Link Building
Link building is an important part of any SEO strategy, but it’s also a process that can be easily messed up. To get the most out of your link-building efforts, it’s crucial to avoid common mistakes. In addition to this, you might be seeing a lack of growth even if you are gaining links; Cozab has written an in-depth article on steps to take when links are not bringing you results; you should check it out if that’s the case. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at some of the most common mistakes people make when building links, and we’ll offer tips on how to avoid them. So read on to learn more!
Not Focusing on User Intent
The first major mistake you could be making when link building is focusing too much on linking and not enough on user intent. What is user intent? User intent is the intention the user has when using a search engine, or in other words, what the user is hoping to accomplish with their search. There are quite a few factors that search engines use to determine user intent, such as what websites the user recently visited, what words they used when searching, and past search history.
Why is this important for link building? Well, if you have managed to earn yourself a backlink on another website, but the content the backlink is in is not related to the page it refers to, then you will have a problem. Firstly, the user will leave your site shortly after realizing your content is irrelevant to where the backlink was, and secondly, search engines will also recognize that your link is irrelevant to the content it’s in. In other words, consider user intent when linking your site to other pages.
Not Diversifying Anchor Text
Another big mistake that you should avoid making is not diversifying the anchor text you use for your links. What is anchor text? Well, anchor text would be the words that are used for the hyperlink or backlink. It’s a good idea to exactly match the words to the link since this helps search engines understand what the link is about, and establishes relevancy.
However, if you are using the same match, again and again, you will be penalized by search engines since this practice can come across as spammy. The other problem with this is that you are potentially missing out on traffic that variations of the anchor text could bring. For example, you could be continuously linking to an “SEO agency,” whereas variations of this could bring more traffic, such as “online SEO agency,” “best SEO agency,” “SEO agency online,” and so on.
Focusing on Quantity and Not Quality
One of the most common mistakes in link building is assuming that quantity is more important than quality. One of the reasons so many people assume that this is true is that there are so many shady SEO agencies that will just send a bunch of low-quality backlinks your way, and since you are new to SEO, you might think of this as progress.
However, one or two high-quality backlinks can often be much better than 50+ spammy, low-quality backlinks. Why? Because backlinks are all about credibility and authority. Backlinks tell search engines that a site considers your content credible, useful, or entertaining and is giving you a badge of authority. This doesn’t mean anything when it comes from irrelevant, spammy, low-quality sites.
Creating Bad Content
Finally, the last mistake you should avoid making when link building would be to create bad content. The key to gaining backlinks, aside from trading them (which isn’t good, by the way, since Google detects and penalizes this), is to create high-quality content that other websites want to link to.
Remember, as mentioned above, backlinking is a signal that your content is credible, helpful, or entertaining, so if you are creating poor content or thin content, you won’t gain good backlinks. What is light content? It’s content that lacks any substance and is specifically developed just to have a link attached. So long as the content is high-quality, there is nothing wrong with doing this.
