Have you spent tons of money as a marketer or as an SEO professional on link building and can’t seem to achieve any returns on your investment? Well, you’re not alone. In most cases, it’s a scenario where the earned links are not providing enough authority and, that link building doesn’t generate the desired rankings.
What Is Link Building And, Why Is It Important?
Link building refers to the art of acquiring backlinks that are redirected to your website or blog. Back in the day, Yahoo and Bing were the only dominant players and used to rank their search results based on the content displayed on a webpage. Google revolutionized the game by introducing a PageRank Algorithm that analyzed how many people linked to a particular page instead of looking only at the content of a page.
Links have become one of Google’s top ranking signals, however, acquiring links from a link building service is not just enough. You need to focus on link quality. High quality links come from sites relevant to your site and those that are well established.
Link building requires a budget, creativity, and hard work. This is why most people end up making mistakes along the way.
Here are some reasons why your link building isn’t achieving the rankings you hoped for.
Overlooking Quality
Most people make the mistake of trying to get as many websites and blogs with numerous links. However, this could attract a Google penalty. Getting your site linked to non-relevant sites is considered a spam tactic. Moreover, the fact that the content may be different from what your site offers means that you won’t be getting any leads, traffic, or links that you anticipated. You need to focus on getting quality links that are relevant to your niche.
Pay attention to related sites that can link to different pieces of content from your website. An SEO tool can help you identify if their keywords are similar to what you’re using. Furthermore, you’ll get to see what keywords they rank for and decide if this will be ideal for your campaign.
Invaluable Content
No one wants to link to content that isn’t valuable enough to gather interest. A lot of link builders make the mistake of assuming that having content relevant to the site they want to link to be enough. Nonetheless, the content you share should be informative, engaging, and something that goes beyond targeting a particular topic.
For example, anyone can write content on how to rank your site on Google, but one that is worth linking to will include various tactics one can use to rank highly in search engines. You can create valuable content by targeting a specific issue or writing an ultimate guide on a topic.
Target Page Has No Authority
A page with non-existent or low metrics isn’t a good candidate for a link building campaign. People new to SEO focus more on a page authority and forget to look at other metrics like URL rating, trust flow, and citation flow. Tools like Ahrefs, Majestic, and Moz have varying databases.
Evaluating different metrics allows you to determine a link’s value. Previously, people relied on PageRank scores. Nonetheless, this was removed in 2016. You would have to now depend on other metrics.
Targeting Uncrawled And Old Pages
If you’ve been targeting old and uncrawled pages, this could be the reason why you’re not getting the desired ranking. This is because Google doesn’t index these pages frequently. You need to find sites with fresh content for a link building campaign.
Technical Issues
Technical problems can also lead to SEO problems. Issues like broken links, poor navigation, regular downtime, accessibility and usability issues may prevent Google from indexing and crawling your site. This could hurt your ranking. Also, the site you’re trying to link to could also have technical issues like no follow links or suffer from frequent downtime. If this is the case, the link won’t help you achieve the desired ranking.
Low Domain Diversity
SEO beginners and some marketers assume that because their links are only coming from high quality and relevant sites, then they are safe. The problem is that getting links from a couple of domains could also hurt your rankings. This is because Google assumes that these are the only sites you’re familiar with. It’s best to have hundreds of domain link to you instead of having, multiple links coming from a few domains.
Location Of The Link
There is a difference between having a link on the sidebar and having a link in the content. A link placed outside looks artificially placed there. However, a link inserted in the content flows and is unique. Having one link in the content is more beneficial than having similar links on the sidebar or the footer.
Anchor Text
The anchor text is essential than the source of the link. Nevertheless, people took advantage of this and used keywords as anchor texts. Google changed its algorithm to avoid people using keywords as anchor texts. Also, having similar anchor texts on all your backlinks could get you penalized. You need to use various anchor texts on your backlinks.
No Measurement In Place
Are you trying to increase your market share, brand value, or visitor volume? Having a goal in mind will help you track your activity to ensure that you’re on the right track.
Link building is an essential aspect of good SEO rankings. Nonetheless, if not done correctly, building links could hurt your rankings. The above are some of the reasons why your link building strategies are not yielding any results. Consult a reputable link building service to learn more about tactics to employ to make your campaign successful.
Everytime I read an SEO related article I learn something. This article taught me a few things. One salient point is how current a website is. Getting backlinks from more blogs is essentially more important.
And I quote: “If you’ve been targeting old and uncrawled pages, this could be the reason why you’re not getting the desired ranking. ”
Well put – thank you!
One of the best article to learn a lot about link building methods. All these tips are very easy to follow. I have gained a lot of good things here. Thanks a lot and keep it up going.