in the top three!
So, if you want to get your business on page one of Google.co.uk, you often need backlinks. The companies that currently rank in the SERPs usually have many backlinks.
So, take the super competitive keyword “car insurance.” For a company to rank first on Google.co.uk for that term, it will need a lot of high-quality backlinks.
Search ranking factors
Not all backlinks are created equal.
Not all backlinks are worth the same.
This is the same with content marketing. Some blog posts can massively improve your business’s search engine optimisation, and you can attract thousands if not millions, of organic visitors worldwide when the work is of excellent quality and well-written.
However, if the work is low quality, spun, uses cloaking, or just not very good content marketing, that is, “content thin,” so lacking any real quality, it is not applicable, and this will damage your SEO.
This is the same for backlinks. Some will massively improve your SEO, and some will actually be deemed rubbish spam links, which will damage your business’s SEO.
Put another way:
A single-quality backlink from The Guardian Newspaper can be more potent than 1,000 low-quality backlinks.
So, to explain that in a nutshell, a single link, say from BBC News, can be much more valuable and beneficial to your SEO than having 1000 spam links. In fact, spam links will damage your SEO, so you only want quality.
Authoritative websites
So, authoritative websites are from well-known brands, companies, and publications that are respected in your business sector.
So, for example, we really like Search Engine Land. It’s the best place to get the best and most up-to-date SEO news—and yes, we gained a link from them.
So you have to seek out websites that are respected in your business sector, for example, offering news or awards. If you can get links from them, this will massively improve your SEO.
Anchor text
So, the anchor text is simply the highlighted text you click on to follow a link.
The person who’s written the article or the website owner can add the anchor text.
The anchor text clearly tells Google what that page or blog post is about.
So if you label the “anchor text” “Ferrari F40,” the Google bot will crawl and index that text, the anchor text, and will, therefore, know that the page is most likely about Ferraris.
A mixture of do-follow and no-follow backlinks
┌─────────────────────────┐
│ Google’s Algorithm │
│ (Evaluating Link Signals- are the links good quality or not?)│
└───────────▲─────────────┘
│
│
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ Linking Pages │
│ (e.g., Page A linking to Page B) │
└─────────────────────┬─────────────┘
│
│
┌────────────────────┴────────────────────┐
│ │
┌─────────▼─────────┐ ┌─────────▼─────────┐
│ Do-Follow │ │ No-Follow │
│ Link │ : Is the link followed or not followed? │ Link │
└───────┬───────────┘ └───────┬───────────┘
│ │
│ │
┌────────▼────────┐ ┌─────────▼─────────┐
│ Passes Google PageRank │ │ Historically, no │
│ (Link Equity) │ │ PageRank passed, │
│ Considered a │ │ now treated as a │
│ “Vote” of Trust │ │ “Hint” │
└───────┬──────────┘ └─────────┬─────────┘
│ │
│ │
┌─────────▼────────────────┐ ┌─────────▼─────────────────┐
│ Google Uses as a Direct │ │ Google algorithm May Use as a │
│ Ranking Signal │ │ Limited or Indirect Signal │
│ – Helps Improve │ │ – Less weight than do-follow│
│ Search Visibility │ │ – Depends on context/ │
│ – Increases Page’s │ │ authority of linking page │
│ Authority │ └─────────────────────────────┘
└──────────────────┬───────┘
│
│
┌────────────▼────────────────┐
│ Resulting Impact on Rankings │
│—————————–│
│ – Pages with strong do- │
│ follow link profiles, so a lot of these quality do-follow links tend │
│ to be seen as more │
│ authoritative, resulting business ranking higher in Google.co.uk and Google.com │
│ – No-follow links may │
│ still contribute signals │
│ but typically carry less │
│ direct influence. │
└─────────────────────────────┘
Ranking power
The difference between no-follow and do-follow links
So, walk to any SEO agency across the land, and they will say that a considerable proportion of an SEO consultant’s time and energy is spent trying to build backlinks.
Usually, the businesses on the first page of Google all have content marketing that is of good quality and offers similar advice.
So, how do you stand out?
Well, backlinks
It would be best to have quality backlinks, do-follow and no-follow, but here’s the difference: it’s only do-follow and improves a business’s SEO. That’s search engine optimisation.
So, take a major online retailer with good SEO, such as B&Q, the DIY store.
