8 Link Building Mistakes You Must Avoid for SEO Strategy in 2022

One of the top SEO tips that all SEO experts give you is to build backlinks in order to improve your rankings. Link Building has its own effect on Search Engine Optimization, especially playing a crucial role in Off-Page Optimization.

You can get backlinks to your website by using many link-building techniques. It’s mentionable that having just backlinks is not enough – you need to have quality backlinks to rank well in search engines.

What are Backlinks Exactly?

The term “backlink” refers to a link that links visitors from another website to your own. Basically, it’s like a reference. Backlinks tend to appear in informative blog posts. 

A backlink is what you’ve clicked on when you’ve clicked on a blue highlighted word in an article (if you ever experienced it), only to be redirected to another website.

There are several ways to get backlinks. However, getting a backlink in an existing article is as simple as paying the publishing site. As a result, it is a less time-consuming and more convenient method. 

However, you do not have control over the anchor text or the actual content of the article. No problem! But, to have more control over your backlinks, providing the content by yourself is a must.

Essentially, you need to write a blog and include a link to your site that is both natural and contextual. Some websites will include your backlink in their content for free. Websites of this type usually lack content on their pages because their domain authority is low.

Well, it doesn’t matter where the backlink comes from, a backlink is always a backlink. No matter how low-ranking the site is, from where you get the backlink, it can still boost your search engine rankings.

Is Backlinking an Easy Job?

Honestly speaking, for a newbie or start-up, backlinking isn’t easy at all. It doesn’t matter how much SEO knowledge you possess but backlinking is another thing. 

Therefore, it requires years of the experiment by following different processes to get a mastery of backlinking. 

However, you need to take several different approaches with your backlinking knowledge so that you make other websites willing to provide you with a backlink.

In order to obtain backlinks, you must seek out other websites. A large number of websites are in desperate need of high-quality content due to the internet’s overwhelming density. Now, how does that affect you?

At this point, offer to write a quality, content-driven article for a website to use on any of their blogs with no charge of cost. You must be thinking “What? Why would you write an article for any other website for free?”

Well, interestingly you would love to do this again and again for free to get the backlinks. How? Simply put, when you slip a backlink into an article that will be published on another website, you increase your chances of getting more traffic and ranking higher in Google.

It is true, however, that nothing worthwhile in life is truly free.  

Because of this, along with the time you need to spend writing the article, you will likely have to pay a publishing fee. You won’t find many websites afraid to charge for backlinks because they know how important they are. 

Still, doubtful if it’s worth it? The answer is yes, and let’s find out why.  

Why Are Backlinks Important for Your Site?

What motivates website owners to pay for a backlink (or offer their content for free)? An advantage of backlinks is that they are more cost-effective than other forms of advertising. 

Just one single investment and get plenty (thousands of visitors that convert to sales) out of that.

Traffic to your website also helps to boost your search engine optimization and position on Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages). However, that is not all you can do. The benefit of getting backlinks is similar to receiving a glowing recommendation from a reputed authority in your field. 

Backlinks from high-ranking websites boost your credibility. As a result, you will gain domain authority over time.  

When ranking websites, one of the first factors that Google looks at is the number of referring domains. Having more backlinks will help your site rank higher in search engine results.

Backlinks Worked: Proved

Are you still not convinced that backlinks are really worth it?

There are more chances for websites with over 300 referring domains to rank higher than, let’s assume, a website that has 50 backlinks. 

It is important to have quality backlinks, as well as quantity. You need to be aware of common link-building mistakes to maintain a high organic SEO strategy.  

However, domain authority is a metric of how beneficial it is for your SEO and ranking if the referring website has a high domain authority. 

Imagine, for example, you’re designing a sports beverage and you’re looking for endorsements. If you ask Shaq for an endorsement, you’ll receive much more traction than if you ask a high school coach.

8 Common Link-Building Mistakes You Should Be Aware Of

There are many unknowing mistakes that happen while building backlinks, and it’s very much obvious and common. By doing so, in most cases, these link-building mistakes will turn out to be the reason for negative rankings on search engines. 

Therefore, you need to be very much aware of building backlinks. Here are the link-building mistakes listed that anyone could possibly do. Give it a shot and keep yourself awake.

