Link building Mistakes to Avoid

If you want to rank higher on Google, get more visitors, and boost your authority, you need to get quality links from other websites. But link-building is not easy, especially if you are new to the game, don't have much experience, or haven't been in the industry for long. Link-building can be tricky and risky, and you don't want to make any mistakes that could hurt your site's performance. Things like losing traffic, dropping in rankings, or even getting penalized by Google.  

That's why you need to avoid these common link-building mistakes that we are going to share with you in this blog. We'll show you what not to do when it comes to link-building, so you can stay safe and successful. Let's get started.

Not focusing on Search Intent & On-page SEO 

How would you feel if you clicked on a link to a website, hoping to find some useful information, but instead you found a boring and irrelevant page? You would probably feel disappointed and frustrated, right? You would probably leave the site as soon as possible and look for a better option. Well, that's exactly what happens to many visitors who land on websites that don't care about search intent and on-page SEO. They have a terrible user experience and they bounce off the site. Ouch!

Search intent and on-page SEO are two of the most important factors for creating a successful website. If you ignore them, you are wasting your time and money on building backlinks that won't bring you any results. In fact, you might even hurt your rankings and reputation by linking to low-quality pages. That's why you need to avoid this common link-building mistake and focus on creating content that matches the needs and expectations of your target audience.

A recent survey by Statista asked this question to SEO experts from around the world. The results showed that search intent is the most important factor for SEO success in the next year, with 10.4% of the respondents choosing it as their main focus. On-page factors came in second with 9%, while link-building ranked fifth with 8.2%. This means that SEO professionals are paying more attention to what users are looking for and how to match their content to their needs. In this blog post, we will explore what search intent is, why it matters, and how to optimize your website for it.

If you want to grow your website, you need to focus on two things: creating great content and getting quality links. These are the basics of SEO, and they will help you solve many problems.

For example, you might be missing some keywords that your audience is searching for, or your content might not match what they want to see, or you might need to fix some technical issues on your site. These problems can hurt your chances of getting more links from other websites.

The fix 

• Before you do anything else, do a thorough SEO audit and fix any problems you find. You might be missing some keywords that your audience is looking for, so add them to your pages.

• Don't just use keywords randomly, think about what your audience wants and needs. What are they searching for and why? Try to match their search intent with your content.

• See who's killing it in your niche and how many domains are linking to them. Take a look at their content and see what makes it awesome. Then try to make something even better than that.

• Show off your expertise in every piece of content you create. If your current content doesn't show that you know your stuff, you need a new content strategy.

Not creating Linkable/Link Worthy Content 

If you want to get more backlinks, you need to create awesome content that stands out from the crowd. Don't just copy and paste what everyone else is saying. Give your readers something valuable, rare, and original. They will appreciate your effort and reward you with their attention and trust. No one likes boring, generic, and repetitive content. Your audience is savvy and they will ditch you if they sense your content is not worth their time.

The fix

• To get more links, you need to make awesome content that people want to share. Don't settle for boring or generic stuff. Make it special and amazing.

• Some examples of great content are case studies, industry analysis, statistics pages, reports, guides, and other long-form content. These are more informative and valuable than short posts or articles.

• To create these kinds of content, you have to do your research. Find data from reliable sources online or offline. Dig deeper and find insights that others might have missed.

• Always think about your target audience. What do they need? What do they want? How can you help them? Your content should solve their problems or answer their questions.

Buying Links 

Sometimes, you might feel frustrated when your link-building efforts don't pay off. You might be tempted to buy some links and hope for the best. But trust me, that's a bad idea. Buying links is not only a shady SEO practice, but it can also backfire and hurt your site's ranking. Google is smart enough to detect and penalize paid links, so don't risk it.

