Over the years, SEO has evolved but link building continues to be one of its most critical elements. It gets you visibility across the web and improves your chances of achieving high search rankings. Unless your website has a strong and diverse backlink profile, you cannot imagine getting fast and effective results. Getting on top of the search rankings and staying there is all about having flawless strategies. So you cannot afford making mistakes with link building as well. Here are some common ones that you should absolutely avoid.
Mistake #1: Not focusing on relevance
Relevance is perhaps the most crucial thing which you should bear in mind while creating a backlink for your website. The site that you have to chosen to link with should be relevant to yours. For instance, a seller offering cloud computing services linking with a beauty blog will definitely be detected and penalized by Google for wrong practices. Not focusing on niche relevance is a mistake that you should not make while you build links for your site.
Mistake #2: Linking with sites that have bad reputation
Nothing can be worse than creating a backlink to a site with bad reputation. These include ones that post duplicate content and spam sites. Similarly, linking with porn sites, gambling sites and illegal sites can be bad for your website’s health. It is best to be selective while you structure your link profile and focus only on high-authority sites that have a good reputation and are niche-relevant as well.
Mistake #3: Buying backlinks rather than making them
It is always tempting to take the easier route by buying links but you may end up harming your business by doing so. Search engines consider buying links as a wrong practice and may even penalize the sites that do so. Although it is tough for Google to detect whether a backlink was paid for, you can keep track of your keyword rankings to make sure you don’t experience any drops by using a website like serpproxy.com. Invest some efforts in churning out quality content and publishing it on high DA guest posting sites. This will help you to build lasting assets that fetch sustainable results for your business.
Mistake #4: Excessive linking with home page and promotional pages
If you are exclusively and excessively building backlinks for the homepage of your website, you are going in the wrong direction. The same goes for promotional pages because this makes Google view the links as unnatural ones. Adam White, founder of SEOJet, explains that if you want your backlinks to look natural to Google, you shouldn’t build links to your promotional pages. The best approach is to create a blend of links, with some to home page and promotional pages mixed with ones to the internal pages.
Mistake #5: Building links too fast
Another common blunder that businesses usually make with their link building strategy is taking it too fast. Again, Google may visualize them as manipulative links and you may end up being penalized and losing your ranking. Rather than running after numbers, focus on quality of the sites that you are linking with. Also, keep the pace consistent because building in spurts will not do you any good and nor will lying dormant for long intervals of time.
Mistake #6: Creating only Dofollow links
Building only Dofollow links and ignoring nofollow links completely is another mistake that you should never make. Creating only one type of links is another practice that can fetch penalty from Google. Even if nofollow links do not get you any value from the ranking perspective, they do get diversity for your backlink profile and make it appear natural as well. So ensure that you have the right mix in your kitty rather than only Dofollow links.
Mistake #7; Using optimized anchor text
Another practice that you should absolutely avoid is to optimize the anchor text as Google treats such links as a black hat strategy. You may believe that links with keyword-stuffed anchor text can get you higher on search rankings but this can result in penalty rather than giving any benefits. Hence, you should avoid excessive use of the same anchor text and resort to combinations to make it appear more natural.
Even though these mistakes are common, yet they are completely avoidable. At the same time, they can cost you a lot and mislead your strategy in the wrong direction. Being aware is the best thing as it will help you avoid these mistakes and ensure that you build quality links the right way. Having a professional SEO team that has the right skills and expertise in link building is a wise investment that you can make for your business.
