Top 10 highlights of this blog post

The early years of search engines
Evolution of search engine algorithms
Google’s dominance
The role of social media in search
Voice search and its impact
Mobile search trends
The rise of AI and machine learning
The future of search engines
Privacy concerns and the emergence of alternative search engines
The History of Search Engines

Search engines have become an integral part of our daily lives, guiding us through the vast world of the internet. Let’s take a walk down memory lane to learn about the history of search engines and how they have evolved over the years.

The early years of search engines

The first search engine, Archie, was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University in Montreal. Archie was a simple tool that allowed users to search for files on FTP servers (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine). It was followed by other search engines like Veronica and Jughead in the early 90s, which primarily focused on searching Gopher servers (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_(search_engine)).

The mid-90s saw the emergence of popular web search engines like WebCrawler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCrawler), Lycos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycos), and AltaVista (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista). These search engines indexed web pages and made it easier for users to navigate the rapidly expanding internet.

Evolution of Search Engine Algorithms

In the late 90s, search engine algorithms started to evolve, and the focus shifted towards providing users with more relevant search results. The launch of Google in 1998 changed the game with its PageRank algorithm (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank), which ranked websites based on the number and quality of backlinks. This revolutionary approach to search made Google stand out from its competitors and set the stage for its future dominance.

The Role of Social Media in Search

Social media platforms have played a significant role in shaping the search engine landscape. With the rise of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, search engines like Google started to incorporate social signals into their ranking algorithms. Today, social media sharing and engagement play a crucial role in determining a website’s search visibility
 
Voice Search and Its Impact

The increasing popularity of voice search has been a game-changer for search engines. By 2020, around 50% of all searches were voice-based (source: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/04/10/voice-search-statistics-2018). This shift prompted search engines to adapt their algorithms to better understand natural language queries and provide relevant results.

Mobile Search Trends

With the proliferation of smartphones, mobile search has become the norm. In 2016, Google announced that more than 50% of its searches were conducted on mobile devices (source: https://searchengineland.com/report-nearly-60-percent-searches-now-mobile-devices-255025). Consequently, search engines started prioritizing mobile-friendly websites, and Google introduced its mobile-first indexing approach in 2018 (source: https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing).

The Rise of AI and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have significantly impacted search engine algorithms. Google’s RankBrain, an AI-based component of its search algorithm, was introduced in 2015 to better understand and process complex queries (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RankBrain). Since then, AI has played an increasingly prominent role in search, with machine learning algorithms helping to improve search relevance and user experience.

The Future of Search Engines

Search engines will continue to evolve to meet the needs of users. Some emerging trends include visual search, which uses images to find relevant information (source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/visual-search-changing-seo/270265/), and the growing importance of semantic search, which focuses on understanding the context and intent behind queries (source: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/semantic-search-seo/404885/).

In conclusion, the history of search engines is a fascinating journey that reflects the rapid development of the internet. From their humble beginnings in the early 90s to the sophisticated AI-driven search engines we use today, search engines have come a long way. As technology advances and users’ needs evolve, search engines will continue to adapt and innovate.

Summary

Importance of citations in local SEO
Definition of citations
Ideal citation format
Effectiveness of citations in local SEO
Best practices for building citations
How Important Are Citations In Local SEO?

Citation building enhances the visibility of your business to prospective clients while portraying it as a credible and trustworthy organization. Overlooking this vital process may have detrimental effects on your local SEO potential. It is crucial to understand the significance of citation building and its impact on local search optimisation.

 Citation building, or the practice of having your business information listed on various websites, can significantly improve your Google rankings in local search results. According to a study by BrightLocal, citations are one of the top local search ranking factors, influencing 10.82% of local search rankings.

