Off-page SEO helps a website increase authority. Building backlinks is an effective off-page SEO strategy that contributes to search engine rank. We helped more than 200 Uk based businesses to build backlinks in authority websites that significantly increased brand trustworthiness to users and search engines.
Through link building, your website will be linked to another relevant website, which will signal Google about your website’s trustworthiness. Trust signals help a website boost its overall rank on the search engine ranking position.
Table of Contents
What is Off-page SEO and How does it work?
Off-page SEO refers to search engine optimisation beyond the website. Usually, creating links, citations, brand mentions and guest blogging are considered to be types of off page SEO. While giving rank to any website, Google seeks trust signals from different sources such as external mention, links to the website, user engagement, and increased citations.
Building relevant links for any website can increase the trustworthiness of that website and help in getting a better rank. Having an increased amount of links increases a website’s authority (trustworthiness). Increased authority will always help a website by gaining the trust of search engines.
Types of off-page SEO
There are different types of off-page SEO such as link building, social media marketing, brand mentions, influencer outreach, local SEO, guest blogging, and content marketing. With all these off-page SEO methods, a website tries to take the search engine’s attention. After getting endorsed by another website, the search engine considers the website as a valuable domain.
Let’s understand the each type of off-page SEO techniques:
- Link Building – Acquiring high-quality backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites to boost domain authority and rankings.
- Social Media Marketing – Using social platforms such as facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram to promote content, drive traffic, and increase brand awareness.
- Brand Mentions (Linked & Unlinked) – When other websites mention your brand either by linking to the website or just mentioning the brand name, it builds trust and improves visibility.
- Influencer Outreach – Collaborating with industry influencers to gain backlinks, brand mentions, social shares, lead generation, and credibility.
- Guest Blogging – Writing articles for other websites to gain backlinks, and brand mentions, expand reach, and establish authority within the SERP.
- Content Marketing – Creating and distributing valuable content (e.g., infographics, videos, blogs, pdf) to attract backlinks and user engagements.
- Citations – Listing your business on Google My Business, Yelp, and local directories to improve local search rankings by sending geotargeted trust signals.
- Digital PR & Press Releases – Publishing newsworthy stories to get featured in media and high-authority websites.
- Forum Participation & Q&A Sites – Engaging in communities like Quora, Reddit, and niche forums to build authority and drive traffic by linking or mentioning brands.
- Broken Link Building – Finding and replacing broken links on other websites with your relevant content.
- Podcast & Video Marketing – Appearing on podcasts or creating video content to expand reach and gain brand mentions, leads, and links.
How do we increase website rank with backlinks?
We offer off-page SEO and backlink services for websites struggling to rank. Below are the specialties of our services:
How link building help in website rank?
In simple words, backlinks make your website trustworthy to search engines. By getting endorsed by a third party, Google treats a website as useful. The more a website gets useful to search engines, the better its ranking will be.
Having a do follow link passes rank juice from one website to another. Rank juice is the trust flow that goes from one website to another. Even with only brand mentions (without links), search engine gets happier about the brand authority and rewards the mentioned website with higher SERP rank
Moreover, Google’s PageRank algorithm evaluates link quality, meaning not all backlinks have the same impact. A Moz study revealed that 66.31% of websites ranking in the top 10 positions have at least one high-authority backlink.
When linkbuilding helps?
Backlink can only help with better ranking when a website is already well-optimised with all of the on-page SEO best practices. Backlinks from relevant websites will help adding trust signals. Links from irrelevant websites will not result in anything good, but also downgrade a website’s credibility.
For example, we built links for our accountancy client from a newspaper featuring an article on UK autumn budget review. The United Kingdom’s autumn budget I directly linked with accounting and tax professionals. Undoubtedly, getting a link for a UK-based accounting firm from a local newspaper was relevant and highly rewarding.
These are characteristics of an effective backlink:
When backlink cannot increase website rank?
