What are backlinks, and are they still important when improving organic SEO?

By Sarah Jones|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |Comments Off on What are backlinks, and are they still important when improving organic SEO?

Written by: Ryan Walsh

What are backlinks?

Backlinks, in short, are when another website directs a hyperlink towards your domain name. This could be featured on the homepage, a blog post, or a main page. The more quality links accumulated over time, the more links are added to your business’s backlink profile.

The businesses in the U.K. with the strongest backlinks are typically the ones that rank in the top three results on Google. Now, of course, the other search engine optimisation elements need to be good quality as well; for example, the content marketing will need to be very high quality.

However, good links usually are what drive any business up the ranks on Google.

Are backlinks still that important?

Backlinks are still an essential part of organic search engine optimisation. However, as we now move into this new era of AI and AI search, we are unsure at the time of writing how important backlinks will be in terms of how AI ranks businesses. However, for the time being, when talking about organic search engine optimisation, backlinks, and having a strong backlink profile are still very important.

Does the number of backlinks matter?

Yes, whether we are talking about backlink building in 2025 or whether we are talking about backlink building during the days when Google used Google PageRank as the algorithm to rank websites, backlinks were always important.

In a nutshell, if a business wins a business award and accumulates backlinks from reputable sources like the BBC, Wales Online, and The Guardian newspaper online, mentioning the product innovation award, linking to your business can significantly boost your organic search engine optimisation.

In terms of Google’s search ranking factors, how important are backlinks?

As most good SEO agencies know, there are now in excess of 200 ranking factors. Now, backlinks, or links for short, are the most critical ranking factor that Google’s algorithm uses to decipher how strong or weak a business’s SEO is.

In a nutshell, if a business has powerful backlinks and good on-page SEO, then it’s more than likely going to rank higher on Google.

Therefore, regardless of the business sector, whether you’re a plumber or a solicitor, usually the businesses ranked right at the top of Google’s organic results will be those companies which have the strongest and highest quality backlinks.

Are all backlinks worth the same?

Most definitely not; some backlinks, such as a good link from the BBC, can have a massive and dramatic uplift in terms of where the company ranks. For other links, such as spam links, this can actually move the business down a few places. In fact, accumulating too many spam links can result in a link penalty.

What’s the difference between a dofollow and a nofollow backlink?

The difference between a do-follow and a no-follow backlink is relatively simple: one passes SEO goodness known as link equity, and the other doesn’t. To supercharge your business’s organic search engine optimisation, you need good links that pass link equity.

No-follow links are not worthless; they are still worth accumulating. The reason is that they can enhance your business’s backlink profile and overall search engine optimisation. The reason is that having a lot of quality websites that link to you, whether do-follow or no-follow, is still a sign that the website has decided to link to you.

If several high-quality websites, such as the BBC, link to you, it’s a sign to Google’s algorithm that your content marketing is of high quality.

Google’s perspective is straightforward: if the BBC decides to link to you, it’s likely because you offer high-quality content marketing or are an innovative company that has achieved notable recognition, such as winning a business award.

How do you go about building good-quality links?

Regardless of which type of business you run, whether your best solicitor in a pin-stripe suit, or your best hairdresser sliced bread, to rank at the top of Google, your business is going to need a lot of links.

When you place your direct competitors’ websites into a good backlink checking tool, and try Moz Pro, it’s fantastic and one of the best on offer.

Then, using the backlink checking part of the website, you can see that your competitors who are currently ranking number one on Google will generally have good quality links. Typically, businesses that rank at the top of Google or Bing will have over one hundred quality links.

For competitive business sectors, let’s say your business sells legal services across the U.K.

Your business will be competing against thousands of other solicitor practices, so your business backlinks must be superior in every possible way. You will often need thousands of quality links. This is where a top-quality agency is usually required to improve the SEO substantially.

What does link-worthy content marketing even mean?

Regardless of the question the customer has, there are often thousands of businesses that have also answered that exact question. The reason is that they want the shopper to land on their piece of content marketing, which offers an answer to that question.

Then they can direct that shopper to a page where they can buy a product from them.
Content marketing is, therefore, a way of bringing shoppers to the company website.

However, for that piece of content marketing to even get close to page one of Google, you must have a lot of high-quality links.

And how do you get those good-quality links?

Well, your business must offer a superior, more detailed, and better answer than the competition.
If the competition has written 700 words which are boring to read, nobody is going to want to link to that work.

However, if you write 2000 words and have an expert in a YouTube video explaining the benefits of that product, the website is likely to have a low bounce rate.

Then you can cram the page with as much valuable and helpful advice as possible. This will decrease the bounce rate and also sometimes substantially increase the dwell time. Plus, because you’ve offered good advice, it’s clear as day that you have put a lot of effort into creating that page, and other businesses may link to you.