Your NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) establishes your physical presence in a specific geographical region, which is essential for appearing in local search results. A 2017 study by Moz revealed that NAP consistency accounted for 8.41% of local search ranking factors.

https://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors]

Adhering to best practices for citation building in local SEO focuses on quality as much as quantity. A 2020 study by Whitespark found that having accurate and consistent citations across authoritative and relevant websites is more beneficial than simply having a large number of citations. [Source: https://whitespark.ca/blog/citation-study/]

Search results have become increasingly reliant on the user’s physical location due to the prioritization of mobile users. According to Statista, in 2021, approximately 56.5% of global web traffic originated from mobile devices, highlighting the importance of optimizing for local search. [Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/277125/share-of-website-traffic-coming-from-mobile-devices/]

Business owners recognize the critical nature of maintaining updated online contact information. Attracting potential customers becomes challenging when they cannot easily reach you, and the absence of a clearly listed address and phone number may raise doubts about your business’s legitimacy. Ensuring your contact details are easily accessible and accurate is essential not only for client trust but also for the optimization of local search rankings.

In summary, citation building is a vital aspect of local SEO, as it not only makes it easier for potential customers to find your business but also presents it as a reliable and trustworthy company. By ensuring that your NAP information is consistent

and accurate across various websites, you can significantly enhance your Google rankings in local search results. Prioritizing quality over quantity and targeting authoritative and relevant websites for citation building is crucial for optimizing your local SEO efforts. With the growing prevalence of mobile users, search results are now more dependent on the user’s physical location, emphasizing the importance of citation building and local search optimization for businesses.

To maximize your local SEO potential, it is essential to invest time and effort in citation building, ensuring your business information is updated, accurate, and consistent across various online platforms. This will not only help attract potential customers but also contribute to establishing a strong, trustworthy reputation for your business in the digital landscape.

You might be wondering what are business citations? Well they are most definitely worth building, because they can help to improve your company’s seo, and they are relatively easy to build, if you build them in the right way. What we mean by this is that the NAP information must be always consistent.

What does NAP information mean? Well quite simply put, nap just stands for name of your company, the address of your company and your company phone number.

It’s also really important, that you have your NAP information, written on your company website. You might want this on the contact us page, but we would recommend also putting it in the footer, this is so that it is displayed on every single page and blog post on your website. This way you will be making sure that the NAP information is on your website.

Again, nap simply stands for name of your business, the address of your business on the phone number of your business.

We would most definitely recommend not using a mobile phone number, within companies NAP information, instead we would recommend using a local phone number instead. So for example, we think it’s better to use a landline number, for example in Cardiff landline numbers start with O2 920, this is better to use than a mobile phone number.

The reason for this is if you use a local phone number, such as a Cardiff 02920 or a Cardiff O2 921 number, then this shows that you have a phone number for the Cardiff area.

Obviously a mobile phone number, doesn’t say which city your company is based.

Citations play a crucial role in local SEO, as they provide valuable information about your business to search engines like Google. They help search engines understand the relevance, prominence, and authority of your business, which ultimately improves your local search rankings. According to BrightLocal, businesses in the top 10 local search results have an average of 81 citations.

What are citations?

Citations are online mentions of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP). They can appear on various websites, directories, social media platforms, or local business listings. Citations are a fundamental aspect of local SEO, as they enable search engines to validate the existence, credibility, and location of a business. A study by Moz revealed that citation signals account for 10.82% of ranking factors in local search.

How should citations look?

The ideal citation format should be consistent and accurate, as it helps search engines associate the correct information with your business. An example of a proper citation format is:

Maintaining consistency across all citations is essential, as it allows search engines to identify and recognize your business. A consistent NAP format ensures that your business receives proper credit for its online mentions, which contributes to your local SEO efforts. According to a study by Synup, 86% of business owners believe that maintaining accurate and consistent citations is vital for their local search rankings.

How effective are citations in boosting local SEO?

Citations are highly effective in improving local SEO, as they provide search engines with crucial information about your business. High-quality citations from authoritative websites can significantly boost your local search rankings. A study conducted by Local SEO Guide found a strong correlation between a higher number of citations and improved local search rankings (source: https://www.localseoguide.com/guides/local-search-ranking-factors/).

