Link Audits & Link Building
Most people who contact us about links are not trying to build any. They have inherited a profile from a previous agency, or bought a package a few years ago, and now something has gone wrong and they want to know whether the links are why. That is the more useful conversation, and it is where this work usually starts.
A £1,000 deposit, then 11 monthly payments, or £5,500 for the year. That buys up to five target keywords, a named consultant, and a monthly roadmap you can read in ten minutes.
See all three packagesWhere this fits in your campaign
The search demand here is almost entirely defensive. People look for "spammy links", "bad backlinks" and "how to disavow" far more than they look for anyone to build links for them, and that tells you what state most profiles are in.
Most disavow files do more harm than good
Disavowing is a blunt instrument and Google now ignores most low-quality links on its own. Over-eager disavowing throws away links that were helping you, and it is not reversible in any practical timeframe.
You cannot buy your way out of a link problem
Adding good links on top of bad ones does not dilute the bad ones. The profile has to be understood first, which is an audit, not a campaign.
What a link audit actually tells you
The point of an audit is to answer one question honestly: is anything in this profile actually a problem, or does it just look untidy?
Those are very different findings and they get confused constantly, usually by tools. Every backlink tool on the market assigns a risk or toxicity score, and those scores are invented. They are a vendor heuristic, not a Google signal, and treating a "toxic score 71" as a fact is how people end up disavowing links that were doing them good.
What we look at instead: where the links come from and whether those sites exist to serve readers or to host links; whether the anchor text looks like something a human wrote or something a spreadsheet generated; whether links appeared in unnatural bursts; and whether there is a real pattern connecting a ranking drop to anything in the profile at all. Very often there is not, and the drop was an algorithm update about content quality that has nothing to do with links.
The disavow file, and why we use it sparingly
Google has said for years that it ignores the overwhelming majority of low-quality links automatically, and in our experience that is broadly true. The disavow tool still exists, and it is still occasionally necessary, but it is a scalpel being sold as a broom.
The failure mode is not subtle. Someone runs a tool, exports everything above an invented threshold, uploads it, and removes several hundred links including thirty that were genuinely helping. Rankings then fall further, which looks like confirmation the links were bad, and the cycle repeats.
We disavow when there is a clear, deliberate pattern of paid or manufactured links, particularly where somebody was running a campaign that is still visible in the anchor text. We do not disavow because a tool coloured a row red. And we keep the file, documented, so the next person to look at your site knows what was done and why.
What to do if you inherited a bought profile
This is common and it is recoverable. The order matters.
- 01
Stop the ongoing spend first
If there is a monthly link package still running, cancel it before anything else. Auditing a profile that is still being added to is measuring a moving target.
- 02
Establish what actually happened
When did traffic change, and does it line up with a known algorithm update, a site migration, a redesign, or the links? Three of those four are more likely than the links, and the answer changes the entire plan.
- 03
Check for a manual action
Search Console will tell you outright. A manual action is a specific, fixable problem with a defined process. Its absence means whatever is wrong is algorithmic, which is slower and vaguer.
- 04
Fix the content and structure while you wait
Link recovery is slow whatever you do. The work that pays during that period is the on-page and structural work you were going to need anyway.
- 05
Only then think about acquisition
New links help, but they help a site that is otherwise sound. Building on unstable ground is how the money gets wasted twice.
When we do build links, how
There is exactly one durable method and it is not a secret: publish or do something worth citing, and then tell the people who might cite it.
In practice that is digital PR, which is why it has its own page. A campaign built on real data earns coverage, and coverage carries links. It is slower and costs more than the alternatives and it is the only version that still works and keeps working.
Alongside it, the quieter routes that most businesses never use: trade associations and supplier pages you are entitled to appear on, genuinely useful resources in your sector that people reference because they are useful, and the local relationships a real business already has. None of these scale, which is precisely why they are still worth something.
What we will not do is buy placements, trade links in networks, or quote you a number of links per month. A monthly link quota can only be met by manufacturing links, and manufacturing links is the problem this page mostly exists to clean up.
The competitor gap, and what it is good for
A gap analysis shows which sites link to your competitors and not to you. It is a genuinely useful input and it is routinely misread.
Used well, it tells you which publications, directories and trade bodies your sector actually cares about, and which of them you are simply missing from. That list is often short, obvious in hindsight, and cheap to fix.
Used badly, it becomes a target list to replicate wholesale, which means chasing links you have no reason to have and which will not be given. If three competitors share a link from the same paid network, that is not a gap, it is a warning.
What it costs
Audits are quoted on the size of the profile, because auditing four hundred referring domains and four thousand are different jobs. You get the findings themselves rather than a dashboard export with your logo on the front: what is there, what if anything is a risk, what we would disavow and why, and what we would leave alone.
