You often hear that referrals are the best channel for acquiring new clients. In fact, they may be the only channel for some industries. If your business is being talked about in the right circles, you’re sure to attract high-quality customers or clients.

What referrals are in the non-digital world, links are in digiral marketing.

Inbound or backlinks from high-quality (SEO-optimized) websites are one of the important factors in SEO optimization. If your business is being talked about positively in the same industry as yours, you will definitely benefit. It’s the same on the internet. The higher the quality of the websites linking to your page, the more reputation you will gain with Google, which will ultimately result in a better position in search results.

In addition to links from other websites that lead to your website, there are two other similar things that contribute to SEO optimization of your website. These are citations and mentions.

Translation: Inbound or Inbound Links

Inbound or inbound links are links to your website from another website. A good example of an inbound link is a link to an article you wrote about your profession that is on your website. A website that links such useful information raises your SEO and brings visitors to your website from its own website.

Are all websites equally valuable for inbound links?

A very important thing about inbound links is the quality of the websites they come from. If the websites that link to you are not relevant to your business, you will not benefit much from the link.

For example, if you have websites promoting education and a link to them is from tourist websites that rent rooms, the link will have no SEO value.

Google will not rate this link much, and website visitors who are currently looking for accommodation will not see the need for education.

On the other hand, if you link from a local tourism website to your apartments, you will benefit greatly. These are closely related activities, so Google will appreciate them.

There are companies that sell links from their websites that could only harm your SEO rating because Google algorithms will understand that you are trying to trick the system.

Quotes, Citations – Help with Visibility and Credibility

Internet quotes are similar to quotes in print media. They are essentially short pieces of information in one place that are a reference point for more information or specific actions (ordering, support, searching, etc.) located elsewhere (on your website).

Citations, therefore, have an important value for SEO optimization (sometimes even greater than inbound links). It all depends on how relevant the websites they are on are. Websites that are relevant to your business or generally well-positioned websites will bring better results.

This is one of the reasons why having up-to-date information on web pages related to your business or activity is important. For example, if you have a restaurant website, it would be good to be on websites that review restaurants. Or, if you rent rooms, your business or website information should be on websites that feature other room providers, such as Booking.com.

Citations help with visibility and credibility.

Quotes on your website can appear on the internet “naturally.” For example, when you register a company, it may appear in the Chamber of Commerce directory, depending on your industry in the city or county’s tourist community, physicians’ chambers, etc.

For more quotes, you need to make an effort, for example, by registering your website in the appropriate yellow pages categories. In any case, it would be good for them to be on thematically similar websites and to have all your contact information.

In any case, setting up quotes should be the foundation of your internet marketing strategy.

What are mentions in the SEO world of external links?

Often in internet marketing strategies, people focus only on external links. Many are unaware of the power of citations, but we also have another category of external recommendations that are often called mentions in professional circles.

Mentions are a special type and have several different forms. These are cases where a website or company is mentioned somewhere on the network but without a link or with a “nofollow” link.