However, it’s important to note that not all citations are created equal. Quality and relevance matter more than quantity. Focusing on obtaining citations from industry-specific or local directories will be more beneficial than acquiring a large number of low-quality citations.

What’s the best way to build citations?

To effectively build citations and improve your local SEO, follow these best practices:

Ensure NAP consistency: Make sure your business’s name, address, and phone number are consistent across all online platforms. This helps search engines recognize and validate your business, improving your local search rankings.
Focus on quality: Prioritize obtaining citations from authoritative, industry-specific, or local directories, as they carry more weight in search engine algorithms.

Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing: This is a crucial step for local SEO, as it allows your business to appear in Google Maps, local search results, and the Google Local Pack.

Monitor and manage your citations: Regularly check your citations for accuracy and update them as needed. There are several online tools, such as Moz Local, Yext, and BrightLocal, which can help you manage your citations.

Engage with customers and request reviews: Positive customer reviews can improve your online reputation and increase the trustworthiness of your business. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms such as Google My Business, Yelp, or Facebook.

Leverage social media platforms: Create and maintain profiles on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These platforms can serve as additional citation sources, while also providing opportunities for customer engagement and brand exposure.

Participate in local events and sponsorships: Engaging in local community events or sponsoring local organizations can lead to valuable citation opportunities on event websites or news articles.

Collaborate with other local businesses: Partner with other businesses in your area to create joint promotions or co-host events. This can lead to valuable citation opportunities and increase your local visibility.

Create valuable content: Develop high-quality, informative content that showcases your expertise and knowledge in your industry. This can help you gain citations from reputable sources, such as industry blogs or news outlets.

Monitor your competitors’ citations: Analyze your competitors’ citation sources to identify potential opportunities for your own business. Tools like Whitespark and BrightLocal can help you uncover your competitors’ citation sources.

Conclusion

Citations are an essential component of local SEO, as they provide search engines with valuable information about your business. Ensuring your citations are consistent, accurate, and from high-quality sources can significantly improve your local search rankings.

By focusing on building quality citations and following best practices, you can enhance your local SEO efforts and increase your business’s visibility in local search results. As you implement these strategies, don’t forget to monitor and manage your citations, engage with customers, and leverage social media to maximize your local SEO success.

So start by writing blog posts that showcase your expertise as a company, for example is there someone within your company with say 20+ years’ experience working for your company, if so, why not ask that person to put their knowledge, their expertise into a written article, which is written to answer a question your business is frequently asked?

This way you will have an expert that’s helping to write the article, the article is likely to be very useful to your customers. Remember to keep your audience in mind, and write in a way that is accessible and engaging for them.

To learn more about content writing, we would highly recommend checking out resources like Copyblogger, Hubspot, and also Moz. These websites offer a huge wealth of free information and tips for aspiring content writers.

What Is Content Writing?

In case you missed it in the previous section, content writing also often called “content marketing” is the art of crafting written content, in order to help your customers. The by-product of offering useful information on your company website, via say writing blog posts, is that if the content marketing is good quality your organic seo should improve as well. But what exactly does that mean? Well, it means creating content that is tailored to the specific needs and interests of your target audience can give your organic SEO a boast.

This could involve writing a blog post, or ever green content marketing which helps your customers to find an answer to a question they may have. So by crafting a product description that entices potential customers, to improve your companies CTR or creating social media posts that spark engagement and conversation this can all help your business to obtain more sales. The key is to write in a way that resonates with your audience, and inspires them to take action.

Isn’t Content Writing and Copywriting the Same Thing?

Ah, the age-old question. While content writing and copywriting share some similarities, they are most definitely not the same thing at all. Content writing is focused on creating informative, educational, and engaging content that is designed to inform and entertain an audience, it could be any word count, but a lot of blog posts are 1000 words plus.

