It’s been one year since I’ve launched my link building agency and I’ve seen a lot of link building campaigns, believe me, more than 50% of campaigns are over-optimized, looks unnatural. Are completely wrong!
I decided that could be helpful to write an article about these mistakes that should be avoided at any cost. So here are the 5 mistakes you should never do when building new links:
1. Use multiple times the same anchor text
Using multiple times the same anchor text is a big mistake that I see all the time… When you build links, you always need to ask yourself this question “Does that sound natural?”. If not, then adapt your strategy.
Always try to target your anchors only once, don’t repeat the same anchor text over and over, especially on the same target URL.
Let say that you want to rank for “computer support Miami”, then rather target this exact keyword 10x times, go with natural variations, something like;
- computer support in Miami
- get your computer fixed in Miami
- repair your computer
- this company can repair your computer
- Miami Tech Expert (branded)
- a Miami-based computer repair company
- this company near Miami solved all my computer problems
Etc…
Never forget that links should not be created by yourself… so what is the chance that all people that are mentioning your company on the web use optimized anchor texts to help you rank better? NULL.
2. Use capital letters
Yes! Believe it or not… Most of my clients always start their anchor text with a capital letter. But why?
The only anchor text that should have a capital letter is the branded anchor text. I don’t know if Google is smart enough to detect it… But why take the risk?
One thing is sure, if there is a manual audit on your site, that will be easy to see all your links have been built by yourself if they all start with a capital letter.
That is not natural to have a series of words with capital letters in the middle of a paragraph. The capital letters are for branded words, and for words starting a new phrase. That’s it so please, stop adding a capital letter to all your anchor texts.
3. Build links on pages with no traffic at all
You just created a new page and want to rank it… So it is natural to say “Okay the page is now live.. Let build links to rank it now”.
Well, that’s just wrong.
What’s the purpose of a backlink exactly? It’s a mention on the web that refers to a page, or a website. To get mentions, you need visitors that have seen your content and that refer others to read it.
So do you still think it’s natural to get links on a page that you haven’t received any visitors from yet? NO. Google isn’t stupid… if there are no records of visitors on your page and you start to get links, then Google will know it’s manipulated.
I know it because I tested it. I had a site with a lot of authority, I built a new page, then built a lot of links to this new page, and this page never ranked.
After 3 months, no keywords were ranking for the page yet, despite the fact that the page was really well optimized for SEO.
So I decided to send some traffic via an advertising campaign, then build new links and you know what? The page started to rank, and very well!
My recommendation if you have a new page that you want to rank, add internal links from other pages that have traffic and link juice, and then, eventually your page will start to rank by itself. Once you have organic traffic, you can start building links to it.
If you are in a rush to rank, you can also do some advertising with Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, etc… and then build links when you will have a history of visitors.
4. Don’t build branded links
Branded anchor texts should ALWAYS have a higher ratio in your anchor text distribution map.
Building your branding authority should always be at the top of your priorities. Don’t be afraid to spend money to build links using brand keywords. A lot of people believe that building links to branded anchors is a waste of money. WRONG!
Link juice is link juice. As long you get new links, you get that link juice. Branded, exact, or broad match keywords, whatever you use, you will get that link juice.
My personal strategy is to use HARO for these branded links. Getting links from high authority sites, that point to your homepage, with your brand name, is the most powerful way to increase your brand authority.
I understand that not everyone has the resource and time to use HARO but even if these branded links come from guest posts or niche edits, they will help you to increase your brand authority.
I recommend placing your branded links on high DR (50++) sites as I’ve seen that low DR sites aren’t great to boost the authority of your brand and seem a total waste of money.
They can be used to help you dilute your exact match ratio though.
I have seen many sites with a high ratio of exact match anchor texts, affected by a core algorithm update. In most case, focusing on building a lot of branded links for a few months, have helped to recover the ranking losses.
5. Building links only to money pages
This mistake is probably the most commons… I see it all the time.
It makes sense to not want to spend money on your supporting pages while they aren’t driving money… But it is an important mistake.
First, it is not natural to have links only on your commercial pages but also, it’s a very bad strategy.
Your supporting pages are very important, they will help you to transfer link juice, and most importantly, they will be used to control the relevancy of your keywords.
Your supporting pages should always link back to your money pages, using the keyword for what you want to rank in the internal link anchor. That way, you will show Google that this page is all about this topic and boost its relevancy.
Many times, you will see your competitors outranking you on Google, and having fewer links. Yes, one of the possible reasons is because the site has higher authority, but often it’s also because the site has a better site structure.
The site has more supporting pages that link to the money page, and it’s why it ranks better.
Do not neglect your supporting pages, give them the same love as your money pages because they deserve it!
Conclusion
Ranking a site isn’t sorcery, it’s a pretty simple process. However, it is important to do it correctly.
I hope you will learn from this article and avoid to do these common mistakes for your future link-building campaigns.
Don’t forget that if you want high-quality links, you can always use my agency Flawless SEO.
We have a strict quality filtering process and all our links are safe, as long you avoid repeating the mistakes enumerated above 🙂
