Link Building Agency
Manchester

Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. Hyperlinks, also known as links, are the clickable text or images that allow users to navigate between websites. Search engines use links to crawl the web and discover new pages, in addition to utilising them to understand how authority is passed between websites and how websites are connected to each other 

Backlinks, which are links from other websites to your own, are one of the most important ranking factors in Google’s search algorithm and are often used as a contributing factor towards SEO performance. In particular, the quality and relevancy of the links play an important role in identifying 

Link building is an important part of any search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy. By building backlinks from high-quality websites, you can improve your website’s visibility in search results and attract more visitors this is both through organic or natural link acquisition as well as helping ot build overall authority and giving the website more trust in the eyes of Google.

Link building is important for a number of reasons, including:

Improved search engine ranking. Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for search engines like Google. When other websites link to your website, it signals to search engines that your website is authoritative and trustworthy. The more high-quality backlinks you have, the higher your website is likely to rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Increased website traffic. Backlinks can help to drive traffic to your website from other websites. This is especially true if the links are from high-quality, authoritative websites. When people see links to your website on other websites, they are more likely to click on them and visit your website.

Brand awareness. Backlinks can help to increase brand awareness for your business. This is because when people see links to your website on other websites, they are more likely to remember your brand and visit your website.

Improved credibility. Backlinks from other websites can help to improve the credibility of your business. This is because when people see that other websites are linking to your website, they are more likely to trust your website as a reliable source of information.

Increased sales. Backlinks from other websites can lead to increased sales for your business. This is because when people visit your website from other websites, they are more likely to make a purchase.

Overall, link building is an important part of any SEO strategy. By building high-quality backlinks from other websites, you can improve your search engine ranking, increase website traffic, build brand awareness, improve credibility, and increase sales.

When it comes to link building there are a number of different techniques that agencies use. You can of course use any of these, but at Cedarwood there are some that we prefer and some that we avoid. In general we will focus our link building on:

Content creation

Digital PR outreach

Broken link building

Product placements

Newsjacking

Media monitoring

You can also utilise the following approach for link building, but we tend to avoid these as we don’t believe they are the right approach to take to yield the results that we are looking for:

Guest blogging

Directory submissions

Forum participation

It can take several months to see results from link building. This is because it takes time for search engines to crawl and index your backlinks. However, if you are consistently building high-quality backlinks, you should start to see an improvement in your website’s ranking and visibility over time.

The amount of time it takes to see results from link building will depend on a number of factors, including:

The quality of the backlinks you are building. High-quality backlinks from authoritative websites are more likely to have a positive impact on your ranking than low-quality backlinks from spammy websites.

The competitiveness of your niche. If you are in a competitive niche, it may take longer to see results from link building.

The overall strength of your website. If your website has high-quality content and a good reputation, it is more likely to rank well in SERPs, even if you do not have a lot of backlinks.

If you are not seeing results from link building after several months, it is important to review your link building strategy and make sure that you are focusing on white hat link building techniques. You should also make sure that you are building backlinks from high-quality websites.

It’s also important to remember that if you are using link building to supplement your SEO efforts then links alone won’t be enough to move the needle – it will need to be a combined approach, so ensure that you are also adhering to best practice on-site SEO

Here are some common link building mistakes to avoid:

1. Buying links

Buying links is a black hat link building technique that can penalize your website with search engines. Search engines can detect when you are buying links, and they can penalize your website by lowering your ranking in search results pages (SERPs).

2. Building links from low-quality websites

Linking to your website from low-quality websites can also damage your website’s reputation. Search engines look at the quality of the websites that are linking to your website when ranking your website in SERPs. If you are linking to your website from low-quality websites, it can hurt your website’s ranking.

3. Keyword stuffing in anchor text

Keyword stuffing in anchor text is when you use too many keywords in the text of your links. This can make your links look spammy and can hurt your website’s ranking.

4. Not using relevant anchor text

Your anchor text should be relevant to the page you are linking to. Using irrelevant anchor text can also hurt your website’s ranking.

5. Building links too quickly

Building links too quickly can trigger spam signals to search engines, resulting in penalties. It is advisable to build links at a natural pace over time, ensuring that they are relevant, high-quality, and offer value to the reader.

6. Not diversifying your anchor text

Using the same anchor text over and over again can look spammy and can hurt your website’s ranking. It is important to use a variety of different anchor text when building links.

7. Not monitoring your backlinks

It is important to monitor your backlinks on a regular basis to make sure that you are not getting links from low-quality websites or websites that have been penalized by search engines. If you find that you are getting links from low-quality websites, you should disavow those links.

8. Not building relationships with other website owners

Building relationships with other website owners can help you to get links to your website. When you have relationships with other website owners, they are more likely to link to your website if they have content that is relevant to your website.

9. Not creating high-quality content

The best way to get links to your website is to create high-quality content that is informative and engaging. When you create high-quality content, other website owners are more likely to link to your website.

10. Not promoting your content

Once you have created high-quality content, you need to promote it so that other website owners can find it and link to it. You can promote your content on social media, other websites, and in email newsletters.

By avoiding these common link building mistakes, you can build high-quality backlinks that will help to improve your website’s ranking, visibility, and traffic.

Brand mentions and links are both important for SEO, but they have different values.

Brand mentions are any online references to your brand, company, or product, even if they do not include a link to your website. Brand mentions can help to increase brand awareness, improve brand reputation, and drive traffic to your website.

Links are hypertext references from one website to another. Links are considered to be one of the most important ranking factors for search engines. When a website links to your website, it signals to search engines that your website is a valuable resource.

The value of brand mentions vs links

Links are more valuable for SEO than brand mentions. This is because links are a direct signal to search engines that your website is a valuable resource. Brand mentions, on the other hand, are an indirect signal to search engines.

However, brand mentions are still important for SEO. This is because brand mentions can help to increase brand awareness, improve brand reputation, and drive traffic to your website. 

Additionally, brand mentions can lead to links. For example, if someone mentions your brand in a blog post, they may be more likely to link to your website if they have more information about your brand.

This question comes up a lot and you definitely can have a go at doing it yourself – but at the end of the day companies often work with agencies for their success rates and established relationships with journalists. An effective link building agency will have been doing this for a while and will usually have a proven track record of delivering results as well as the right type of media databases, access to media monitoring tools and a solid list of journalist contacts.

At the end of the day, you need to work out what is right for your business, but if you are looking for agency support then feel free to get in touch!