If you look at their backlink profile, say using Ahrefs, Moz Pro, or Majestic, they have thousands of good-quality links. This massively improves their search engine optimisation.
So, what are the main 3 top benefits of building backlinks?
┌─────────────────────┐
│ Build Quality │
│ Backlinks (do-follow and no-follow) │
└───────┬────────────┘
│
│
┌─────────────────┴─────────────────┐
│ │
┌─────────▼─────────┐ ┌──────────▼──────────┐
│ Improved SEO │ │ Increased Referral Traffic │
│ Rankings, more quality links, higher your business should run │ │ │
└─────────┬─────────┘ └───────────┬─────────┘
│ │
│ │
┌───────────▼───────────┐ ┌──────────▼───────────┐
│ Enhanced Domain │ │ Greater Brand │
│ Authority & Trust │ │ Visibility │
└───────────┬───────────┘ └───────────┬───────────┘
│ │
│ │
┌─────────▼─────────┐ ┌──────────▼────────┐
│ Potential for More │ │ Competitive Edge │
│ Conversions │ │ & Market Leadership │
└────────────────────┘ └────────────────────┘
More organic traffic
No one opens a shop in the middle of nowhere because, well, you won’t get any customers.
No business owner wants to build a website with no organic visitors, and you won’t have many sales.
So, to improve organic SEO, it’s all about building quality links to improve visibility, attract more shoppers, and increase sales.
Building domain authority?
Having a lot of quality links, such as links from Addidas, if you retail, say, running trainers, will improve the business’s domain authority.
Which will help that page rank higher on Google.
You have to put your back into it and write quality content marketing
So, it might go against the grain, that is, writing article after article offering free advice.
And you might think, why am I writing 2,000+ words and offering free advice?
When a business ranks right at the top of the Christmas tree, it is in the top positions on Google, which can draw in many customers.
This, if done right, can help to increase sales.
So, the reason why top solicitors put their best solicitors to work in conjunction with copywriters at their appointed SEO agencies is with good reason.
They know that if they offer top-quality advice, their page stands a good chance of ranking on page one of Google.
Now, this might not happen overnight; it might even take years for that page to rise through Google’s ranks, but when you accumulate a bunch of pages on page one of Google, well, this is when you can draw in more customers, which can translate to more sales.
We are the absolute masters of this process
We have been around the block.
We have been helping various businesses of all sizes in a wide cross-section of business sectors increase their sales by improving their organic search engine optimisation.
We work like busy bees, building links and writing quality content marketing that will have a high Google E-EAT score. We can improve the technical SEO and on-page SEO factors.
We are good at what we do, and we are always on the lookout to work with other businesses who want to partner with us and grow as a company.
We mostly work with companies based in Cardiff, yet we are open to companies based anywhere in the U.K.
So do come and have a chat with our highly experienced SEO consultants. We have the kettle on waiting and are ready to implement a
winning SEO strategy for you.
┌─────────────────────────┐
│ High-Authority Website │
│ (e.g., .edu, .gov site) │
└───────────┬────────────┘
│
│ Link
v
┌─────────────────────┐
│ Your Website │
│ (Target Site) │
└─────────┬───────────┘
│
│ Link from:
v
┌───────────────────────┐
│ Industry-Specific Blog │
│ Guest Post Links │
└───────────┬───────────┘
│
│ Link
v
┌─────────────────────┐
│ Online Directories │
│ & Resource Pages │
└───────────┬────────┘
│
│ Link
v
┌───────────────────┐
│ Social Media & │
│ Influencer Posts │
└───────────────────┘
┌───────────────────────────────┐
│ Research High-Value │
│ Targets │
└───────┬───────────────────────┘
│
v
┌───────────────────────────────┐
│ Create Valuable Content │
└───────┬───────────────────────┘
│
v
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ Outreach & Relationship Building │
└───────────┬──────────────────────┘
│
v
┌────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Editorial Links & Guest Posts │
└───────────┬────────────────────────┘
│
v
┌───────────────────────────────┐
│ Social Promotion │
└───────────┬───────────────────┘
│
v
┌──────────────────────────────────┐
│ Earned Backlinks (Authority) │
└───────────┬──────────────────────┘
│
v
┌───────────────────────────────┐
│ Monitoring & Maintenance │
└───────────┬───────────────────┘
│
v
┌───────────────────────────┐
│ Refine and Repeat Cycle │
└─────────────┬─────────────┘
│
└───> Back to Research