Link building is a strategy which may once have been simple, but these days is becoming more and more complicated. Years ago, it was possible to build links pretty much wherever and whenever you wanted and still be able to see a corresponding increase in your search visibility. Today, however, the world of link building is significantly more diverse, much more difficult to penetrate, and often riddled with misconceptions and myths due to events of the past. Because of this, almost every newcomer to SEO ends up making some of the most common rookie mistakes.
1. Putting Quantity Over Quality
At some point in your link building career, you are probably going to give into the temptation to put quantity over quality. However, it’s important to understand that for the majority of the time, one high-quality link is better than dozens and dozens of poor-quality links. The problem with this is that high-quality links can be quite difficult to acquire, whereas links of lower quality tend to be a lot easier to obtain.
One of the most common mistakes which link builders make is thinking that getting a high number of low quality links will make up for the lack of quality. Not only ineffective, doing so can actually damage your website’s SEO. Worse still, getting low quality back links can get your site penalized by Google. Perhaps a better option for you is to seek third party help. If you’re struggling to build high quality links, the best option is to work with a good SEO company.
2. Ignoring Diversification
One of the biggest mistakes that you can make when link building is failing to diversify your links. In order to get the best results from your link building campaign, it’s crucial to rely on a variety of different external sources. For example, using guest posting, social media and forum posting at the same time puts you in with a better chance of good results than simply using one of these sources at a time.
You should rotate your patterns of distribution and offer a strong range of on-site content. Achieving this pattern of organized randomness can sometimes be difficult, but it is essential to successful link building results.
3. Over Optimizing Anchors
Years ago, the concept of optimizing anchor text was absolutely essential to an effective link building campaign. However, this is no longer the case, and over optimizing anchor text should be avoided at all costs in order to make sure that you don’t run the risk of creating a pattern of manipulation or unnaturalness.
Rather than feeling the need to make sure that your anchor text is optimized according to keywords, opt for one which is informative, helpful and most of all goes with the natural flow of your content. Using the title of the page you’re linking to is often the best idea as it makes it easier to maintain the natural flow or include the link in a call to action.
Takeaway
When you’re new to link building, it can be very easy to fall into the same traps as numerous other link-building and SEO rookies. Understanding the top mistakes made by new link builders can help you to avoid them and keep problems to a minimum.