4 LINK BUILDING MISTAKES TO AVOID IN SEO

While link building is an important element of SEO, a lot of link building strategies have the potential of failing dramatically if they are not well thought out and understood. If you are looking to improve rankings, in the long run, there are certain tactics you will have to begin avoiding. Earlier, link building simply meant that you tried to put links on as many external pages as you possibly could, either by buying them or by trading in links with other parties. However, search engines have grown wiser, and there are now strict rules and penalties in place to check your strategies and prevent excessive spamming. This means that while links all over the internet may help your strategies for a while, they have a negative impact in the long run.

A few of these mistakes are fairly common-place, and if you’re dedicated to SEO, you’ll know the basic ones to avoid. This includes buying and exchanging links, and avoiding automation, commenting on forums with links or including links which hold little relevance. It is also best to avoid putting your links on irrelevant pages, contain spam, or have irrelevant content. Below, we list some of the more linking severe mistakes to avoid.

1. Building links exclusively for home page: While linking from other pages to your webpage, you may aim at linking simply to your homepage, and this is where the mistake begins. If you keep linking back to only your homepage, it is bound to seem spam-like over a while. Keep in mind that while this may make sense when your website is merely being mentioned, it is better to get links to specific pages and products whenever possible. This also has the added advantage of being more relevant to the user and increasing the chances of them continuing to engage with your site. This will enhance the trustworthiness of your profile and make conversion rates better.
2. Getting links from pages with weak social shares: While linking back to your website, you may tend to overlook the impact that social media links can have in your overall conversion rates. It should be included in your strategy since shares, tweets and likes on social media are a very efficient means of communication, and look less spammy to the search engine guidelines. Moreover, it may begin to appear fishy if all your traffic is directed from other websites and none from your marketing strategies and online presence.
3. Irrelevant link building: If your entire link building strategy revolves around putting links in completely irrelevant articles, you need to begin re-evaluating immediately. Your strategy should be as natural as possible and should be highly relevant. Placing links for your new product on a page that is not related is simply wasting links and increasing the chances of being identified as spam. Moreover, it is bound to reduce the satisfaction of both your customers and those of the other site, and reduce conversions.
4. Buying links: Although this has been mentioned and is a fundamental rule, it cannot be emphasised enough. Even if you are considering simply paying a high profile company for a single link back to your site, DON’T. The chances are that if they are willing to sell you a link, they are doing the same for many other sites, which cumulates to a large number of links on their page. This will be picked up as spam again, and reduce the credibility of your site.

In conclusion, the best strategy to improve your SEO and link placements is to be as strategic and authentic as possible. Useful links will always have a higher conversion rate than paid or ill-placed ones. If a link is merely there to be clicked on, it has a higher chance of failing at its job. With this in mind, go forth and begin a more informed journey into the world of SEO and link building for your webpage. Good luck!