Irrelevant backlinks, automated links, or non-value-adding links cannot affect a website’s rank positively. Irrelevant links refers to getting endorsed by a website that does not have any relation to the other website. AUtomated links refers to creating links using the software. Non-value-adding links are the that come with thin content. (Thin content is content that cannot help visitors with something new or, effective). Example of thin content can be writing a few lines only to make a hyperlink on any website.
Examples of irrelevant links could be getting massive backlinks from websites that do not have any contextual connections or authority. Such spammy links are easily recognised by Google and the website doing this would experience a penalty.
in 2024, Google rolled out 3 spam updates (one in December and two in March) that directly dealt the websites doing spammy link-building techniques to ditch the search engine. Google has launched its AI-based algorithm ‘Spam Brain’ in 2018 to detect spam backlinks.
Details of these updates can be found on the Google search status page.
Google wants you to EARN backlinks Not to Build!
We make a natural backlink profile that actually HELPS!
Natural backlinks vs Manual outreach
Having links or, endorsed by other websites is better than manual outreach. Google prefers websites that earn links naturally rather than actively build them. Natural link building occurs when visitors find a website’s content valuable, relevant, and share-worthy. Natural backlinks signal search engines about the trustworthiness of the website, which affects ranking positively.
Manual outreach involves actively reaching out to websites, blogs, and influencers to cite a website. Manual outreach is also effective, if the links are relevant and made from authoritative websites naturally. However, Google always discourages building links just to boost rank.
How do search engines detect natural links?
The search engine can easily detect natural link profiles by using factors such as time of occurrence, frequency of the links, proportion of dofollow and nofollow, variations of IP address, and anchor text variation. abnormal links from software, massive outreach or private blogging network will leave footprints in any of the above natural link detection factors.
Here are a list of factors that help Google to understand a naturally built link:
- Gradual Link Growth – Natural links appear over time, while artificial links show sudden spikes.
- Balanced Link Frequency – A steady and diverse link acquisition pattern is natural.
- Do-Follow & No-Follow Ratio – A mix of both indicates organic linking, unlike manipulated links.
- Diverse Linking Domains – Natural backlinks come from various sources, not just a few sites.
- Anchor Text Variation – A mix of branded, generic, and keyword-rich anchors is natural.
- Different IP Addresses – Natural links originate from various locations, not similar hosting.
- Contextual Relevance – Quality backlinks appear within relevant, high-value content.
- Link Placement – Naturally earned links are in the body, not in footers or sidebars.
- Traffic from Linking Site – High-quality backlinks come from sites with real user traffic.
- Social Signals & Engagement – Natural links often come with shares and user interactions.
- Editorially Earned Links – Backlinks given by reputable sources, not through forced outreach.
- Stable & Long-Lasting Links – Natural links remain stable, while spammy links disappear.
What types of backlinks increase website rank?
Any natural and relevant backlinks will have a positive ranking impact on a website. Links from a high-traffic website will also contribute by referring more visitors. Links such as editorial backlinks, guest posts, contextual links, niche relevant backlinks, PR & news backlinks, and video backlinks help with website authority by rank increase and traffic boost.
Here’s a list of different backlinks we make for our UK-based clients:
- Editorial Backlinks – Earned naturally or by outreach when high-authority sites link to your content as a valuable resource. We make editorial links by helping local journalists with newsworthy writeups and research. Helping a journalist with what the journalist needs can result in a link and brand mention.
- Guest Post – Acquired through writing blogs for some other websites. Making the content reliable and natural can result in an external endorsement.
- Contextual Backlinks – Placed naturally within the body of relevant content, carrying strong SEO value. A guest post link can also be a contextual link, if the link comes from the main body of the article and a relevant anchor text is used.
- High-Authority Backlinks – Links from trusted, authoritative websites (e.g., Forbes, HubSpot).