1. Linking to Bad-reputed Sites

It’s prohibited to link a site that has a bad reputation on Google SERPs. For instance, spam sites, and replicate content sites (auto-blogging, illegal sites, porn sites).

If you link to these sites, the search engines will not love them at all. The same holds true for backlinks from pornographic and gambling sites as well.

This technique is commonly used by competitive SEO companies to implement negative SEO on numerous websites.

2. Buying/Selling Links

Remember, for getting backlinks don’t ever try to buy links from other sites. By doing so, there will be a possibility of getting banned from Search Engines. Therefore, always seek genuine links that search engines love the most.

Furthermore, Google clearly stated that it does not accept sales or purchases of links and recommends avoiding them. You must do it accordingly in order to avoid link-building mistakes.

Instead of buying links, hire a freelancer to write guest posts on relevant blogs and publish them with a link back to your site.

3. Nofollow Links

Google does not consider nofollow links to be helpful to rank your website in the search results. However, if your priority is to rank your site top on Bing (search engine), then you can stick to building nofollow links. 

On other hand, if the goal is to rank on Google then this will be considered as a waste of time. Even though, get a few dofollow incoming links as well through spending a little time and effort. 

In spite of Google’s saying that they completely ignore the nofollow tag maximum of the time, you should work on getting dofollow links if you’re working on building links. For doing that you can easily target dofollow forums.

4. Backlinks from High PR Domains Only (Low PR)

Yes, it’s certainly a great idea to achieve backlinks from high PR sites, but remember, for getting better results on the search engines you should keep both High PR and low PR links. Building too many high-PR links without adding any low-PR links might not appear genuine.

It’s a good idea to go for both, high and low PR, even if Google doesn’t get straightaway on this and it’s considered an SEO myth.

Note: Links with PRs below 0 and 1 are generally considered very low; links with PRs of 2 and 3 are mostly acceptable, and links with PRs of 4 or above are fine.

5. Link Building from Irrelevant Niche Sites

Yes, you need to be aware of the site from where you’re generating the links. Instead of getting links from irrelevant niche sites, you should always go for those sites that match your niche. This mistake may lead your site to a massive negative effect on search engines.

6. Without Targeted Keyword Anchor Text

Undoubtedly, anchor text plays an impactful role in link buildings. Your targeted keyword will help you rank well for that keyword if you use it as anchor text instead of your name or website name.

Important: Avoid using phrases such as “click here,” “check this,” etc…

However, getting a backlink from a high authority site is always good, but if you include your target keyword or a relevant keyword in your backlink, this will help boost your search rankings. 

In particular, if you pay any SEO company for link building, make sure they provide you with backlinks and anchor text; otherwise, you may not get value for your money.

7. Lots of Links in a Short Period

As the proverb says, “Slow and Steady Win the Race”, and “Rome was not Built in A Day”. By mentioning these, try to implement that never ever hurry to build your links. Simply put, there’s no need to build tons of links within a short period of time. By doing so, the negative impact (remove your site from SEs, ban your site from indexing) will certainly come up.

8. Avoid Site-Wide Links

Well, you need to be aware of updates like Penguin. Why so? If you’re a web development company then you might have tended to add a site-wide footer link on your client site to your company site by mentioning phrases like “Web Development for You”, and “Get Your Website Done”. 

If so, then stop doing it from now on, because your clients and your site are on edge of getting hit by Penguin.

Additionally, it would be a great idea to audit your client’s sites again if you’re still managing. Just revise and make those links unfollow or erase from the site. On the contrary, You can also use unique keywords, such as “Website developed by this company”. 

Similarly, do not rely on outdated methods like plugins and widgets to get sitewide links. Such tools are no longer effective, and they can actually be detrimental.

Wrapping Things Up

The practice of building backlinks is hard, but there’s no doubt that it is a very effective way to be ranked high in top search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing easily.

By saying so, it is a better idea to make a list of target relevant sites before you start working on a link-building campaign to boost your search engine visibility. There are common link-building mistakes that you must be aware of and avoid accordingly.

Furthermore, if you are solely depending on article directories for your campaign strategy, I suggest you switch to guest blogging/posting. Because link building through guest posting is particularly effective after the Panda update.