While, copywriting, on the other hand, is all about persuading and selling, and could just be rewriting meta titles, which is just say 10 words sometimes.

Copywriting therefore often involves creating headlines, writing a meta title, and calls-to-action that are designed to capture a reader’s attention and encourage them to take action. This could involve making a purchase, signing up for a service, or simply clicking through to read more.

So, while there is some overlap between content writing and copywriting, they are distinct disciplines with different goals and objectives.

So, lets now provide some examples of content writing- and how they can be used to improve your companies SEO

Now that we have a better understanding of what content writing is (and isn’t), let’s take a look at some examples. Here are a few common types of content writing you will often see on many business websites.

    Blog posts

So, a blog post, this is a long-form article that is published on a blog, or sometimes called “articles”. Blog posts can cover a wide range of topics, yet we would recommend keeping them about topics to do with your business, don’t deviate and talk about the rugby, if you run a soclitors practice for example.  

    Social media posts: These are short-form updates, they might just be one line of text, that are shared on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as well as LinkedIn. Social media posts can take many forms, from text updates, to images and videos.

Another top tip can we can offer you, is to use storytelling to bring your product / services to life. Don’t just list off the specs of a product- instead paint a picture of how your product will make the customer’s life better. Use vivid language,  and real-life examples to show them why they need your widget in their life.

This article has been written, to give you a really good idea of content writing is, and why so many businesses use it to improve their search engine optimisation. So, buckle up and let’s dive into the wonderful world of content writing!

 What is Content Writing? A Beginner’s Guide

So, content writing is the art of simply creating written content, like blog posts, and the reason businesses spend so much time writing articles, and adding statistics is simple, it can help your business to rank higher on Google. So, this is why businesses spend so long writing blog posts, social media posts to help promote an article the company has just published. Also, a copy writer will often be hired to write the landing pages, product descriptions, and more. Essentially, content writing is all about crafting words that engage and inform an audience, and the ultimate aim is to increase sales.

So, what if you have never written a blog post before, but you want to improve your seo?

If you’re new to content writing, don’t worry! It’s a skill that can be learned with practice and perseverance, for example, often when you look at the blog post a company has written, if its written in house, it might be not that good, yet fast forward to present, after company has written 100 blog posts, well normally at that point, they work is very high quality.

Product descriptions

This one is self-explanatory, yet, we would highly recommend, to write original product descriptions,  

Other examples of content writing might include white papers, case studies, evergreen content marketing, e-mail newsletters, and much more. The key is to understand your customers, and create content marketing that speaks to their interests, needs, and pain points.

 What are blog posts?

Now that we’ve covered the basics of content writing, let’s take a closer look at one specific type of content, that is blog posts.

Blog posts are a cornerstone of content marketing, there want seo agencies, like ours, spend  a huge amount of time writing, they provide a way for businesses and individuals to share their expertise, connect with their customers, and drive more organic traffic to their website. But writing a great blog post is easier said than done.

Here are a few tips for crafting blog posts that are engaging, well-written informative, and shareable:

    Choose a topic that resonates with your audience: Your blog post should be over 1000 words, and provide value to your readers, by addressing a topic that they care about or are interested in. Consider also conducting keyword research, we would recommend using Ahrefs for this.

    Create an attention-grabbing title: Your headline should be clear, concise, and compelling. It should entice readers to click through and read your blog post.

    Use a conversational tone: Blog posts should be written in a conversational tone, and them funny, so your shoppers enjoy reading them.  

Use subheadings to break up your content marketing: Long blocks of text, say a 3,000 word article can be intimidating for readers. Use subheadings, such as titles, to break up your content marketin and make it easier to read.

