Are backlinks still important?
Introduction
This is a question that is asked with increasing regularity at our agency, that is clients are wondering whether backlinks are still important?
Ever since the days of Google’s PageRank, a lot of businesses have recognised that backlinks are an important part of their SEO strategy.
Also, if a client was to ask for a breakdown of work that’s been completed that month, they might note that a large proportion of the time has been spent either writing content marketing, or analysing the backlinks that have been built.
It is therefore natural for business owners to wonder whether backlinks are still important, and whether time should be spent on this area of SEO.
First things first, what are backlinks?
Okay, so we do realise that a lot of the readers who are currently reading through this SEO article, might not have a jar of glue about what backlinks are.
So, without further ado, let us explain a little bit about what backlinks are, and why they are so important to the SEO process.
A lot of businesses will know that where your business ranks on Google is dependent on Google’s algorithm.
So, how does Google decide where to rank say a solicitors practice that’s based in say Clifton Bristol?
Well, Google will rank the business based on how strong that companies “ranking factors” are.
Now if you’re wondering, what “ranking factors” actually are, well, there are over 200 different ranking factors which are calculated to work out how strong your businesses organic SEO actually is.
So, here’s some examples of ranking factors that you may have heard of:
-Backlinks
-Content marketing
-Anchor text
However, to further complicate things, not all of these ranking factors are weighted the same, for example it is widely considered among a huge amount of digital marketing agencies that backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors, where a meta title is less important, so not all are worth the same.
So there you go, backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors, that’s if they are quality and relevant to your company, however this article is all about whether they are still important? So we will answer that now…
Not all backlinks are equal
Before we explain whether backlinks are still important, we have to address this point, which is really important, and that is not all backlinks are equal.
So, before you start building backlinks for your business here in Bristol, England, what you have to realise as a business owner, or a marketing manager here in Bristol, is that building backlinks is all dependent on whether they are quality and relevant or not. If they are quality they can help, however if there not, then they could damage your SEO.
How should the backlinks be built?
Okay so here’s the million-dollar question, “how should backlinks be built”, well, here at our agency we don’t think you should go out looking for backlinks, instead they should be “earnt”.
What we mean by it?
Quite simply put, we think that backlinks should be earnt by the business, therefore your company should offer top-quality and also useful advice.
So, whether you sell car waxes online and you offer advice on how to take care of your car’s paintwork, or you sell chocolate cookies online, and you explain why your chocolate is superior to other brands, you need to offer good quality advice.
It is more than likely that this advice might well be useful to someone, and if it is, and they might link to you, but remember you only need “relevant” and “high-quality links”.
Some backlinks can therefore help your SEO
Therefore, it’s worth recapping on this point one more time, “do-follow” and “no-follow” backlinks, which are relevant, high-quality and built using white hat seo methods, can actually help your SEO.
However, some backlinks can actually damage your SEO
On the other hand, “spam links”, that is links which are low-quality and not relevant, can actually damage your SEO, and could even result in a link penalty!
This is something you most definitely do not want!
Quality backlinks we think are still important
So, if you were to come to our SEO agency, and asked one of our SEO consultants, “do we still think that backlinks are still important”?
We would say yes, but that would be conditional.
We would say that it depends on the quality of the link, because quality links can help.
How our digital marketing agency can help:
Whether your business is based overlooking Bristol Harbour, or you are based in the rather stylish Clifton area of Bristol, or perhaps you are based in Aztec West? Our agency can help you.
Whether you’re a small business owner, that needs help to improve your SEO, or you need a brand-new WordPress website, or you simply want to invest in PPC, we can help.