Written by: Ryan

Table of contents:

What is the difference between internal and external backlinks?

How do Google algorithms use external links to assess the strength of a business’s search engine optimisation?

Why is it important to lower a company’s bounce rate?

What is user experience?

What does anchor text mean? Why is it important not to optimise this text?

How our expert team can help?

To put it in a nutshell, to improve a business’s search engine optimisation, the company must have a strong backlink profile. Ever since the days of Google’s PageRank, Google has viewed backlinks as a key indicator of a business’s search engine optimisation strength. If companies have numerous powerful links (high DA), they will have much stronger domain authority, resulting in more organic traffic.

If you are scratching your head, wondering what “Google PageRank” means, do not be overly concerned about this term at the moment, as it’s just a description of one of the many algorithms that Google uses.

Google’s algorithm has become significantly more sophisticated; it now utilises numerous additional ranking factors to calculate and measure the strength of your business’s search engine optimisation.

However, a long time ago, Google relied almost entirely on backlinks to assess the strength of a business’s organic search engine optimisation (SEO). However, when you speak with any of the top SEO experts in the world, they will agree that there are now over 200 different ranking factors that Google utilises.

Can you please explain the difference between external and internal backlinks?

Internal links are simply links from pages or blog posts within the same domain name. You might be scratching your head, wondering what the point of that is. Let us explain a little further.

You will begin to understand how internal links are helpful for both shoppers and when improving a business search engine optimisation.

Let’s say you’re busy reading a particularly long blog post, which is over 3,000 words in total.

Therefore, it’s often the case that the business has written previous articles about similar topics that are discussed in that article.

Let’s say you’re reading an article about how high-performance engine oil. The company might link to other products sold, such as filters, air filters and perhaps other products, even car waxes. Therefore, these internal links direct shoppers to other product pages, providing access to additional helpful information.

Therefore, remember that internal links direct shoppers to different pages on the same website.

What are external links?

External links can decipher whether an SEO campaign wins or fails.

If a business has many strong, and powerful links then this improves its website’s domain authority, and the website is likely to rank higher on Google.

However, if your backlinks are low quality and have been purchased on mas, which means that the business SEO will undoubtedly fail. Companies may incur a Google penalty, (Google Penguin Penalty) and as a result, it can sometimes take many years to recover from a link penalty.

Therefore, when it comes to external links, quality is the key.

Only build quality backlinks.

Can you explain why backlinks are so crucial to the SEO process?

Google uses back links as a key ranking

You might be wondering what SEO ranking factors mean; well Google uses over 200 to decipher and determine precisely how good a business’s organic and local SEO is. Out of all ranking factors, when you ask any SEO expert, they will tell you that backlinks are right at the top of the tree in terms of importance. This means that if you establish powerful links, such as those from a reputable business, you can significantly improve your company’s ranking.

With a single powerful backlink from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the business could go from page 3 to page 1.

Using links to lower the company’s bounce rate

Have you ever visited a well-written website that is so engaging that you want to continue reading the helpful and valuable information it provides? It could be a blog post or a piece of evergreen content marketing that has kept you reading the page for over say over 7 minutes.

You may have clicked on several internal links and, consequently, transitioned from reading one blog post to perhaps three.

You may have spent a considerable amount of time on the website, but this can have a substantial beneficial effect on the business’s SEO.

SEO agencies refer to this as “dwell time”, thats the amount of time the shopper spends reading and digesting the information.

Dwell times are considerably high, lets say anything is five minutes; it shows the reader is interested in the work and wants to sit and read the information because of its quality.

This sends a clear message to Google’s algorithms that the information, that page is of high quality, indicating that the business offers helpful and reliable advice. Therefore this is why the bounce rate is low and the dwell time is high.

On the other hand, if the shopper fails to click on another internal link, the bounce rate could substantial, possibly reaching up to 70%. This, on the other hand, indicates that the shopper’s disinterest in the business and this is reflected in a high bounce rate.

Internal links can also help crawlers, such as Google bots, crawl and index different pages more efficiently.

Improve user experience

Consider a significant business for which you regularly make purchases from. This is probably a well-known e-commerce store with a multi-million-pound turnover.

What you often find is that such businesses will have often gone to considerable lengths to improve website navigation. There will be breadcrumb navigation, a good page structure, well designed drop-down menu, well designed main menus, and internal links.

What the business wants you to do is navigate between pages as simply as possible so you spend more time on the website and buy more products.

The last thing they want is for you not to find the product page you want, and leave the website without making a purchase? As this will result in a higher bounce rate.

Well-written anchor text

The anchor text, for those unfamiliar, refers to the clickable text that is clicked to follow the link.

However, Google also uses the anchor text as a way of deciphering what the page is about.

How our agency can help

Working with our agency can help you develop a winning SEO strategy for your business.

Whatever your business needs in terms of technical SEO, whether it’s links or content marketing, we can help.

It’s important to remember that there are marketing agencies, then there are marketing agencies. What we mean by that statement is that we have a consistent track record of helping businesses increase their sales numbers. Some SEO companies often take shortcuts and pursue quick wins, which can result in numerous penalties from Google.

Instead, we use some of the best methods, as recommended by Google. This can help to get your business to the top of Google’s search results.

If your business is seeking to enhance its SEO then please get in touch with us today.