- Niche-Relevant Backlinks – Earned from websites related to your industry, ensuring topic relevance. For example, an accountant gets a link from a tax-related blog.
- Do-Follow Backlinks – Pass SEO authority and ranking power to your website.
- PR & News Backlinks – Earned from press releases and mentions on media outlets like CNN TechCrunch or, any other industry-relevant news websites.
- Forum & Community Backlinks – Links from niche forums like Reddit, Quora, and other niche-relevant threads help with trust flow to a website.
- Podcast & Video Backlinks – Earned from hosting or featuring in podcasts and video content.
What types of backlinks decrease website rank?
Irrelevant backlinks, which are made abnormally and with no value addition will result in a website rank decrease. Bad backlinks are flagged by Google’s Spam Brain and the website gets an algorithmic penalty. Any algorithmic penalty caused by the bad backlinks is time-consuming and sometimes impossible to recover from.
Common examples of bad backlinks are PBN, automatic backlinks, irrelevant spammy backlinks, redirected backlinks, and over-optimised anchor text links.
Here’s an example that shows a rank drop caused by unhealthy links using black hat SEO techniques. We are currently working for this client to help his website recover.
Here’s a list of negative backlinks:
- Spammy & Low-Quality Backlinks – Links from irrelevant, low-authority, or penalized sites such as website with no or little content, gambling, adult ,and hijacked websites.
- Private Blog Network (PBN) & Paid Links – such as artificially created blog networks only to sell links. PBN links are manipulative backlinks that violate Google’s guidelines.
- Over-Optimised Anchor Text Links – Excessive use of exact-match keywords triggering penalties.
- Comment & Forum Spam Links – Backlinks from spammy blog comments, forum profiles, or signatures.
- Site-Wide & Automated Links – Footer, sidebar, or software-generated links that look unnatural.
- Low-Quality Web 2.0 & Redirect Links – Poorly maintained blogs, cloaked, or deceptive redirects.
What are the best geo-targeted link-building strategies?
Geo-targeted links help a business’s local SEO. Backlinks with local proximity signals help Google to realise proximity-based relevance about the brand and the website gets a rank boost within a particular area.
Let’s assume some Cardiff-based news websites and forums have our website link. The search engine will start to realise that ‘True SEO’ is doing good in Cardiff and that’s why people are citing our website in this region. As a result, our local search ranking near Cardiff, Bristol, and Newport will get better.
These are the effective local SEO backlink strategies:
- Local Directory Listings – Getting listed on Yelp, Bing Places, Apple Maps, TripAdvisor, and industry-specific directories to provide proximity signals to search engines.
- City-Specific News & Media Links – Earning backlinks from local news websites, press releases, and media blogs to enhance regional authority. Using location name in the anchor text improves location based signals.
- Chamber of Commerce & Business Associations – Getting listed on local chamber websites and professional groups to establish credibility. For example, we featured our Cardiff-based accounting firm client to a blog on ICAEW’s website by an in-depth finance article.
- University & .edu Links – Connecting with local colleges/universities for sponsorships, scholarships, or guest lectures. For example, a business consultant can offer a speech and training material through website to local university students on niche-related topics.
- Hyperlocal Press & PR Mentions – Getting featured in regional PR campaigns, radio stations, and hyperlocal blogs. Publishing industry research and other newsworthy content help getting hyperlocal press links.
- Customer Reviews & Testimonials on Local Sites – Getting mentions through review platforms and partner business sites for trust-building.
Try our link-building service – grow faster than your competitors
We make a natural link profile that actually works!
How do you build backlinks?
Building backlinks would require effort with website content and stakeholder communication. Natural link-building comes through publishing in-depth & useful content and sharing it on digital social media places. A balanced link profile will come through reaching niche-relevant websites and influencers. Manual outreach involves helping another website with any type of content such as articles, infographics, research,h, and videos.
There are different types of link-building strategies we follow for our clients across the United Kingdom. Some strategies work, and some don’t. Since, we focus on ensuring relevancy, the effectiveness will always depend on the response made by the other website we are approaching.
