What is link building?
Link building is the process of earning links from other websites to your own, so search engines see your business as more authoritative and trustworthy. It is the main part of off-page SEO, which also includes brand mentions, reviews and citations that happen away from your website.
Why do backlinks still matter for SEO?
Backlinks still matter because Google uses them to discover pages and to judge how much other websites trust them. A link from the Manchester Evening News, a university or a respected trade body carries far more weight than hundreds of links from directories nobody visits.
Quality matters more than quantity. Google's spam policies treat bought links, link exchanges, private blog networks and automated links as link spam, and its SpamBrain system is designed to ignore or penalise them.
What does our link building service include?
Our link building service includes digital PR, local link building, unlinked mention reclamation, broken link building, resource links and regular link audits.
Digital PR
We create stories journalists want to cover: original data, surveys, expert comment and reactive commentary on news in your sector. Coverage in regional outlets such as the Manchester Evening News, Place North West, Prolific North and BusinessCloud, and in national and trade press, brings links that are both authoritative and relevant.
Local links
Links from Greater Manchester organisations: chambers of commerce, business improvement districts, local charities and sports clubs you support, universities (Manchester, Salford, Manchester Metropolitan), suppliers, partners and event listings. Local links strengthen both organic and Google Maps rankings.
Unlinked brand mentions
Websites that mention your business without linking to it are the easiest links to win. We find them and ask politely.
Broken link building
Finding broken links on relevant websites and offering your page as the replacement, where it genuinely fits.
Linkable assets
Guides, calculators, local data and research that people cite naturally, such as a cost guide or an annual survey of your industry in Manchester.
Link audits and clean-up
Reviewing your existing backlink profile for spammy or paid links left by previous agencies, and dealing with them. Google now ignores most bad links automatically, so the disavow tool is only needed after a manual action or a clear pattern of paid links.
Which link building tactics do we avoid?
We avoid every tactic Google lists as link spam: buying or selling links, excessive link exchanges, private blog networks (PBNs), paid guest posts on sites built for selling links, automated links, comment spam and keyword-stuffed anchor text. These tactics may work briefly, then lose their value or trigger a penalty.
How do we measure link building results?
We measure link building by the number of relevant referring domains earned, the authority and traffic of those sites, the referral visits they send, and the ranking movement of the pages they point to.
How much does link building cost in Manchester?
Link building is included in our Growth package (£900 a month) and Ecommerce package (£1,500 a month), alongside technical and content work. Standalone digital PR campaigns are quoted individually, because cost depends on the number of stories and the outlets targeted. See our SEO packages.
How long does link building take to work?
Link building usually takes two to four months to affect rankings, because new links must be found, crawled and weighed by Google. Digital PR coverage can be indexed within days, but its ranking effect builds over months.
Questions
Asked and answered
Is buying backlinks safe?+
No. Buying links that pass ranking value breaks Google's spam policies. At best the links are ignored, at worst the site receives a manual action. Paid placements must be marked rel="sponsored".
How many backlinks do I need to rank in Manchester?+
There is no fixed number. Compare the referring domains of the pages ranking above you, then focus on earning fewer, more relevant links than they have.
What is the difference between on-page and off-page SEO?+
On-page SEO covers everything on your website, such as content, headings and internal links. Off-page SEO covers signals from elsewhere, mainly backlinks, brand mentions, reviews and citations.
Do directory links help SEO?+
A small number of relevant, well-maintained directories help local SEO through citations. Mass directory submissions do not help and can look manipulative.