Author: Ryan Walsh (best SEO agency in Cardiff)

UK Listings

Date: 01/10/2025

Subject: Link building

In a nutshell, Cardiff businesses seeking to rank high within Google’s organic search results require a lot of quality backlinks.

In fact, businesses in the United Kingdom today require a substantial number of high-quality backlinks to achieve the ultimate goal of ranking on the first page of Google. As old backlinks are deleted, etc, it’s a constant battle to build new links.

Quite simply put, the businesses at the top of Google, which shine bright like a diamond, typically have a ton of high-quality backlinks.

What exactly is a backlink profile?

So, a backlink profile is simply a long list of all the domain names, that’s websites that have chosen to provide an outbound link to your business. This can then help improve your business’s domain authority (DA Score), and this can also help you rise in Google’s organic ranks.

However, gaining backlinks is not a piece of cake; it’s not a walk in the park, and it’s not easy!

It requires great skill, and when you walk around most SEO agencies today, most of them are crammed full of inexperienced copywriters and marketing staff spitting out social media posts and 1000-word articles that lack any original perspective.

What is often lacking in many agencies is therefore highly experienced link builders and copywriters that can write work which has high

Google E-EAT score.

Backlink building requires skill

For SEO agencies that serve clients operating in low-competition business sectors, what often happens is that the businesses produce content marketing that is loosely written (content thin) and has been written to a time limit (say 2 hours or less).

What does this produce?

Well, rubbish results more often than not.

What is, in fact, needed is a whole team of SEO experts working together in tandem.

To build strong backlinks, to write genuinely insightful content marketing, and to offer some care when writing it. This is to improve the

Google E-EAT score, accompanied by quality backlinks.

Backlinks, in my 10 years of experience, are what make the most difference when getting a company onto page 1.

Here at Walsh & Partners we utilise a high-quality backlink tools such as Ahrefs.

Here at Walsh & Partners, we are the real deal; we work with businesses in Cardiff city centre that operate in hugely competitive business sectors.

And because we are the best at what we do in this area, when we quote for an SEO package, it’s precisely that – a complete package.

All SEO needs, including backlinks, content marketing, and on-page SEO, are neatly packaged into one box.

Why does it even matter to have strong backlinks?

When a shopper lands on a company website, they often want to buy an item or a service as quickly as possible. This means that good web design matters, but often the customer won’t have a clue why that website surfaced right at the top of Google’s organic results.

Now, here’s how you do just that:

Domain authority of the source site.

What is important is that you gain backlinks from external websites which have a high DA.

Now, DA was first invented by Moz. Yet, when you go to any SEO company across the land, often before they gain a link, they check first to see what that business’s domain authority is like.

They often run the domain name through Moz, or, say, Majestic, or Ahrefs, which is what our agency uses for clients in Cardiff.

Is the domain authority score high?

If the domain authority score is high, such as when you earn a do-follow backlink from the BBC, then it can have a dramatic and positive

uplift on the business’s organic SEO.

Relevance of the link and anchor text

A good SEO consultant will ensure that the anchor text is well-written and optimised for search engines. For example, if they are citing relevant facts and statistics, they will ensure that the anchor text in the paragraph clearly indicates what the statistic is referencing.
As one of the top SEO agencies in this area, we have found that adding an anchor to each blog post and page is highly effective, provided we consistently follow white-hat guidelines and the advice outlined in “Google’s Webmaster Guidelines”.

Target URL

What you don’t want to do is send all the link equity just to one page, such as the homepage.

Instead, you want to send the link equity, also known as “link juice”, to many different pages and posts as possible.
This is when it sends link juice through to different pages, which can them give them a good uplift in Google’s organic results.

What about AI- are backlinks still important when optimising for AI and LLMs?

If any marketing company is ignoring AI optimisation at the moment, well that’s a bit like walking into a room and ignoring a big fat elephant looking right at you.

You shouldn’t ignore it; AI and LLMs are becoming increasingly critical.

Around 10% of U.K. users use AI programmes daily, and it has been reported that roughly 41% of visitors use them occasionally.- AI optimisation should therefore be part of your marketing strategy.

Currently, it is not precisely clear how LLMs mention websites; however, what most leading digital marketing agencies, including ours, say is that traditional organic ranking factors, such as links remain important in terms of needing to be optimised

So, good quality content marketing, backlinks, and on-page signals are all critical when optimising for Google organic results and for the LLM’s.

What makes a good backlink?

Relevant
The backlink should be relevant; for example, if you run a scaffolding business, you will want the link to come from a relevant construction-related website.

Established and respected

Is the website that’s linking to you established and respected?

For example, any U.K. director will instantly be able to cite business publications that are widely respected in their business sector. For example, talk to any top solicitor, and they will tell you that the “Solicitors Journal” is one of the most respected news websites for lawyers.

