Why Backlinks and Citations Are Just a Small Part of Your SEO Strategy

Understanding what backlinks and citations are is an important first step in learning how they impact your website’s visibility. First, let’s define our terms. A citation is any mention of your business’s name, address and phone number on a website that isn’t your own, such as online directories, business listings, or social profiles. Many agencies tout citations as a key ranking factor for local SEO.

A backlink, on the other hand, is a hyperlink from another website pointing to yours. Backlinks act as votes of confidence, signalling to search engines that your content is relevant and trustworthy. High-quality backlinks from reputable sources can boost your website’s rankings. How can you get backlinks? Via:

• A write-up in your local newspaper about this fundraiser you recently did,
• An online article in the New England Home Magazine, where you are featured,
• The news section of your state building association’s website, as they name you a top electrician in your region.

With these definitions in mind, let’s cut through the noise and debunk the biggest myths.

Reports Don’t Always Tell the Full Story

Before you pour more budget into tools or reports, let’s cut through the noise.

Myth #1: “You’ve Got a Low Score in Yext”

Someone might call you and send you a Yext report. There, your website will appear with a low score, something they say is a major concern. They’ll tell you that’s the reason why your site isn’t ranking and you’re not getting calls.

The Debunk

At Olly Olly, we don’t use Yext to evaluate citation listings, or in fact at all. Why? Because we know that a Yext report will show hundreds of different citations, which is much more than what a small business website needs to rank. Even worse: the citations it generates are essentially empty numbers, as most aren’t even related to your industry…

Instead of trying to get you hundreds of general citations that don’t add real value, we focus on getting you niche citations from high-quality websites relevant to your business. The kind that will truly move the needle. And we’re far from being the only ones convinced it’s the way to go.

So yes… A Yext report could display a medium or low citation score for you. But this isn’t a good indicator of your website ranking. Not in any way.

Using Yext To Post Listings Can Actually Be Harmful

Many SEO agencies, including Olly Olly, handle citation services to ensure your business’s information is consistent across the web. However, we purposely avoid using tools like Yext for citations. Here’s why: if you cancel the service, all your listings disappear. And this sudden loss of citations can have a HUGE impact on your rankings!

There’s even more reason to be cautious about the effectiveness of citation services altogether. For example, a recent study showed that only 3% of citations managed by a paid service were indexed by Google, meaning most of these services may not even give the SEO benefits they promise…

This is one more reason why we create citations for you by hand, ensuring they’re indexed and relevant to your industry. And they’re yours to keep forever — you’ve already paid for them, after all!

Myth #2: “Your Competitors Have A Lot More Backlinks”

Another common misconception involves backlinks. Someone might send you a Semrush report showing your backlink count compared to the ones of your competitors. And they’ll point out that you have fewer backlinks. They’ll tell you that this is a big red flag, as the number of backlinks is a major SEO ranking factor.

The Debunk

At Olly Olly, we know that quality matters more than quantity when it comes to backlinks. And in local SEO, local backlinks from reputable sources are the ones that truly help a website rank. 

How do we know that? Over the years, it’s been documented that Google has become better and better at identifying and penalizing low-quality backlinks, especially those obtained through unethical methods. Today, such links can harm your website’s rankings instead of improving them.

Of course, backlinks do still play a role in SEO! But only relevant backlinks from reputable sources can positively impact your small business’s rankings. So if someone claims your website is not ranking because you have fewer backlinks than your competition, you should take that with a grain of salt.

Backlinks and Citations Matter but Are Not as Important as You Think

Even Google’s experts say it openly: links are no longer a top-ranking factor. In 2023, Gary Illyes, an analyst on the Google Search team, even went as far as saying that links haven’t been a top-three factor for some time and their importance is often overestimated. He proved his point by naming websites with high-quality content but no links that rank at the top of search results.

Other well-known Google representatives, such as Duy Nguyen and John Mueller, have also said that backlinks’ impact is decreasing over time, as Google now relies on more signals to rank sites. According to them, Google’s main focus is now on content quality and relevance to searches.

This shift is great news for small businesses. By prioritizing high‑quality, relevant content, you earn natural, organic backlinks and citations without chasing vanity metrics.

At Olly Olly, our goal is not just to improve your website’s ranking in Google. Our mission is to help your website give real value, which naturally builds trust with search engines AND people alike. 

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