What are the effective link-building strategies?
We found relevant guest posts, broken link fixing, helping a local reporter strategy, competitors backlink analysis, resource page building, and infographic backlinks always useful strategies to earn backlinks for our SEO clients. Each strategy has its own merits & demerits. However, link strategies get effective if there are:
- A hook
- Something to offer
- Definite outcome
- Professionalism
A hook is important to draw the initial attention of the webmasters. Someone just asking for a link will never motivate the others to link back. In your email (pitch), you need something eye-catching to draw the attention of the other person who is reading your email. For example, the email subject ‘Willing to help your website’ will have more attention than the email subject ‘Seeking a backlink’.
Clear offers are also vital when executing link-building strategies. An offer makes both parties clear about the asking and deliverables. When I approach someone for a link, I never ask for the link. I make an offer to do something for the website owner. For instance, I offer a detailed infographic image to an existing page of the website. The offer is to make other people’s websites visually appealing.
While exploring a link opportunity, you need to define the outcome as well. Getting a link can be beneficial for you but, what benefit would there be for the other website?
I often explain the need to get connected with niche-relevant websites and clarify there would be no harm in helping me with a link. I also make a promise to seek backlink opportunities for the website I am approaching for a link.
Professionalism is a must. While communicating with webmasters, make sure to be clear, polite, and engaging. Webmasters will never link to a website whos owner makes spelling mistakes or sounds rude.
How to outrank competitors using the skyscraper technique?
The skyscraper technique is an SEO terminology that refers to outranking competitors by a combination of publishing better contents and building a stronger backlink profile than the competitors’ website. Skyscraper strategy is always useful when you compete for a competitive niche and keyword phrases.
We often use skyscraper strategy for our SEO clients to secure targeted search positions in SERP.
The first step of the skyscraper technique is to analyse competitors’ content, website structure,e and backlink profile. At the analytical level, we identify areas of improvement that help our website ensure more in-depth and better content quality. We always prefer implementing a semantic content network for our client’s websites that helps get search engine authority faster. After implementing the semantic SEO, we use internal linking and Schema to prepare a better version of the knowledge graph for the niche our clients’ website competes in.
We then work on making the website more versatile, simple and useful for the users. We enhance on-page SEO factors and optimise the website with necessary user engagement features. Technical optimisation is the second step of the skyscraper technique because Google always compares the website’s functionality, user behavior, and user experience during core algorithm updates.
We extract the list of competitors’ backlinks and make a strategy that eventually ensures having a better backlink profile than the competitors. We primarily focus on building authority backlinks from niche websites and citations for geo-targeted trust signals.
However, continuous monitoring, strategy revision, and degradation is required to outrank a competitor using the skyscraper technique.
What are the best link-building strategies for accountants?
For accountants, backlink profiles should focus on authority, relevance, and local trust signals. links from relevant & authority website helps an accounting website get better trust from search engines and local trust signals through citations, press releases & engaging local users to help with higher geotargeted signals. Website rank helps an accounting firm competing other competitors in SERP and local trust signals help with getting more clients within a local proximity.
While working with different accountancy firms in the United Kingdom such as Total Books Accountants, RX Virtual Finance Limited and Howlader & CO Chartered Accountants, we found that a combination of local citations, pres release, guest post and PR backlinks helo the accountancy firms stand out in the SERP.
Below ar some effective link-building strategies for accounting websites:
What are the effective backlink methods for solicitors & consultants?
Solicitors and consultants require external mentions for rank boost and traffic referrals. We have observed that backlink strategies such has forum discussion (solving others’ problems), guest pot submission, and PR mentions always work for the solicitors and consultants.
Below are some effective link strategies for consultants and solicitors:
- Forum Discussions & Q&A Platforms – Engage in UK-based forums like MoneySavingExpert, UK Business Forums, and Quora UK, answering legal and consulting-related queries to gain authority and backlinks.