The fix

• Don't buy links or trade stuff for them - Google hates that and will penalize you

• Focus on getting links naturally by creating awesome content that people want to share

• If you need help with link-building, hire a reputable agency or expert who knows how to do it right and follows the rules

Building many backlinks via Shady Tactics

Many SEOs think that the more backlinks they get, the better their ranking will be. They try to get hundreds of backlinks in a short time by using shady tactics that trick the search engines. This is a big mistake!

Google doesn't care about the number of backlinks, but the quality and relevance of them. If you use spammy or unnatural methods to get backlinks, Google will either ignore them or penalize your site. In this search central video, Mueller explained:

“So, it is not so much the number of links and the time you are talking about. It is more the type of links you are building and the type of link building you are doing in general. If you are dropping links on random sites, if you are buying links, if you are exchanging links using some weird link network. All of those things would be against our guidelines which would perhaps result in 200 links being built in two days. And since our webmaster guidelines, we try to catch those algorithmically and ignore them. And we do from time to time try to look at these things from a manual point of view and we may take manual action. So really, it is not the number in the period of time, it is really the type of activity instead.”

The fix

• Focus on the quality of links rather than the quantity. 

• Always prioritize keeping the natural backlink profile with all backlinks earned through the right means. 

Ignoring Link Relevancy 

Imagine you run a website that promotes tourism in your city. You want to attract more visitors, so you create awesome content about the best places to see, eat, and stay. You also want to get more exposure, so you try to get links from other websites that mention your city or your content.

But not all links are created equal. Some links are more valuable than others, and some links can even hurt your rankings. How do you know which links are good and which ones are bad?

One of the most important factors that Google considers when evaluating links is Link Relevancy. This means that Google looks at how relevant the linking page and the linked page are to each other. The more relevant they are, the more weight the link has.

For example, if your tourism website gets a link from a travel blog that covers your city, that's a highly relevant link. Google will see that both pages are about the same topic, and that the link is useful for the readers. This link will help boost your rankings for keywords related to your city and tourism.

On the other hand, if your tourism website gets a link from a website about home decor or gardening, that's a low-relevant link. Google will see that the pages have nothing to do with each other, and that the link is not

The fix

• Don't waste your time getting links from random sites that have nothing to do with tourism. Google knows better and won't give you any credit for them.

• Find out who's ranking high for the keywords you want and check out their content. Is it similar to yours? If not, you might want to tweak your topic or keywords.

• Make sure your content is helpful and interesting to your audience. Nobody likes boring or useless stuff, right?

Not diversifying Anchor Texts and Sources

If you think you can fool Google by repeating the same anchor texts and linking them to the same sources over and over again, think again. This strategy is outdated and ineffective. Google can easily detect this unnatural and suspicious backlink profile that is full of keyword stuffing and link spam. And you know what that means: you could get penalized for trying to manipulate the algorithm. So, don't waste your time and energy on this practice. It won't help you rank higher or get more traffic.

The fix

Here’s what Google says on writing a good anchor text: 

• Don't use the same anchor texts over and over, make them natural and relevant

• Spread your backlinks across different types of sites, like blogs, social media, and niche sites

• This will help you build a natural backlink profile that the algorithm will love

Not performing Outreach in the right way 

If you want to get more backlinks for your site, you need to write killer outreach emails that stand out from the crowd. A lot of SEOs don't realize how important this is, and they just send boring and generic emails like this:

Hey, I found your site, and this is crazy

Your post has a missing link 

So link us, maybe!!

That's not going to cut it. Emails like that will either get deleted or ignored. Trust me, I know.

Site owners get tons of outreach emails every day. They only pay attention to the ones that are well-written, interesting, and sincere.

The fix

• Say hi and use their names to show you care

• Explain why you're writing and what you have to offer them

• Emphasize the benefits of your content for them and their audience

• Be friendly and polite throughout

• Sign off with a thank you and a call to action

• Follow up if necessary but don't be pushy or annoying

Have a look at how Tim Soulo from Ahrefs writes his outreach emails, so cool!

