Semalt Expert Clarifies Typical Link-Building Mistakes

Back in the day, it was easy to build links. You could build links wherever and however you liked and see a corresponding increase in your visibility as a result. Nowadays, the link building industry has become complex, diverse and harder to penetrate. To make matters worse, it is riddled with myths and misconceptions as a result of the ghosts of its past. Consequentially, most amateurs in the link-building business end up making the same mistakes.

Ross Barber, the Customer Success Manager of Semalt Digital Services, characterizes the common rookie errors for you to avoid them.

1. Prioritizing quantity over quality

This is a temptation that most people give into at some point in their link building endeavors. A high-quality link is better than potentially dozens of low-quality links. However, high-quality links are hard to get, while low-quality ones are easy to acquire. This sets up a trap for you if decide to follow the path of least resistance.

The quantity of your links, however, will never make up for the poor quality of the links. A high-quality link offers much more than an SEO boost. They also offer referral link benefits as well as branding benefits.

2. Over-optimizing anchor text

This concept was once vital for effective link building. But that has changed. Today, the anchor text of your inbound links may earn you a penalty if they create a pattern of manipulation or unnaturalness. Such penalties are quite severe, and you may be unable to recover from one. Instead, make sure that your anchor text is logical and helpful.

3. Rushing the content

Essentially, your links have to be framed in the body of high-quality content. In case you rush your content or prioritize your link over the content, the search engine might view your link as a suspect. In some cases, you may also run the risk of getting rejected by publishers as well. Make sure that your material is worthy of being published before you put it out there.

4. Failure to diversify

To be successful in link building, your strategy has to be as diverse as possible. This means that you need to rely on a variety of different sources and rotate your patterns of distribution. It can be challenging to attain a degree of orchestrated randomness, but it will have to be done if you are intent on seeing real benefits from your link building crusade.

5. Failing to scale

This is a common mistake amateurs make once their link building campaign starts gaining momentum. If you want to keep on improving you will have to scale upwards. This involves creating better content, working with higher quality sources and building links of greater quality. Managing this development process may be taxing, but the last thing you want to do is stagnate.

These mistakes range from innocuous to devastating in terms of severity. However, they are easily preventable. Regardless of how good you are, you will make mistakes. How you mitigate your losses, however, will determine if you will move forward or not.