Therefore, aim to obtain high-quality links from reputable, respected news publications.

Does the source page have a good Google E-EAT score?

Have a look at the pages that link to your business. Does the page have a high Google E-EAT score?

If you’re unsure how to calculate this, consult with your relevant SEO agency, which will be able to evaluate whether that page has a good E-EAT score or not.

Diverse backlink profile

You don’t want too many links from just one source (domain name); what you want is a diverse range of high-quality links coming from a wide array of websites.

For example, links from the BBC, The Guardian, and perhaps the FT newspaper website as well.

No spam

Don’t build the spam links, because it’s like building a sandcastle when the tide is coming in.

As soon as they are built, they will get knocked down. Talk to any reputable marketing company, and what they will quickly tell you is that building spam links, or rubbish links, is putting your business’s SEO in serious trouble, because you could face a link penalty.

Varied anchor text

When writing anchor text for the website, whether that’s for internal or outbound links, aim to write the anchor text as clearly as possible, so that helps shoppers know exactly where the link will take them.

Links point to multiple different pages.

What you want is multiple high-quality, high-DA backlinks; these will make a dramatic impact on your business’s search engine optimisation.

Spammy and over-optimised

What often happens is that a business will typically build no links or hardly any links at all, then this means that the business’s organic search engine optimisation will be very weak indeed.

On the other hand, there could be “over-optimisation issues”- this can lead to a link penalty. This is when the business goes completely overboard building links. This can lead to over-optimisation problems, such as the construction of too many links in a short period, resulting in link velocity being too fast, meaning too many links are built in a short period.

Do-follow and the no-follow backlinks

What any good marketing business will tell you is that you want a mix of do-follow and no-follow backlinks.

The do-follow link will send link equity to your website, whereas the no-follow link does not.

You may automatically come to the conclusion that you want just “do-follow links”, but talk to any link-building expert, and they will tell you that you often need a mixture of the two.

Relevance

It’s crucial that when you see your business’s backlink profile, the list of referring domain names are from businesses which are also relevant to your business.

For example, if you run a construction business (say a plant hire company), you will want a mixture of do-follow and no-follow construction-related backlinks. These backlinks must be of very high quality and also come from a relevant source.

In our opinion, it is okay to have a few backlinks that are not exactly relevant, but you do not too many of these.

For example, you might sponsor a rugby team here in Wales. The rugby club may then link back to your business, which is perfectly fine. However, if your business is in construction, let’s say you’re a builder / construction firm, most of your links should be related to the construction industry.

Avoid the toxic links.

A problem that many businesses in Cardiff often encounter is that they focus too much on quantity and not enough on the quality of the backlinks.

What ends up happening then is that a mass of toxic links, or “spam links”, will emerge in the backlink profile, diluting the effectiveness of any quality links you have.

Remember, quality is the name of the game.

Here at Walsh & Partners, we have been working with many local businesses for up to a decade.

During that time, for the Cardiff businesses we have worked with, we have ensured that we have improved and strengthened their backlink profile, helping them climb to the top of Google.

We are the best SEO agency to choose here in Cardiff if you want a highly experienced and knowledgeable SEO company to help you attract more customers.

FAQ section:

Out of all the ranking factors how important are backlinks?

Broadly speaking, there are over 200 ranking factors that Google’s algorithm calculates when working out the strength of any businesses SEO. However, what’s important for any Cardiff business to know is that backlinks are the most important, the most crucial SEO ranking factor to get right. Backlinks, or “links” for short are therefore the most important ranking factor of them all.

So build wisely!

You only want quality links, built slowly, so that the link velocity picked up by Googlebot is not too fast.

Has your marketing agency got much experience of building backlinks?

Yes, Ryan Walsh, who owns and runs Walsh & Partners is known as one of the best SEO consultants in this country. To give you a good example of how good we are, Ryan his self has been linked to by Search Engine Land, which is widely considered one of the best SEO resources and place for the latest marketing news on the planet.

This is what makes Ryan Walsh one of the best SEO experts in this area.

Why it important to regularly check the health of a business’s backlinks

Businesses can accumulate spam links, sometimes this is done via a malicious actor, for example a competitor which builds spam links to your domain name. This is to try and drag your website down Google’s ranks.

This is why it’s a good idea for your appointed marketing company to check the quality of the inbound backlinks.

Why are toxic backlinks so damaging?

Toxic backlinks can actually trigger a Google Penguin penalty. This can mean that when Google then trigger that algorithmic penalty, that the business is sometimes fully removed off Google.

Should we buy backlinks?

No, not really, the best way to obtain backlinks, is for your business to publish content marketing that’s such good quality, other businesses will want to link to it.

How much does your monthly fixed price SEO packages start from?

We are now taking on more clients, prices start from 1k per month.