Ongoing link acquisition is not sold separately, because sold separately it becomes a quota. It happens through digital PR and through the content in an SEO campaign, both of which are priced on the pricing page.
If you are here because something dropped and you are not sure why, the audit is the thing to buy first, and it may well tell you the links were never the problem.
Four steps, then round again
SEO never finishes. The work runs on a loop, and you see the report every time round, good month or bad.
- Step 1Keyword research
We start with the terms that show buying intent, not the ones with the biggest numbers. Alongside those, lower-competition terms that rank sooner and bring early results.
- Step 2Competitor analysis
Then we look at who outranks you and why. Once we know what they are doing, we know what it takes to beat it.
- Step 3Implementation
The team does the work: on-page fixes, new content, links and local signals. Every item is listed in your monthly report, not buried in a dashboard.
- Step 4Reporting & revision
Each month you see what was done and what it moved. When something is not working, we change it rather than wait for it to come good.
Three packages. Prices included.
Pick the one that matches where your customers are. Pay for the year, or a deposit and eleven monthly payments. Either way, the number on this page is the number on the invoice.
- Up to 5 keywords per campaign
- Up to 5 URLs included
- GMB post every 14 days
- 1+ new landing page or article
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 10 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 7 days
- 2+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
- Up to 20 keywords per campaign
- Up to 10 URLs included
- GMB post every 4 days
- 5+ new landing pages or articles
- Targeted locations, blog posts, on-page SEO report
- Initial audit & corrections, citations audit
- Monthly roadmap & action report
Every package includes keyword analysis, heading tags and meta description optimisation, image alt tag analysis, duplicate content checks, sitemap creation, mobile responsiveness reporting, citations, load time testing and search engine reports. All prices are subject to change. Budgeting for the website too? Here iswhat a website should actually cost.
Need something fixed this week?
Unexpected deadline, site down, or let down by another agency? Call and we will tell you straight away whether we can help.
Straight answers to the usual questions
Do spammy backlinks actually hurt my site?
Usually less than people fear. Google ignores most low-quality links automatically, and a handful of odd referring domains is normal for any site that has existed for a while. What does cause problems is a deliberate pattern: bought links at scale, exact-match anchor text repeated across hundreds of domains, or links from a network. The difference between untidy and harmful is what an audit is for.
Should I upload a disavow file?
Probably not, unless there is a clear pattern of manufactured links or you have a manual action. Disavowing is aggressive, it is effectively irreversible in any useful timeframe, and the commonest outcome we see is someone removing links that were helping them because a tool coloured them red. Those toxicity scores are vendor inventions, not Google signals.
How do I know if a link problem caused my ranking drop?
Line the drop up against dates. Algorithm updates, a site migration, a redesign or a CMS change are all more likely culprits than links, and all leave a clearer trace. Check Search Console for a manual action, which is explicit if it exists. If the timing matches a known update about content quality, no amount of link work will fix it.
Can you build links to my site every month?
Not as a quota, no. A guaranteed number of links per month can only be met by manufacturing them, which is the thing that creates the profiles we get paid to clean up. We earn links through digital PR and genuinely useful content, and the number that produces varies by campaign. If a fixed monthly count matters more to you than where the links come from, we are the wrong agency.
How long does it take to recover from bad links?
Months rather than weeks, and often the recovery has as much to do with the content and structural work done in the meantime as with the links themselves. If there is a manual action and it is lifted, recovery can be quick. If it is algorithmic, it is gradual and there is no switch to flip. Anyone promising fast recovery is guessing.
Is guest posting still worth doing?
On a site that has real readers and would have published you anyway, yes, that is just PR. On a site that exists to sell guest posts, no. Those networks are well known to Google, the links are discounted at best, and the footprint is obvious: sites covering forty unrelated industries, no real audience, and a contact page offering placement prices.
The other services we run
- Digital PRData and survey campaigns · Expert comment and reactive PR · Founder and spokesperson profiles
- Content MarketingBuying guides and comparisons · Service and landing page copy · Blog and editorial programmes
- Conversion Rate OptimisationEnquiry and quote forms · Landing pages for paid traffic · Checkout and basket flows
- PPC ManagementGoogle Ads search campaigns · Local Services Ads · Google Shopping
- AI Search OptimisationEntity and schema modelling · Content written to be quoted · llms.txt and entity files
- Branding & Graphic DesignLogo design · Brand identity systems · Brand guidelines your printer can follow
Ready when you are
Tell us what you are trying to rank for and we will look at the site and the search results before we reply. You get a straight answer, including if SEO is not the right spend for you yet.