Now you may well be scratching your head, thinking, “Well, why would other businesses want to link to us?”

Well, because quite simply put, those other businesses may not be your competitors. For example, let’s say that you make and bake the wedding cakes. And you may have a partnership with a local hotel, where if you refer them, you get a commission. Therefore, on your wedding cake website, you may offer a link to an exclusive, luxury hotel where you know you send your customers to have a great day. Plus,

you have sent out a link, which also helps improve the hotel’s SEO.

What is link velocity?

Link velocity is simply a measure of how quickly your business is accumulating links. Is your business accumulating the links super fast?

Or are you accumulating the links very slowly?

When you have a chat with a leading SEO agency, they will always tell you that an ideal world is one where you accumulate links slowly and steadily.

If your business accumulates too many links too quickly over a month or two, it can appear as if you’re buying links. Google doesn’t want you to buy links; it wants your business to earn links slowly over a long period.

If businesses are buying links, they are ignoring Google’s rules.
It is then perfectly possible that the business will incur a link penalty. When you chat to any good SEO company that’s worth its salt, they will tell you that bad links, spam backlinks, can mean that your website disappears from Google. Getting back can be arduous work, slow, and expensive, especially if you’re paying an agency to do this work. So, don’t cut corners or buy spam links. Doing so can mean your website disappears from Google because it’s been hit by a Google Penguin Penalty.

Should I cheat and buy a load of links?

No, most definitely do not buy links. Google wants you to earn high-quality backlinks. If a business pays for links, such as spam links,

Google’s algorithm can often detect these low-quality links very quickly. If a company has too many spam links, it can soon obtain a Google penalty. When you sit down and have a chat with an SEO agency owner, they will tell you it can take a very long time for a business in the UK or globally to recover from a link penalty.

For example, a business, let’s say here in Wales, might be right at the top of Google’s organic results. However, because it has bought spammy links and built too many low-quality links, Googlebot can index these links. When Google detects excessive spam links being built, a link penalty can be applied to the entire domain name.

This can mean the website moves down substantially, or it could be totally removed from Google because of the link penalty.

To build quality links, we recommend choosing a top marketing agency to improve your business’s search engine optimisation. You should therefore ask if link building is part of the monthly process, as you want quality do-follow and no-follow backlinks built.

How can spam backlinks make my business’s SEO crash and burn?

Your goal is to have no spam links. Therefore, make sure that you take your time to hire the right marketing agency. You don’t want to hire a business that cuts corners or builds spam links, as this can massively damage your company’s SEO.

How do I get these top-quality links you’re talking about?

You need to write high-quality content marketing. Whether it’s a main page or a blog post, you should aim for that page to have a high

Google E-EAT score. Use Google Analytics to monitor the pages’ dwell time, make changes to improve the page over time, and lower the page’s bounce rate. You can use a good quality backlink checking tool, such as Ahrefs, or perhaps you would prefer to use Moz Pro to check for incoming backlinks.

How long should my content marketing be?

It depends on the question being answered; sometimes, someone prefers less text and more visual content. For example, if you were describing how to fix a dripping tap.

On the other hand, if your writing is an article for your family law practice, then often people want a more comprehensive and detailed answer. This means you should examine the amount of text your competition has written and aim for a similar word count, ensuring the work is high quality and has a high Google E-EAT score.

Why does content marketing require me to invest so much effort and time in the work?

Content marketing, such as the page you are reading, requires a significant amount of time to write; however, it’s essential work if your business aims to improve its Google ranking.

If you were to ask our agency, we would say that it’s practically impossible to get any business on page.

Why hire Ryan Christopher Walsh SEO?

We are a leading SEO agency based in Cardiff.

If you would like a free quote, then contact us today.

How important are business citations when improving a business’s SEO?

By Sarah Jones|Categories: Uncategorized|Tags: |Comments Off on How important are business citations when improving a business’s SEO?

What are citations? How can these be used to improve a business’s search engine optimisation?

Introduction

You may have paid a significant amount to have a brand-new company website designed. You might be pleased with the final design and now want to proceed with starting work on improving the business’s search engine optimisation?

Now, a crucial, fundamental part of local search engine optimisation is citation building.

Without building business citations, such as business listings, you could be significantly held back, and businesses on page 3 of Google and may never be found through the Google My Business results.

Therefore, you do need to be busy-bee and start building business citations.

However, a word to the wise: as with everything in search engine optimisation, there is a right way and a wrong way to complete this work.

Of course, we will only ever advocate the right way here at Ryan C Walsh.

Therefore, we will proceed by showing you how to build business citations the right way.

Create a picture:

How to give your business a boost in Google’s organic results?