- Guest Posting on Legal & Business Websites – Contribute expert content to The Law Society Gazette, Legal Futures, Business Matters UK, and Consultancy UK to secure high-quality backlinks.
- PR & Media Mentions – Get featured in BBC Business, The Guardian Small Business Network, Financial Times, and City AM through journalist outreach (Connectively, JournoRequests).
- Legal & Business Resources – Create contract templates, compliance guides, dispute resolution checklists, or VAT advisory tools to attract backlinks from industry blogs and businesses.
Client testimonials or, case studies cannot be great backlink options for the consultants and solicitors because clients do not normally feel comfortable with sharing the problems publicly.
Which backlink strategies are effective for New Business?
Building backlinks at early stage is not recommended since search engine takes a few months to understand the website. However, any small business should slowly strengthen its link profile starting from local citations and social media influencer outreach. Because new business needs traffic and a steady amount of traffic would affect better search ranking.
Below are the strategies for new businesses that focus on traffic-building rather than aggressive link acquisition.
- Local Citations & Business Directories – Start with Google My Business, Yell, Yelp, and UK Small Business Directory to establish a local presence.
- Social Media & Influencer Outreach – Engage on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, collaborating with small influencers to drive organic traffic.
- Forum Discussions & Q&A Engagement – Provide helpful insights on Quora, Reddit, and UK Business Forums to build authority and referral traffic.
- Guest Blogging & PR (Gradual Approach) – After a few months, contribute to industry blogs and local business news for relevant exposure.
- Partnerships & Cross-Promotion – Work with local businesses, accountants, legal firms, and consultants for organic mentions and collaborations.
How to find backlink opportunities for a website?
Organic, relevant, and authoritative backlink requires a clear strategy. Finding the right opportunity for linking would ease the process.
Finding a suitable link-building opportunity would require you to analyse your competitors first and then seek possible opportunities with guest blogging and manual outreach.
Here are some effective strategies for finding link opportunities for any website:
- Competitor Backlink Analysis – Use Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to find and replicate competitor backlinks.
- Guest Posting & PR Outreach – Pitch articles to industry blogs, news sites, and business publications.
- Broken Link Building – Find broken links on relevant websites and offer your content as a replacement.
- Connectively, Featured & JournoRequests – Respond to journalist queries for backlinks from niche-related websites.
- Local Directories & Citations – List on Google My Business, Yell, FreeIndex, and industry directories.
- Influencer & Business Partnerships – Collaborate with bloggers, consultants, and industry professionals for link exchanges.
- Create Linkable Content – Publish guides, case studies, templates, and infographics that naturally earn backlinks.
How to extract competitors’ backlink sources?
Extracting competitors’ backlinks is easy with paid tools such as SEMrush, MOZ and Ahrefs. You can also find competitors’ backlinks by modifying google search terms.
Use premium tools to find the list of your competitors backlinks:
- Use Ahrefs Site Explorer – Enter a competitor’s domain in Ahrefs and check the Backlinks report to see referring domains.
- Analyse with SEMrush Backlink Analytics – SEMrush’s Backlink Gap tool compares multiple competitors’ backlinks to find link-building opportunities.
- Check Moz Link Explorer – Use Moz’s Link Explorer to view competitor backlinks and domain authority of referring sites.
How to find competitors’ backlinks without paid tools?
Modifying google search queries is the easiest way to find competitors’ backlink lists. Here are some instructions of Google search modifications:
What is rank juice?
Rank juice or, ‘link juice’ refers to the value of authority that one website sends to another website through creating do-follow links. When a website links to other websites with a do-follow link, it instructs the search engine to pass ‘Trust flow’ to that website. No-follow links do not directly pass any link juice but, Google considers no-follow links as useful as brand mentions. No follow links can still contribute towards getting trust flow.
