Link building in Newcastle, NSW: other sites vouching for yours.

A link is when another website mentions your business and connects through to your site. Link building is the work of getting more of them from businesses that matter.

You will also hear them called backlinks. It is the same thing, and people use the two words interchangeably.

Google cannot sit in on your meetings or watch how you look after people, so it looks for signs that others already trust you. A link is one of the strongest signs it has, because somebody had to put your name on their own website to create it.

That is also why the number of links matters far less than people assume. One link from a Newcastle industry association does more than fifty from directories nobody visits, the same way one referral from someone respected does more than fifty flyers.

What makes a link worth having

• Who the link comes from.

  A supplier, an association, a local paper, a club. A website nobody reads passes on very little.

• Whether the link makes sense.

  A club you sponsor is a natural fit. An unrelated site in another country is not, and Google can tell.

• Where it sits on the page.

  A link inside the writing counts. A link in a long list at the bottom of a page counts for almost nothing.

• The words used in the link.

  Those words tell Google what your page is about. A hundred links all using the same words look arranged, because they were.

They decide the competitive searches. On most local searches your Google listing and your service pages do the work, and links only start to matter once everyone has those right.

Most searches in Newcastle are won on two things: a properly filled out Google Business Profile, and a real page on your website for each job you do. If those are sorted, a business will usually rank reasonably well without any link work at all.

The trouble starts on the searches worth the most money. Where a single job or client is worth thousands, three or four businesses have usually done all of that already, and the results stop moving.

Links are what puts one of them ahead at that point. When Google is looking at several businesses that all match the search equally well, it falls back on which one other websites are pointing at.

The useful part is that Newcastle is a much smaller pond than Sydney. A handful of genuine local links is enough to matter here, and it is not something a competitor can buy their way past in a weekend.

Most of the realistic ones come from businesses you already deal with: suppliers, your industry association, clubs you sponsor, and the people who send you work.

This is the part the industry makes sound harder than it is. Link building for a local business is mostly a matter of going through relationships that already exist and asking for something nobody thought to ask for.

Where they come from

• Suppliers, lenders and partners.

  Anyone whose product or panel you work with. Most of them have a partner, member or accredited provider page, and most local businesses are not listed on it.

• Your industry association.

  Member directories are one of the few directory types Google still pays attention to, because you have to be a member to appear.

• Clubs and teams you sponsor.

  Junior sport, a surf club, a community event. Almost all of them list their sponsors, and most will add a link if asked.

• Local news and community sites.

  A job or deal worth writing up, a new hire, a milestone. Newcastle publications need stories and very few businesses offer them one.

• Businesses you already work with.

  Your accountant, your solicitor, anyone you send work to. Anyone who refers you work. A page on each site naming the other is normal and it helps both of you.

Sponsoring a local charity works on the same principle, with the advantage that the money is doing something useful and the link comes along with it.

You can, and it is not worth it. Google's own spam policies treat paid links as against the rules, and the links keep pointing at your site long after you stop paying for them.

Bought links are cheap and they arrive quickly, which is why the offer is tempting and why somebody has probably already made it to you.

Google is direct about it. Its spam policies say that paying for links which pass ranking is against the rules, and Google does treat sites accordingly.

The part that rarely comes up in the pitch is what happens afterwards. Those links stay pointing at your website when the arrangement ends, and removing them is slower and dearer than buying them was.

There is a legitimate version of paying for placement, and it is separated by one technical detail. A sponsored or advertising link carries a marker so that it does not pass ranking, which is what Google asks for. Anyone unwilling to mark it that way is passing the risk to you.

Start with the businesses you already deal with, get your basic listings consistent, then give somebody a reason to write about you. It is slow, deliberate work with no shortcut that survives.

The order comes before the effort. Most of what a local business can realistically get is sitting in its own paperwork, so that comes first because it is the part that is certain.

1. Write down every business you already deal with

Suppliers, your association, clubs, referral partners, anyone you sponsor. Half an hour going through your own bills will produce most of the list.

2. Ask the ones that already list businesses like yours

Partner and accredited provider pages, member directories and sponsor pages already exist. In most cases the only reason a business is not on them is that nobody asked.

3. Make your basic listings match each other

Your business name, address and phone number written identically everywhere they appear online. These are not powerful links on their own, and the consistency is what Google is checking.

4. Give somebody a reason to write about you

A job worth photographing, a local hire, a sponsorship. Newcastle publications need stories the same way any newsroom does, and most businesses never offer them one.

5. Put something on your own site worth linking to

A page that properly answers a question customers ask will collect links quietly for years. It is the slowest route and the only one that keeps working without anyone chasing it.

6. Keep a record of what arrives

Which website, and when. A spreadsheet is enough, and it is the only way to tell whether the work is going anywhere.

Longer than any other part of SEO. Links arrive one or two at a time, and the position they earn tends to hold once it arrives.

The straightforward ones come first, usually within the first month or two. Suppliers, the industry association, whatever the business already sponsors.

After that the competitive searches start moving before the easy ones do, which feels backwards until you remember the easy ones were already settled by the Google listing and the service pages.

Then it builds on itself, and that stage genuinely takes years. It is also the reason the long established businesses in any trade are hard to shift, and the reason it is worth starting even when the first month looks like nothing happened.

One warning worth keeping. If somebody promises a set number of links every month, they are describing links they intend to buy, because earned ones do not arrive on a schedule.

Which websites the links will come from, whether any of them are paid for, what happens if you stop, and what the monthly list shows. The first question tends to answer the rest.

These are worth asking of any agency, including this one, so the answers given here are underneath each question.

• Which websites will the links come from?

  You should get real site names before you pay anything. An answer about high authority domains, with no names in it, is not an answer.

• Is any of it paid placement?

  Every link here is earned. Where an arrangement does include paid placement it has to be marked as advertising, and that is worth having in writing.

• What happens to the links if I stop?

  Earned links stay, because they were never rented. Rented ones disappear, which tells you what they always were.

• What does the monthly list show me?

  The websites that started linking, by name and date. A count on its own says nothing about quality.