Melanie
Hello and welcome back to the podcast. It's a great Monday morning. I hope you're enjoying yourself this morning with your nice cup of tea. I know I certainly have been chugging down my coffee this morning. Today, we're going to be talking to Esther about something she should know pretty well. We count on this.
Esther
No pressure then.
Melanie
And we're going to call this podcast, The Power of Backlinks, AKA, off-page SEO. I really hope you know this. So tell us, what is a backlink, Esther?
Esther
Okay, so that's probably one of the hardest questions to answer straight off. But first, here's a quick message from our sponsor.
Melanie
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Esther
So I'll go a little bit further back first and just give a, for those don't remember or don't recognise the letters SEO. It's Search Engine Optimisation. It's what helps you get found on search engine platforms like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc, etc. So there are more out there than just Google. Google is the main one. It's the one that people mostly talk about. It's got a verb. I mean, people Google stuff. So to be found on those platforms when people type in certain keywords, it is essential to have good SEO juice effectively flowing through your website. And part of SEO is on page, which is your content and your images and your text and all of that. But today we're talking about the off page stuff or the backlinks. So backlinks is what happens off your website. So it's what other people write about you or that you write on other people's websites and it links back to your website.
Melanie
Okay, so thank you for clarifying that. So how essential is a backlink?
Esther
Okay, very. That is the easiest way to say it. It's very essential, but it's better to have good quality backlinks. And when I say quality, I mean recognised websites that are high up in their own SEO that have good, what they call authority through Google and the search engines, the ones that they recognise. When I say they, I'm talking Google, Bing, DuckDuckDuck, go. We'll stick with just Google because that's the one most people know and use. What Google ranks as a good authority website. So obviously the top website for Google is their own google.com. That's number one. Nobody can beat that one. Other top ones up there, maybe in our industry, would be things like Social Media Examiner, things like... Just lost it off the top of my mind, but I'm sure, AtomaCon is a really good authority website because a lot of people know about it and will go and visit the website. That's what makes it good authority. So when you have people like Social Media Examiner, they once shared our event-.
Melanie
They did, yeah.
Esther
That we had. So we actually got a sale from that event because people had gone and found it and seen it. So that boosted our SEO because we had a link on someone else's website. So you can have as many links out there as you want, but quality is always going to be better than quantity.
Melanie
Can you control where you get backlinks from?
Esther
Yes. Now you can, you've probably already received loads of emails from people asking to guest blog on your website. So that is one of the main ways that you get your back links on other people's websites is that you offer up your services as a blogger or offer to write content, or you can ask them to promote an event or to promote you. So for example, a lot of people We promote a lot of people on our website because we have a lot of guests. So they will be getting that juice, that SEO backlink juice, to help them with their searches. So when people go and search for Lucy Hall or search for Samantha Kelly or search for Andrew and Pete, our website might pop up as well because they're mentioned on our website and they have some of their links on our website through the show notes, etc. So you can ask for it or it can be organically done by the people like ourselves who have you on as guests or who ask you to provide something for their website.
Melanie
You pose an interesting point there, actually, Esther, because what if you don't ask to go on somebody's podcast or get invited onto a podcast, let's say, and I just found an article that I thought was really pertinent and I put it up, it still goes back to that person. They can still claim ownership of it, but I haven't been given express permission to put it up on my website. Could that make it a bad backlink, potentially?
Esther
No, I mean, there's never a bad backlink. So even if it's low quality, it wouldn't be even a bad backlink. All the backlinks can help you. So Even if the only time I would think really that it wouldn't help would be if it was put on a completely different industries website. So in our case, we're talking marketing. That's pretty universal. Every business needs marketing and talks about marketing. But if you're talking about, I don't know, candle makers, I don't know why I always go back to those.
Melanie
You always go back to that, don't you? It's weird.
Esther
I love candles. It's content. Birthday presents. But if you have a candle maker, a jewellery maker, or a shoe maker, and they're linked to a food website, those two things aren't related. So unless you're talking about a gift hamper that includes chocolates and a candle and a bit of jewellery, they're not really related. So that might not give you as much authority because it's got nothing to do with your original business. But there's no real negative backlinks unless they're talking badly about you and tag you in it. But that then would be liable, blasphemy, and I don't know which one's written and which one's spoken. Slander. So, yeah.
Melanie
So do we only discover all of these backlinks and off-page SEO in a Google search? Or is there a tool or an app or a website that we can get all this information from?
Esther
There are tools and apps, but they generally cost money to be able to find all of the places that you've been back-linked in. You can ask, for example, your SEO agent may be able to put you on other people's websites as part of their SEO strategy, and they would have a list of where they've put But in terms of finding it, it would just be using SERPs, S-E-R-Ps.
Melanie
Can you explain what SERPs is, please?