SEO is multifaceted, meaning that you shouldn’t overly focus on one aspect of local search engine optimisation and neglect other aspects of SEO.

You do need to take a rounded view and a rounded marketing strategy.

Therefore, building business citations is just one of the key building blocks you need to implement to improve your business’s local search engine optimisation (SEO).

What are citations?

They sound pretty complicated, don’t they?

NAP listings, what on earth does this mean?

All this means is NAP, which stands for the name, address, and phone number of a business.

It’s as simple as that.

However, things can become a bit more complex when we explain it this way: Googlebot, the bot used by Google’s algorithm to crawl and index the web, is designed to find numerous business citations related to your business.

All of these business citations should be on quality websites, plus they should all match.

Business citations that match exactly should, therefore, be structured in a way that they all convey the same precise message. The name, address and phone number of a business should all match. The citation should also have a URL that redirects back to your website so that Google bot recognises your business is being mentioned.

Which are the best types of business citations to build?

The best type of citation to build, is a business citation from a quality website related to your business. So, if you are a hotshot lawyer in your city, you will want a business citation, from a website to with solicitors.

You want these to be quality websites, websites that you recognise are leading publications, well-known brands, or businesses that obtain industry information in regards to your business sector.

Another example:

If it’s a construction company, you would want your business to be mentioned on a website that offers awards and qualifications for excellence in the construction industry.

Build your nap listings carefully, ensuring that they are all completed and identical to one another.

Add a little bit of supplementary text.

This is to describe the business.

Yes, we highly recommend creating NAP listings, and what you should do is also write a unique business description for each page.

You might be scratching your bonce; thinking that’s a lot of work writing a few paragraphs of text for every single business citation.

The answer will be yes, but with local SEO and national SEO, you do need to put back into it if you want to see results.

Avoid spam business directories like the plague

You will always have businesses that want to cut corners.

Sadly, even in 2025, you still have SEO agencies which deploy spam methods.

However, avoid using spammy SEO methods, as they can take your business’s rankings on a rollercoaster.

Plus if you use spam methods you obtain a Google penalty.

Receiving a Google penalty can be a nightmare, to say the least; it can significantly impact visibility and the amount of customers you receive, and the whole situation becomes a real headache to fix. So don’t use spam methods, just use white hat methods.

How exactly should citation look?

Let’s walk you through the process of building a business citation.

First, locate a quality business directory related to your business.

Again, if you are a lawyer, find business directories that specialise in offering directory listings from lawyers. Still, the website must have a high domain authority (DA, use Moz Pro to check this) and the business citation/link needs to come from a widely and highly regarded website.

After that, fill in the details, ensuring that all NAPs, including the address and phone number, all match.

Write a unique business description for that page.

On some pages, why not add a picture of your company director’s mugshot?

Add URL to the homepage.

Should we create many business citations all in one go?

No,

The short answer is no, you shouldn’t.

As with all things related to organic local search engine optimisation, it is best to take your time and do it right.

Don’t rush building many at once because the Googlebot will index massive citations simultaneously, which appears spammy, rather than building quality citations over an extended period.
For example, build one a month and avoid overdoing it as you don’t want your SEO efforts to look spammy.

Why is consistency important in the building business Citations?

Consistency is key when it comes to building business citations.

So, what we mean by this is that sometimes a business change their address, and then, they may starts building business citations for their the new address.

That’s all fine and good, but often, some of the business citations still mention your old address.

This causes a conflicting business citations, which confuses Googlebot and also confuses your customers.

You don’t want conflicting business citations, for example, your old address and your new address. Instead all business citations should match perfectly.

How many business citations are needed?

The thing is, in regards to business citations for SEO, there will always be a business out there; that want to rank higher, than your business and obtain more customers.

It’s a race that never stops improving your business’s SEO.

So you can never have enough quality backlinks; therefore, you can never have enough quality business citations.

However, you need to refer to your point about link velocity, which also relates to business citations.

You don’t want to build a bunch of business citations all at once; this looks spammy.

Please take your time building; it’s a long process.

Are building business citations key to skyrocketing to the top of Google’s page 1 results?

We don’t want to disappoint you, but, lets say you grab an espresso, and build 10 business citations for your business in Cardiff to help it rank on page 1 of Google.

However this is likely to be a drop in the ocean in terms of how much work is needed.

A considerable amount of effort is required to improve multiple ranking factors over a sustained period.

The SEO company, therefore, needs to be busy bees, building quality backlinks, writing high-quality content marketing and improving the technical SEO. So, all of these factors can come together; over a long period of time, you can get your business onto page one of Google.

Come to the SEO experts.

We have accrued over 10 years of knowledge to improve your business’s local SEO.

Therefore, we one of the best agencies in this area improve your search engine optimisation. If you would like a no-obligation quotation, why 

not talk to us today?