Link juice is not a myth. As per Google’s PageRank Algorithm (Patent by Larry Page, 1998), Google’s PageRank algorithm assigns a score to web pages based on the number and quality of inbound links.. A study by Ahrefs also shows that 91% of web pages get zero organic traffic because they lack backlinks, proving the importance of link juice in rankings.
Internal links also pass link juice from one page to another. Pages having more internal links are likely to drain rank authority. This is why we discourage using an excessive amount of internal links on a page.
How to stop draining website link juice?
Prevention of the drainage of a website’s link juice is essential for sustainable search engine rank. Broken link fixing, using less outbound links, using nofollow links for untrusted websites, balancing internal link portfolio, avoiding 302 redirects, preventing excessive pagination, avoiding orphan pages, and monitoring site crawl status can help with improving a website’s link juice.
- Fix Broken Links – Redirect or replace 404 pages to retain link juice.
- Minimize Outbound Links – Avoid excessive external links; only link to relevant, high-authority sites.
- Use No-Follow for Untrusted Links – Add
rel="nofollow"to sponsored or low-quality links. - Optimise Internal Linking – Ensure important pages receive internal links to distribute link juice properly.
- Avoid 302 Redirects – Use 301 redirects instead of temporary 302s to pass full link equity.
- Prevent Excessive Pagination – Optimize site architecture to avoid spreading link juice too thin.
- Fix Orphan Pages – Link important but unlinked pages to ensure they receive SEO value.
- Monitor Site Crawl Issues – Use Google Search Console or Ahrefs to fix broken paths.
Should you buy links for a website?
No, buying links directly violates Google’s guidelines. Google wants you to win backlinks, not to make it with incentives. You can indirectly buy links by additional support instead. For example,
- Sponsorships & Donations – Sponsor events, charities, or universities for a natural backlink.
- Scholarships & .edu Links – Offer a scholarship and get listed on university websites.
- Paid Guest Posting – Some high-quality blogs charge editorial fees for publishing guest content.
- Influencer & Blogger Collaborations – Sponsor industry experts or podcasts for a natural mention.
- Exclusive Research & Case Studies – Invest in research and publish data-driven reports to attract backlinks from journalists.
- Create Linkable Assets – Develop free tools, guides, or infographics that websites naturally link to.
How to remove toxic links?
Removing toxic backlinks can be done by manual request and using Google’s disavow tool. In case of any unhelpful and irrelevant backlinks, reach out to the web administrator and request the link removal. Additionally, bu uploading a list of toxic links in Google’s disavow tool portal would also work. However, Google takes a few months to process the request.
Link removal requests should only be done for the links that appear in Google’s webmaster tool. Because, the webmaster tool shows indexed links, and other tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush show both indexed and unindexed links.
You should not place a link disavow request for unindexed links because Google’s Spam Brain has already detected those links and ignored them.
The Google Spam Policy states that paid links, link farms, and excessive link exchanges violate its guidelines. The Penguin algorithm update (2012) specifically targeted unnatural link-building, leading to manual penalties and ranking drops. Google’s John Mueller (Google Search Advocate) has confirmed that Google automatically ignores low-quality backlinks that don’t contribute to ranking, reducing the need for manual action unless the links pose a real threat.
Can you destroy other website’s rank by creating toxic links?
Yes, you can, but you should not try such unethical activities. However, Google is smart enough to detect external threats by mapping different factors such as patterns, IP addresses, and other algorithmic actions. Normally, creating toxic backlinks for authority websites will not work because Google has already been trusting authority websites. Tosic links can only harm new websites that do not monitor link profiles regularly.
Request for a website audit
We offer website audit service that helps you know main weaknesses that your website currently facing. Knowing these weaknesses will help you design an effective SEO strategy to increase search engine rank.
SEO Fees: How Much Do SEO Services Cost in the UK?
SEO pricing in the UK varies depending on business size, competition, and service scope. Average SEO costs can range significantly…