    Include visuals: Visuals like images, infographics, and YouTube videos can help to break up your content marketing, and make it more engaging for your readers. Just be sure

Social media

Social media – the land of memes, countless cat videos, and endless scrolling until your phone battery dies! But did you know that social media can also be a powerful tool for helping your business to grow? With billions of people using social media every day, it’s no wonder that companies here in Wales, are using it to promote their products and services.

But how do you make your social media posts stand out from the crowd? Because lets face it, there are millions of businesses using social media as well. Well, first of all, you need to know your audience.  

Your business has to make sure your content marketing is engaging and valuable. Share industry news, offer tips and tricks, and ask questions to get your audience to get involved- for example, if you sell car cleaning products, that leave a nice fresh car smell, why not ask on social media, what smell they would like their cars to smell of, banana perhaps? And don’t forget to use eye-catching visuals – after all, a picture is worth a thousand words (or likes, as the case may be).

Moving on to landing pages. Landing pages are like the front door to your website, so for example it could be the homepage- they’re the first thing shoppers see when they click on a link. And just like a first impression, landing pages are incredibly important. A good landing page, such as your homepage, can convert organic visitors into customers, while a bad one can make them hit the back button faster than you can say “bounce rate.”

So, what makes a good landing page? First and foremost, the page needs to be relevant to the link that brought the visitor there. So if the shopper clicks on “greenhouses low cost” they want to see some low cost green houses, not ones that cost upwards of £1000.00 each.

If someone clicks on a link for a specific product, they should land on a page, that’s all about that selling that product – and not visit your company’s “about us” page for example.

Your landing page should also be easy to navigate and visually appealing. Use clear headlines, bullet points as well, and images to break up the text and make it easy for visitors to scan. And of course, make sure your call-to-action is prominent – digital marketing agencies call this a CTA, whether it’s a “buy now” button or a sign-up form.

Product descriptions

Next up, we have product descriptions. Ah, product descriptions – they are the bane of many a content writer’s existence- as you could spend months, even sometimes years writing product descriptions, because companies often change their stock. This means the product descriptions have to be written again and again. How do you make a boring product sound exciting? How do you convey all the features and benefits without putting people to sleep?

Well, the key is to focus on the benefits of a product, not just the features. Sure, your widget might have 37 different settings and be made of 24k gold, but what does that actually mean for the customer? Will it make their life easier? Help them to save them time or money? Solve a problem they didn’t even know they had?

For example, is a beard strimmer, just a beard strimmer, well no, its something that can look great, always be in your bathroom, fully charged, and helps you keep on top of your appearance, making you look sharper. So its easier than have a complete shave, say once a week, it helps you to keep your beard looking great.

Introduction

A large chunk of time is spent by a lot of marketing agencies writing content marketing, perhaps they also produce infographics, and also embed a YouTube video, where presenters explaining the benefits let’s say of owning a certain product.

Now you might think why is my marketing agency spending so much time producing blog posts, YouTube videos and infographics?

Especially if you’re not going to see results straightaway, and what we mean by that is that if you write a really good blog post, let’s say that you publish it today on your website, you might not see the benefits in terms of the organic search engine optimisation uplift, in terms of where you rank for let’s say three months or perhaps even longer.

So why go through all of this effort?

Well, the answer is simple, when you add a lot of quality content marketing, it might in some instances take over a hundred pieces of work, but eventually if the work is really high quality, you will start to improve where you rank on Google.

And obviously regardless of which business sector you are in, whether you’re a solicitor, the hairdresser or perhaps an accountant you’re going to want to rank on Google as highly as you possibly can.

We would go so far as saying that it near on impossible, to get any business on the first page of Google, without the business first having added high quality blog posts, evergreen content marketing and to make sure that item such as the product descriptions, I well written.

So how exactly does content marketing help to improve a business’s search engine optimisation

Rank higher

The most obvious benefit is businesses will simply want to rank higher Google, now let’s say that you sell example ice hockey skates, your business to get on the first page of Google for ice hockey skates you’re going to need to publish a lot of really useful guides about ice hockey skates.

