Link building is one of the most misunderstood aspects of an effective digital marketing strategy. Because it’s difficult to scale properly, some avoid it altogether, while others outsource the work and hope for the best. Get it right, either internally or with a link building partner it can catapult your SEO performance. However, in doing soyou must avoid these common link building myths and mistakes for long-term success.
Myth 1: Links must meet a minimum DA score or other score to be approved for value.
A common mistake webmasters make is relying on third-party metrics such as domain authority, domain rank, or citation flow when deciding link opportunities.
It’s important to understand what these numbers represent and what they don’t.
As an example, Domain authority it’s Moz’s best guess at a website’s ability to rank and has nothing to do with a website’s ability to pass link equity to other sites.
Domain scores from various data providers often vary from one to another, so who should you trust? We wouldn’t argue any of them.
These solutions have a fraction of the crawling that Google has. Their datasets and algorithms differ from each other, and there’s a lot that gets lost when determining a site’s score.
Obviously, Google doesn’t use any of these scores when deciding how to rank websites or treat their links.
A link from a low-scoring domain such as a municipal library or a relevant resource site cannot simply pass link equity. It can also drive direct traffic.
Instead of throwing away link opportunities because of low DA, use common sense. Will the site link to you naturally because your content complements theirs? Is the site authentic, meaning no SEO or commercial intent? If so, it’s probably an opportunity you shouldn’t pass up, even with a low score.
Myth 2: Links must be from relevant websites or they won’t count.
In an ideal world, other websites within your vertical would link to you; it’s a natural fit. For many of you, these are often your competitors and unlikely links.
You often need to widen the relevancy gap when looking for link opportunities in competitive verticals to consistently get high-quality links.
When considering websites for links, think outside of your core business and look for opportunities a step or two away.
By doing so, the quantity and quality of link leads can increase tenfold and help you uncover link opportunities that you might otherwise have missed.
Pretend you sell life insurance. Instead of trying to get links only from other life insurance websites, you can search for websites in additional niches, such as healthy living and family planning, which are generally more resource heavy.
This will also allow you to find strong domains that are getting links from (those with lots of high quality backlinks pointing to them), therefore passing you more link equity.
To achieve this, you will need to develop a robust linkable content plan focused on these audiences, giving them something worthy of linking more to the video linked above.
Myth 3: Guest blogging or link networks are worth trusting.
Google has been clear about this for years: guest blogging and link buying as link building tactics violate webmaster guidelines.
You can find their posts about it here i here; they also released a link spam update last year that detailed it here. Some more guidance on this from the search engine roundtable is here i here.
TLDR: If you’re currently getting these types of links, especially in large numbers or as a large percentage of your backlink profile, it’s time to stop.
It is understandable why many people rely on these tactics. They are cost effective and easy to scale. They may even provide a short-term boost, but it’s only a matter of time before Google discounts them and you’re back on the case.
The good news is that Google’s default for the past two years has been to ignore these types of links in your backlink profile rather than penalize you for them. However, penalties are still imposed in certain cases, so why take the risk when there are alternative options?
At best, you’ve wasted time, dollars, and other resources getting them. At worst, they can cause a link penalty if they remain a cornerstone of your link building efforts.
Myth 4: Internal links aren’t that important.
One area that many webmasters ignore is their internal linking optimization.
It can be difficult to manage and keep up with, especially for large e-commerce websites and other very large websites with pages that go in and out on a regular basis.
The truth is that internal linking optimization is one of the fastest ways to increase your SERP visibility, especially for medium and long keyword phrases.
Internal linking gives you the opportunity to vary the internal link anchor text on individual pages, increasing their ranking for a higher volume of keywords.
We optimize internal links from the start in most SEO campaigns, and it almost always results in a measurable increase in a site’s search share, i.e. the number of keywords it ranks for in Google, the average rank of these sentences together and the total. unpaid organic Google traffic that comes to the site. And this often happens within 30 days of optimization.
It also allows you to control where links appear on your website and provide a secondary navigation path for users and Googlebot.
Don’t know where to start? We have put together a internal link guide here, but one of the first things to do is link to like-minded content and business pages throughout your website, especially if any of those pages have backlinks. Not only will this help establish topic authority, but it will also pass link equity to the pages that matter most.
Myth 5: Link building alone will do the job.
While links are often a necessity to rank in most competitive verticals, they are not the only piece of the puzzle.
People often see links as the “magic answer” to help them rank better. And in some circumstances, it’s the links they need the most. But the ability of links to pass the maximum value has many assumptions associated with it.
While they can be the biggest pin generator, you won’t get their full benefit if your website is riddled with technical errors, has poor content, or has a poor user experience.
The latter is especially true when your site starts to rank on page 1. If you provide a poor user experience, you’re unlikely to stay there for long.
It’s also important to realize that page 1 of Google continues to move away from the “10 blue links” of yesteryear. If you’re not optimizing for a variety of search features: images, videos, people also ask, carousels, etc., you’re leaving a lot of traffic opportunities on the table.
There are often dozens of results to click through before you get to the #1 organic result, especially on mobile. And links alone won’t help you capture many of these placements.
While organic rankings remain a top priority, don’t ignore all the other page 1 real estate opportunities. You’ll need an optimized content, image, video, and layout plan to maximize SERP visibility.
Myth 6: Link building is dead!
We’ve heard it shouted over and over again over the years.
Just last week, John Mueller suggested that links may become less important as time goes on. It is important to note the language used: “I imagine”, “my guess”, “over time”, etc.
Google has actually been saying this for a while almost a decade. One of the things that has historically set Google apart from any other search engine is its link data and reliance on it to determine search engine rankings. This remains true to this day.
Yes, there are more ranking considerations now than there were 10 years ago. And as mentioned above, page 1 of Google looks a lot different now than it did then. These provide additional optimization opportunities that links alone won’t help with, and in that sense, Mueller is right.
It’s also likely that Google wants to continually discourage artificial link building through their communications as they always have, so it’s no surprise to see this message as we close out the year.
Interestingly, we find consistent quality link building to produce stronger results over time, likely as Google continues to discount low-quality link building tactics. The cream always rises to the top.
But ranking a website for high-value keywords in a competitive vertical without strategic links will continue to be difficult for the foreseeable future.
Wrapping it up
Link building is an evolving but important ranking factor. If your business depends on SEO traffic, ongoing link earnings should be a cornerstone of your digital marketing strategy.
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About the author
Internet Marketing Ninjas is a leading digital agency specializing in SEO strategy, link building, content marketing and site speed optimization. Led by industry veteran Jim Boykin since 1999, IMN’s team of 50 is based in New York State and brings nearly 400 years of combined experience helping clients improve search rankings and increase organic Google traffic.
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