Here’s another interesting outreach email written to Brian Dean. 

Ignoring Local SEO and Geo-targeted Link-building

If you want to boost your local search presence, you need to focus on both local SEO and geo-targeted link-building. But many businesses overlook this powerful combo, and that's a big mistake.

Why? Because they can help you attract more customers and sales from your local area. 

For example, let's say you have a thrift shop website in Seattle, and you only deliver to Seattle. Then, it makes sense to optimize your site for local search and get links from other online stores, review sites, and influencers in Seattle. This way, Google will know that your site is relevant for people in Seattle who are looking for your products or services. And you'll rank higher for both local and general keywords.

The fix

• Want more local customers? Make sure your site is SEO-friendly. Use keywords that match what people are searching for in your area. 

• Don't forget to claim your spot in the local directories. The more citations you have, the more trustworthy you look to Google and your potential customers. 

• Another way to boost your local ranking is to get links from other local websites. Think of blogs, news sites, directories, and listings that are relevant to your niche and location. 

• If you serve multiple regions, you can get links from different places and tailor your content to each region.

Building only do-follow links

Hey, do you know that no-follow links are not worthless? Some SEOs might think that they don't matter because they don't pass any link juice or page rank to the destination page. But that's not true. Google has said:

 “All the link attributes—sponsored, UGC, and nofollow—are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. We'll use these hints—along with other signals—as a way to better understand how to appropriately analyze and use links within our systems.” 

This means that Google uses no-follow links as well as other types of links to find and crawl new sites.

And guess what? A lot of SEOs agree with this. According to a survey, 69% of them said that they report no-follow links to their clients or bosses, and 62% of them said that they include no-follow links in their link building strategy.

Therefore, if these professionals are including no-follows in their work process, then so should you. They matter, so you better not ignore them from now on if you’ve been all this time.

The fix

• Include no-follow links in your backlink count. 

• Along with do-follow links, also focus on acquiring no-follows from diverse sources. 

• Having both types of links helps create the right balance, which is crucial for your link-building profile to look and appear natural to algorithms.    

Excessive Reciprocal Link-building

Reciprocal link-building is a natural way of exchanging links with other websites in your niche. It can help you boost your SEO and establish your authority. But is it always a good idea?

Ahrefs did a study where they looked at 112,440 pages that rank high on Google. They found that almost half of them have some reciprocal links. So, it seems like reciprocal linking works, right? Well, not so fast.

You might think that swapping links with other websites is a good way to boost your SEO, but it's not. If you're asking people to link to you in exchange for linking to them, you're playing with fire. This is a shady and manipulative tactic that can backfire big time. You could end up with a lot of low-quality links that hurt your reputation and rankings. So, don't do it. Avoid excessive and unnatural link exchanges at all costs.

The fix

• Find some cool websites with awesome stuff and add them to your list
• Link to them from your own site and show them some love
• Hope they notice you and link back to you someday

We've covered the common pitfalls of link-building, but we're not done yet. Here's a bonus tip for you: how to narrow down your list of potential sites to get links from.

Bonus Tip

• Choose a prospect from your list and check their backlink profile with Ahrefs or another tool.

• Avoid prospects with toxic backlinks from low-quality, spammy, or irrelevant sites.

• Look at the backlink profile graph and see if it is going down or staying flat. That means the site is not getting new links to improve its backlink profile.

• Pick prospects with positive backlink velocities, like this example.

• Also, check out the incoming traffic data. If you notice a permanent drop in traffic or ranking keywords, it clearly means that some dodgy stuff is going on. 

• Next, check out the type of content a site is publishing. If it is unhelpful or bad quality, erase it from your potential backlink list. Then you can pick the next prospect from your list and do this little audit all over again. 

Conclusion

Here are the top mistakes we have observed that Link Builders make and their solutions. What are some of the mistakes you have made and learnt from them?

Have any more questions? Reach out to us.