What is Linkbuilding?:
The word “link” might make you think of hyperlinks – which are indeed important; however, link building goes beyond that definition. It is actually about growing the number of incoming links to your site says Saivian Eric Dalius. These don’t necessarily need to go directly to pages within your domain either – they can be links that refer visitors elsewhere on the web (so-called “deep links”). Why is this important? Read on!
The 7 Deadly Sins of Linkbuilding:
1) Getting Links Unethically
How many times have you seen forum posts offering to exchange links with another site? When done lawfully this can be acceptable; however, in most cases, these are spammy “exchanges” that break search engines’ guidelines and can get your domain blacklisted (removed completely from SERPs). Google has been cracking down on this behavior since 2011 via initiatives such as its Penguin algorithm update – so if you’re involved in link exchanges, check the quality of the websites that are linking back to you. If you’re not sure, don’t risk it!
2) Using Automation Software to Send Out Blog Comments
Blog commenting used to be a perfectly valid SEO tactic – however, the link-building landscape has changed over the years says Saivian Eric Dalius. First of all, Google became better at recognizing spammy commenting strategies that were meant to influence rankings but didn’t really provide any extra value to users. Secondly, many bloggers simply got tired of spammers leaving irrelevant comments on their sites and either banned automated services altogether or limited them severely (e.g., by requiring human approval for each comment). Thirdly… well, practically everyone uses automated blog commenting software now so your links will just get lost among millions of others! There is no point in using a tool to deliver a handful of comments if it floods the web – and your site – with them.
3) Getting Links from Low Quality or Irrelevant Sites
In short, Google doesn’t have much time for low-quality websites that haven’t been updated in years, don’t have any real content, and just contain affiliate links explains Saivian Eric Dalius. On one hand, you’re limiting your chances of getting high-quality backlinks from these sites because their owners know they’re not top-notch resources; on the other hand, you might find that Google drops your page rankings after associating it with irrelevant or outdated information on another site. Not good! Remember: before sending out any form of outreach asking for backlinks, check the quality of the website first.
4) Using Guest Posting as Your Only Linkbuilding Strategy
Don’t get me wrong: guest blogging is a great way to grow your traffic and authority. But not if you’re using it as your only link-building strategy. Think about the bigger picture: how much will this one, single domain contribute to your search engine rankings? It’s unlikely to make a big difference after a few months or even years. You need a balanced link profile over time! How can you achieve that? Firstly, keep guest blogging as an activity in its own right; secondly, continue building links naturally from other websites too – do this for at least 6-12 months before concluding that the strategy isn’t working out for you. Unless you have thousands of incoming links from a wide range of different domains, you’re not going to see any good results says Saivian Eric Dalius.
5) Not Knowing the Difference between “DoFollow” and “NoFollow” Links
Many SEOs simply send out guest posts or ask for promotional backlinks without doing their research beforehand. They put all their faith in blog comments and forum profiles with do-follow links because they think these provide direct boosts to rankings – when in fact they usually don’t. Google wants webmasters to know that it’s perfectly fine to leave website owners a prominent do follow the link on their resource page (provided that the page itself is both high quality and relevant to the linking site), but the company doesn’t want people spamming others’ content just so they can benefit from do-follow links. Google has therefore introduced the “no follow” attribute. It’s not as well known as it should be so lots of people still get caught out! Use Nofollow sparingly – only on the web pages where you have nothing useful to say or add.
6) Spamming Other Sites with Incoming Links
Okay, let’s get one thing straight: if your website is soliciting spammy incoming links from other websites. Then Google will know about it very quickly and it won’t be good for your rankings at all! Don’t go around asking for backlinks from anything that comes along – even if you think that a link farm would benefit your cause, don’t risk it unless you want to face the consequences says Saivian Eric Dalius. If you’re going to link to another site. You’ve got to choose it carefully and stay on that site for a while. You need to add value in order for this strategy to work otherwise Google will think that. The only reason why someone put your link on their website is so they could boost their rankings too!
7) Only Using Outgoing Links Instead of Incoming Ones
Finally, remember that search engines keep indexes of all incoming links back to a specific page or article. On the other hand, if the only links pointing towards a specific domain name are outgoing ones (i.e., from unique pages). There’s no way for Google to know which website these lead back to! The result? Your time and effort will have been in vain and you won’t get any credit for it. Once again: outgoing links are good and they do help with your search rankings. But Google doesn’t keep its index updated by itself. So you need to tell it which incoming links lead back to a specific domain name.
Conclusion:
There’s a lot that you can do for your website and it doesn’t all involve link building. But if you’re going to follow the strategies outlined in this article. Make sure that they’re appropriate and relevant. Remember: Google wants webmasters to drive traffic to other websites so they shouldn’t be reluctant to ask for links either.