8 Link Building Mistakes that Kill your SEO in 2022

 

Link building is an essential component of any successful SEO strategy. Despite this, there are some misconceptions about how to approach a link building strategy.

If done incorrectly, instead of improving a site's rankings, it can have a disastrous effect on SERP positions and SEO efforts. To avoid this, we'll go over eight common link building blunders you should avoid at all costs.

8 Link Building Mistakes

As detailed in Google's Webmaster documentation, incorrect link building can lead to Google penalizing your website, harming your overall SEO strategy and killing site traffic. Here we go over what to avoid so that your website does not become the next victim of these link building blunders.

1.Ignoring User Intent

One of the most common mistakes that website owners and digital marketers make when trying to improve their backlink profile is believing that any old backlink is a good backlink. This isn't entirely correct, especially in terms of user intent. User intent, also known as search intent or query intent, is the reason a person searches the internet. Search engines use a variety of factors to determine what type of user intent a searcher has, such as the words they typed into the search bar, the websites they previously visited, and their previous search history.

So, what does this have to do with link building?

Assume you've written a guest blog for a third-party website and earned a backlink. For example, this page is all about content marketing, but the third-party decides to link to a page on your website that contains content that is topically irrelevant.

So, what's the issue here?

Not only will Google's algorithm detect this insignificance, but visitors to this third-party website are likely to click on the backlink pointing to your site. Yes, that's what you want - referral traffic is an excellent way to increase organic traffic. The issue is that if the content you've covered on your webpage is unrelated and does not match user intent, the visitor will quickly realize this and bounce.

2.Disregarding On-Page SEO

On-page SEO, like user intent, works to inform Google about the topic covered, the title of the post, the meta description, and the targeted keyword. Google would expect to find topically relevant inbound links when building backlinks for this page. As previously stated, content that covers seemingly irrelevant topics signals to Google that your link building strategy may be nefarious or spammy. This could lead Google to conclude that your website is part of a link scheme.

A link scheme is a strategy for increasing a website's search engine ranking by creating artificial links to it. The use of link schemes is considered a black hat SEO technique that can result in search engine penalties. Not exactly what you were looking for. To avoid this, make sure the third-party pages that link to your content is topically similar.

3.Overusing Exact Anchor Text

SEOs frequently overuse exact anchor text in an attempt to boost their website's ranking. The clickable text used for a hyperlink is known as anchor text. This type of link is used by website visitors to navigate between internal and external pages. You're probably familiar with hyperlinks as the blue text that underlines itself when you hover your mouse over it, but they can also be used on images. While using exact anchor text that matches a focus keyword is good practice, using too much exact anchor text and not using keyword variations can backfire.

This happens for two key reasons.

1.Overuse of the same anchor text may be considered spammy by Google. As a result, your page's rankings may suffer.

2.You might miss out on keyword variations that cover a broader range of search terms, as well as subsequent traffic.

4.Creating Low Quality Content

In an ideal world, Google would prefer that websites acquire backlinks organically. Organic link building is the process of acquiring links to a website by means other than buying or exchanging links. In reality, especially for small to medium-sized websites, this can be a very slow process, and purchasing or exchanging links is still an important part of building a strong website. Although obtaining organic backlinks is not something you should overlook.

So, what's the best way to get backlinks naturally?

By creating high-quality content instead of low-quality content. This can be accomplished by creating valuable or viral content that others are compelled to share. Written copy that is both informative and not just a regurgitation of existing content, an attractive and eye-catching infographic, or some form of social media post, such as an informative YouTube video or super-engaging TicTok, are all examples of share-worthy content.

It may seem like a stretch, but some brands have literally exploded into multi-million-dollar businesses overnight simply by creating viral content. To be honest, your overall potential and link profile are only limited by your creativity and outreach abilities.

You can enrol in an online seo course  if you want to learn how to build backlinks and other SEO techniques.

5.Prioritizing Quantity Over Quality

Prioritizing quantity over quality is one of the most common mistakes made when launching a link building campaign. Some "SEO experts" will try to persuade you that their brilliant link building strategy is exactly what your website requires to succeed. In reality, they take your money and send you a bunch of low-quality backlinks, all while promising to boost your rankings. On paper, this looks fantastic. You open your SEO tool and notice a flood of backlinks. Isn't it true that the more backlinks you have, the better?

No, not always.

Not all backlinks have the same authority. In fact, some are so low-quality or spammy that they are more likely to harm rather than help your rankings - this is known as a toxic backlink. High-quality backlinks are preferable to high-quantity backlinks because they are more likely to come from authoritative, credible, and relevant websites. When search engines see a high volume of links from low-quality or irrelevant websites, they may conclude that the website being linked to is also low-quality or irrelevant.

This can have a negative impact on the website's ranking in search results. High-authority backlinks, on the other hand, indicate that a website is trustworthy and respected by others in its field. Congratulations on your website's Google rankings.

6.Discounting Nofollow Links

Another common misconception in the SEO community is that nofollow links add no value to your website. Furthermore, some will argue that the only links that are valuable to your site are dofollow links. Please don't get us wrong. Dofollow links are without a doubt the most valuable.

Why?

Dofollow backlinks, on the other hand, indicate to Google that you want their Googlebots to, well, follow it and see where it leads. Nofollow links, on the other hand, tell Google that, sure, here's a link, but I don't really need you to follow it.

7.Being too Critical of Third-Party Metrics

Without a doubt, high domain authority sites that are relevant to your niche make the best backlink donors. BUT, don't turn into a backlink prude. Yes, spammy, low-quality links with duplicate or irrelevant content should be avoided. Although there is an argument to be made for small to medium-sized sites that produce high-quality content and have established themselves in a similar niche to yours.

Small, relevant sites will not give your site a lot of authority on their own. Two, three, four, or more small, relevant sites will, however. In addition, smaller website owners are more likely to be open to link exchanges, making them a faster way to build backlinks than approaching larger, well-established websites. After all, you never know how valuable a backlink from a small business might be in the future. It may now be a small site. But if they keep going, building credibility and producing high-quality content, that seemingly insignificant backlink could become one of your most valuable backlinks in the not-too-distant future.

8.Purchasing Links From Low Quality Sites or Link Farms

You might not expect to hear this from us, but buying links can actually harm your search engine rankings. The same is true for link exchanges. At the very least, excessive reciprocal linking, in which the same website links to you repeatedly.

Let us explain.

Google's algorithm is capable of detecting low-quality or bad links, which are commonly used by link farms and other questionable SEO services.

How To Fix Your Link Building Mistakes

It's critical to examine your link-building strategies and figure out where you're going wrong. By correcting these errors, you can improve your SEO and see better results in search engine rankings in the long run.