For example, you might want to write a guide, on how to correctly sharpen your ice hockey skates, you might wish to write about the best places to buy ice hockey skates, you might wish to write about a brand of ice hockey skates the just released a brand-new product.

When you start to add content marketing which really explains the benefits of owning certain products, new also answer questions that your customers frequently ask you, then you can start to improve your businesses organic search engine optimisation.

Must be original

When a lot of businesses start to try and improve the businesses SEO sometimes, they make the mistake of trying to cut corners, what we mean by trying to cut corners is sometimes will be trying to Do is content marketing from another website, if you were to copy and paste work from another website this will massively damage your businesses search engine optimisation.

Instead work needs to be super high quality, it needs to be original, you do need to spend a great deal of time writing it, to make sure that the work is high quality, well researched and you should also take the time to ask experts for their opinions so that they can also contribute to the article, for example we are obviously an SCO agency, but we might be talking about something to do with web design, because we are not exported web design we could talk to web design companies we know to gain their advice, and this could be written into the article.

It does take time; you do have to be very patient

This is the thing that a lot of business owners need to appreciate, that whether they are paying an agency to do the work, or they are writing the content marketing themselves, you can’t expect miracles overnight. Line so what we mean by this is you might spend a considerable amount of time writing a 3000-word article, you’ve done a lot of research, you add internal links, you’ve added titles, you’ve also proofread the work so that it reads correctly, in total you might’ve spent let’s say over 50 hours writing this work in total.

Therefore, you might be expecting your businesses SEO to massively improve overnight, however seo doesn’t work like this at all, in matter of fact the one article that you have written might have little or no effect on your SEO for a long period of time, that’s because often you have to write potentially hundreds of articles in order to give your SEO a serious uplift in terms of where your business ranks.

Therefore, those expect by writing just one article, that your SEO is going to substantially improve, because sometimes it will not.

What is often needs to happen is you need to write a lot of articles, covering a range of different subjects to do with your business, for example if you are plumber you might write about how to fix a leaking tap, the following week you might write an article about what to do with your central heating loses pressure, and a warning light is displayed on the boiler. The following week you might write an article about what to do if you think that your pipes become frozen and burst within your house.

When you start to write all of these articles become very clear that your business is a plumbing business and therefore if you have done this work to weigh high standard, and by that we mean it’s white hat then your search engine optimisation should start to improve.

Keywords

Here’s our best piece of advice that we can offer you, regardless of which business sector you are in, you obviously will have a keyword you want to rank higher for.

For example, let’s say that you manufacture ice cream, you might want to rank for ice cream retailers in Wales.

We might want to simply rank for ice cream Wales.

Alternatively, you might want to rank for luxury ice cream Wales.

But here’s the thing that you need to bear in mind, if you write content marketing which is superb quality, then you should start to improve where your business for a huge number of different keywords, so don’t just focus on one keyword or three keywords, instead focus on writing content marketing with really explains why your product is high quality.

For example, you may wish to talk about the cream that goes into your ice cream, and this is brought from dairy farmers in the south-west of England and is produced by a certain type of Which produces a high quality milk.

Therefore, what you should focus on is what differentiates your product, what makes it very high quality, then talk about this in your content marketing. This way you will be telling your potential customers about what makes your product such high quality. By doing this you will be helping your customers to better understand your product, but also this will help to improve your businesses online marketing, because it will be clear that because you are regularly talking about luxury ice cream, using quality ingredients that you are retailer of quality ice cream Wales.

Add internal links

When you’re writing content marketing, let’s say numerous blog posts for your website, it’s likely that some of the articles which you have written will slightly overlap, for example let’s say that you sell car waxes and you specialise in the business of selling quality car waxes, these car waxes are meant for high-value and performance, as well as classic cars.

Now you are writing an article about how to apply car wax to let’s say a Jaguar motor vehicle, and you want to also mention how to remove a scrap from a door, however you understand that last week you wrote a detailed article explaining how to remove a scratch from a door panel on your car.