Esther
Search engine report page. I never remember what the P stands for. There's just where you can get your search engine reports. So that shows you how good your website is in terms of SEO. If you're... Because SEO It shows everything. It's your on page, it's your images, your blogs, your content, your About Me, making sure all your links in there work. And then it will also tell you if you have any broken links, which could be things that are on other people's websites or your own websites that are linking back to other people. Because it's a good thing to reciprocate as well. So if you're put on someone's website and you find out about it, like we find out about Social Media Examiner because someone bought a ticket to the event through it, And we checked our analytics. So checking your analytics can see who's clicking on those backlinks, but it won't always tell you where your backlinks are.
Melanie
It'd be pretty poor if we didn't do it, wouldn't it?
Esther
But I mean, if you don't check your analytics, you're never going to know, even if you're on... Because that one was a surprise and a shock to us. We never thought that we would have backlinks on other people's websites.
Melanie
We're definitely not there.
Esther
No.
Melanie
Never in a million years did we think we'd appear on their website.
Esther
Yeah, but we might be on loads of other people's websites. Most of our guests may have added the episode to their podcast or to their... Of their podcast to their website.
Melanie
A lot of them have.
Esther
Yeah.
Melanie
A lot of them have.
Esther
Perfectly valid as well because it links back. As long as you're linking it to the people, like you said, you find an article really pertinent, you added it to your website, you linked it back, you didn't claim credit for it. That all is... That's good backlinking practise.
Melanie
And I think because it was something that I was actually reciprocating, I'd been featured on their website, so I was reciprocating. It just seemed beneficial. But I have been approached by well-known speakers as well, and I've got at least one person who's very well known on my platform, which surprised the heck out of me when it happened. But there you go. So obviously it counts even to the more well known people to go on lesser known people in the same niche.
Esther
Yeah. Like I said, in the same industry, within the same industry, most people know each other. And because they know that you're talking about the same stuff, then you're going to pop up on search engines anyway, because it's all... I mean, even though we talk about it all the same content, we talk about it all differently. But at the end of the day, we're all in the same area. So what they would be providing to your website or what they would be providing in our case to the podcast is totally relevant and totally acceptable to accept those things. We get emails, though, from people asking to guest blog about stuff that has no relevance to marketing whatsoever. So we haven't accepted anybody's request to guest blog. Some people actually charge to guest blog. And other people charge to have guests blog on their website. So, you know If your domain is of high authority, you can basically do whatever you want and charge whatever you want to people. So it's probably easier to get on the lesser known ones.
Melanie
Yeah.
Esther
And it helps them as well. So it's helping the little guys to find their fit and then get up the ladder as well.
Melanie
Okay, so we've established that it's really important that we can analyse it, how difficult is it to do backlinks? Do you need some computer science degree to understand all of this? Or can the everyday Joe pick up this skillset relatively easily?
Esther
The everyday Joe can do it because you're already doing it on your own website. So as long as you're making content on your own website, you could make content relevant for other people's websites. So reach out to people. They're not all going to be negative and say no or ignore you for your guest blog request. But just know, like a lot of people are asking, what's in it for me? What do I want to get out of it? How can I benefit from this blog? So give them a breakdown. Give them an idea. I'm going to be talking about A, B, and C. I'm going to be using these things. I thought it would be interesting because it's in your niche. Hit them where they like it and say, this would be good content for your website. Obviously, it'll have a backlink to my website or ask to collaborate. Just say, hey, can we do this together? Can we write a blog together? Can we record a podcast together? If you don't ask, you don't get. But you're already making content on your own website. And this also goes for social media because, as we know, social media is a great place for search engines. Youtube is the second highest search engine in the world because it's owned by Google, number one, and two, because videos are so popular that people go there and search for stuff. So if you appear on somebody's video, make sure that your account is linked on it.
Melanie
Agreed. Okay, so I think we've explained quite a lot of the background to doing this in an organised way. If we wanted to get some advice or guidance on how to do this, would you direct them anywhere, Esther?
Esther
Well, I would direct them to ipagroup.co, first of all, for advice and information. We do help people with their SEO. We help them with a strategy, we could do it for them. But I think to start with Look at your analytics and see if you have any links that are coming from other places or other people that you might not have realised beforehand. I mean, our analytics are so overlooked and so left behind I find a lot of the times that most people depend on asking in person, how did you find me? And nobody remembers what website they were on or who they were talking to in order to be able to find you. So study your own analytics first, and then you'll see what type of content is working that makes people click and makes people contact you. So all the information is there on your analytics. So if you don't have that set up first, then there's a few steps to take first before you do your backlinks, because otherwise you'll just be shouting into the abyss and nothing will really stick.
Melanie
Brilliant. Thank you very much, Esther. We were doing an interview style method today. It just seemed the easiest way. And I know Esther will agree with me here. As important as this is, this isn't something you should just be doing in isolation. You need to do a little bit of everything. You need to do your SEO on page and off page, do your social media, but also go out and meet people, do trade shows, speak, you name it. You have to have a real life marketing and traditional background, because just leaving it on social and online and on digital is not enough. Well, that's all the time we have for today. Esther, I'm going to let you send us out.
Esther
Thanks for joining us today, guys. If you do have any questions, do get in touch with me, either through the podcast or through IPA group. And we'll be back next week with more information for you on lots of other topics. Until then. Bye-bye.
Melanie
Bye.
