Author: Ryan Walsh
Subject: Link building / Off-page SEO

 

 

Introduction

SEO changes like the weather, or to be even more precise, Google changes its algorithms like the weather.
But why does it do this?

For two good reasons, Google wants to supply a quality answer to any query. Now, to do this, it has this juggling act to follow: It rewards businesses that closely follow Google E-EAT guidance while punishing businesses that use spam methods.

Spam, just for the record, is not the type that comes in a can and is made of pork.

Nope, spam methods, such as buying a huge bunch of spammy links from spam websites, where the anchor text is crammed with keywords that the business wishes to rank for.

Just a word of advice before we go any further: Don’t buy links, don’t buy spam links, don’t even buy just a few. It’s just not worth it. We shall explain why this is so later on.

 

Google E-EAT and link building

If you’ve worked in SEO for long enough, and we have, you will have heard about Google PageRank.
Now think of this a bit like where the acorn, if you like, started. Now, it’s a big, blooming, massive oak tree. Yet at the start, like all businesses, Google started with a significantly less sophisticated algorithm called ” Google Page Rank.”

Now, central to Google’s PageRank inner workings was the concept that the more links, the better. Backlinks were, therefore, the golden ticket to getting any business onto page one of Google.

Fast-forward to today. At the time of writing, late October 2024, backlinks are still considered one of the main ranking factors that Google uses to determine whether your business should be on page one of page 10 of Google’s results.

 

So, what’s changed?

Spam has been given the boot, again, not the type you buy in a tin can; we are talking about spam SEO methods. Businesses that use spam methods, such as buying backlinks, are likely to be hit by one of Google’s many spam-busting algorithm updates.

Now, if we’re talking about backlinks, which we are, it’s likely that the Google Penguin update picked up that the business has a spammy backlink profile. Google can “de-index” the site, which means totally remove it from Google, or it can move the website down.

When some businesses are hit by a Google Penguin update, it’s like taking a knock from Mike Tyson—it will hurt for a long time. Some businesses have been moved down Google’s ranks, sometimes substantially.

 

So, with all this in mind, let’s have a chat about the following:

• Is link building still important?
• How to build quality backlinks
• Should you use A. I tool to write the content marketing, to offer as a guest post?
• Do SEO agencies still work on building backlinks for their clients?

Weathering the storm

We have been improving our clients’ SEO for various Cardiff businesses for well over 10 years. Therefore, we are in a perfect position to tell you if backlinks are still an important part of SEO and to recap a bit on how search engine optimisation has changed.

So, there are many methods of organic SEO that no longer work. If you use them, your business will get a big fat Google penalty—those are cloaking, buying spam links, using spun content marketing, duplicated text, and over-optimising the anchor text. There are so many more ways to ruin your SEO to the point that your business lands on page 10 of Google or gets de-indexed altogether.

So, there have been many algorithm updates over the years, and many businesses have weathered the storm of various Google algorithm updates really well. Some others haven’t and have basically received fat Google penalties.

So, if you want to weather the storm in the future, we would recommend:

• Reading more about Google E-EAT and improving your business E-EAT score
• Only using white hat SEO methods
• Follow Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

 

2012 and Google’s Penguin update

So, before we go any further, it’s worth talking about Google’s Penguin update in a bit more detail, as it’s still very much part of Google’s algorithm. This means that if a business starts building backlinks the wrong way today, i.e., buying spam links, the company will get a big fat Google penalty.

So, way back in 2012, Google introduced the Google Penguin update, which was a massive change to Google’s algorithm. It eradicated businesses from the first page that had gotten there by buying spam links.

Because the Google Penguin update is still very much part of Google’s core algorithm today, it’s so important that you build backlinks only the right way for your business.

 

Google E-EAT and the Google Helpful content update

So, Google has released guidance on what it wants to see when a business is publishing content marketing, such as main pages or blog posts.
First things first, it must be helpful to the customer, yet it must also show expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Now, this was a major update by Google in itself, so we will save talking about Google E-EAT for another blog post. But for now, let’s zone in on one part of the update: the ” authoritativeness” aspect.

So, in a nutshell, for a page or blog post to rank on page one of Google.co.uk or Google.com, for that matter, or if you’re in Germany, Google.de, well, the page must have a good Google E-EAT score, and one part of that is Google’s attractiveness, which means building quality links.

If your business has quality links from well-known brands or respected websites in your industry, this will nudge your business up Google’s ranks.

So, for example, we run a successful SEO agency in the heart of Cardiff. Two websites that are well-known by SEO consultants across the globe are Search Engine Land and Moz. We have had backlinks from both, which partly explains why you are likely to have found our business on the first page of Google.co.uk.

 

Should we use A. Are there tools to write our guest posts?

The short answer is no. We don’t think you use artificial intelligence (AI) to write your guest posts.
Here’s why we think so:

 

Helpful advice

Google has rolled out a large algorithm update called “The Google Helpful Content Update,” which basically rewards businesses that publish useful information. This is so that shoppers can find an answer to a question they have about a product or service simply.

However, this advice should be written with the help of an expert. So, suppose your business is an expert on fishing rods, and you write 3,000 recommendations on the best fishing rods to buy in each price category. In that case, this will likely be helpful information for anybody wanting to buy a fishing rod.

Plus, an expert writes the work; it’s written by somebody who is an expert on fishing rods. So it’s clear to the reader that care has been taken to give useful and helpful advice. This is likely to have the following benefits:

 

Dwell time

A reader who is engaged and interested in the advice the article offers is likely to read that article for longer. This means they spend a long time sipping their tea while reading the blog post. Google knows how long a reader is spending on a page or reading a blog post; this is called the “dwell time”- if you can get the dwell time to be high because a reader is interested in what advice you are offering, then this is good for the businesses SEO. They are also more likely to want to follow the internal links within the article.