So rather than having to write the advice again of how to remove the scratch from the door, what you could simply do is link to the article which you have written last week, this doesn’t just help your readers, it can also help improve your marketing, because it starts to become clear that the products which you are retailing are all to do with how to look after your car, how to repair the paintwork and how to really thoroughly clean the inside of cars.

It’s therefore really crystal-clear that the products you sell are to do with looking after your car.

Introduction

You might have been reading endless blog posts on many marketing websites, and you might have noticed that, they keep mentioning backlinks. Therefore, you have noticed that backlinks are indeed a very important part of the search engine optimisation process.

So, now you want to learn how to build backlinks, well you’ve most definitely come to the right place that’s for sure. This article will now explain how to go about building high-quality do follow backlinks for your business.

What are backlinks exactly?

Backlinks are simply links from one website to another, so let’s say that an airline also owns a chain of hotels, so after you have booked a flight, the website may ask, do you want to also book a hotel?

Then when you click the word hotel, you are taken to a another website, therefore you have used a backlinks to go from the airlines website, over to the hotel website.

Backlinks therefore are really useful to shoppers, because they allow them to quickly go to another company website with just one click of the mouse.

But backlinks can also be very useful, when a business wants to improve its search engine optimisation.

How can quality backlinks help a business, to improve its search engine optimisation?

Quite simply put, it doesn’t matter if you run a solicitor’s practice, or let’s say that you run an airline, the more backlinks you have, which are quality links, these will help to improve your company’s online marketing.

So, for example let’s say there are two competing airlines, both want to rank for low-cost airlines United Kingdom, if one has substantially more do follow, quality backlinks, then that website will be deemed to have stronger search engine optimisation. Therefore, this simply means, that that website is likely to rank higher in the search results, simply because it has better quality backlinks.

But how important are backlinks?

Well, the truth is, you could spend forever and a day say constantly trying to improve a business’s meta titles and meta descriptions, so that in the click through rate improves. However, the problem with this is, improving meta titles and meta descriptions is unlikely to really have a dramatic effect on your businesses search engine optimisation.

However, with that said, having a lot of really, top quality backlinks, from website such as the BBC, well they can have a dramatic effect on your businesses search engine optimisation, that’s because if you have a lot of really top-quality links, then this can mean that your business moves up the ranks, sometimes by quite a lot depending on how many quality links you to have.

So, to answer the question, how important are quality backlinks, in terms of improving a business’s search engine optimisation, well the answer to that question is simple they are very important, because if you have a lot of do follow backlinks, and you are likely to see your search engine optimisation improve.

What is anchor text?

So, the actual text that you click on in order to follow a link, often this text is bald, which is a different colour from the rest of the text, the text which is highlighted or a different colour is what is called the anchor text. The anchor text might be something as simple as text which just reads click here, or it might be more descriptive such as quality ski boots for under hundred pounds.

What is important is that the anchor text is written in a white hat way, what we mean by white hat is you must follow search engine optimisation best practice, and you should write the anchor text so that it is useful to your shoppers, so by that we mean it should accurately describe the page it links to.

So, for example let’s say that you sell surfboards, and you sell a range of different surfboards, you might wish to use the brand of the surfboard plus the word surfboard.

However a lot of businesses simply make the mistake of thinking, well we want to rank for low-cost surfboards, and then they right into their anchor text low-cost surfboards every single time, so across the whole website they have let’s say 1000 anchor text which all read low-cost surfboards, obviously this is not good search engine optimisation, it’s likely to result in the business incurring a penalty, because instead of accurately describing where the page leads to, such as the brand of surfboard, instead if overused the description low-cost surfboards.

So, the anchor text needs to be diversified, and by we mean the anchor text should accurately describe the page it links to. So, if the page that you are linking to is on say a family law websites, and you are linking to the page which offers mediation services, you should use the anchor text mediation services.

A really low-quality online marketing agency might overuse the anchor text “divorce solicitors”, to try and improve the businesses search engine optimisation, yet this won’t work, it is likely that the business if it over uses the same anchor text time and time again, will just mean that the business simply incurs a penalty, that’s because the overused the same anchor text too much.

Therefore, the anchor text needs to be diversified, and it needs to accurately describe the page or the blog post that it is are linking to.

So how do you go about building high-quality backlinks?

We think that the best way that any business can build quality backlinks, is simply by taking the time to create top quality content marketing. So, for example it doesn’t matter if you are a solicitor, hairdresser or builder, you should create content marketing, which is well written which your customers are likely to find very interesting to read and useful. Therefore, if this work is really high quality and it offers superb quality advice then this likely to be linked to.

So, what you are saying is, if you publish high-quality blog posts other businesses might link to you?

That’s exactly right, for example, you could run a solicitor’s practice, and one of your solicitors write a brilliant article let’s say it 10,000 words, and talks about changes which are happening to the divorce process, other solicitors practices when they writing their own blog posts might read that blog post and think that’s really good, and they might want to link to it, and that’s especially if the business is in an opposite part of the country so that really then not competing for customers.

For example, a solicitor’s practice in Wales might link to a solicitor’s practice in London, because they know that not many of their customers are going to come from that area, so even though they’re helping the other businesses search engine optimisation, by linking to that work, they really not in competition because they are too far apart geographically.

However, because the solicitor has seen that that other solicitor practice has published brilliant quality work, they might want to link to it because they know that their customers might want to read it.

So, by publishing top quality content marketing you might start again a lot of quality backlinks.

Why should a business never purchase backlinks?

We would never recommend, purchasing any backlinks at all, we would never recommend purchasing backlinks for the simple reason that, if you were to buy backlinks then this can result in the business incurring a penalty. Every backlink, whether it is do follow or whether it is no follow shouldn’t be purchased, it should be earned.

What are external backlinks?

Now a common mistake, that some businesses make, is thinking that an internal backlink, is worth the same, as an external backlink. However, a top quality, do follow backlink, from a website, such as the BBC, or other quality websites, can have a dramatic effect on a business’s search engine optimisation, in terms of it can really help to positively improve the businesses search engine optimisation, if the backlinks are external, high-quality, do follow and also the anchor text has been written in a white hat way.

Don’t get us wrong, internal backlinks are important, they help the pages on your website to get crawled and indexed, however if you really want to make a massive improvement to your businesses search engine optimisation (SEO), then what you need is a lot, sometimes hundreds, sometimes even thousands or sometimes in highly competitive business sectors, sometimes you will need millions, of quality, do follow, backlinks which have been built in a white hat way.

Are external backlinks easy to build?

Most definitely not, an internal backlink is an absolute piece of cake to build, if you’ve got a WordPress website, you don’t even need any coding knowledge you can simply log into the WordPress dashboard, and you can simply use the text editor, to highlight the text, you could make it bald you could change the colour of the text to make it the anchor text, then you could add an internal link on your website to any page or blog post you want.

However, with that said building external backlinks, well that is much harder to do, because other businesses, they need to link to your company website, the only reason that they would do this is because they see the work that you have published is good quality. For example, let’s say that your company manufacturers very high quality car waxes, scratch removers, plus also springs which you can spray onto the glass to clean it within your car, a business which restores and sells high-value classic cars, may see that you sell high quality products, and that you offer quality advice on how to apply those waxes to the car.

Because the quality of the product is so good, plus you offer quality advice on how to apply the, wax, the business which restores and also sells classic cars, may link to your products, because they recognise it as a very high-quality product.

They may link to a page which says how to remove a scratch from a car door, therefore they have a read the article that you have written, they see it as a good quality piece of writing, and therefore have chosen to link to it. Therefore, backlinks should be earned and never bought.