1. Publishing Thin Content
Most SEO will tell you to publish link-worthy content, but I suggest you publish high-quality content for users and optimize it for search engines.
Unfortunately, many people try to create content that ranks better in search engines but forgets to put the readers of the content into considerations- that’s a mistake worth avoiding at all costs.
Google understands when users love your content. The search giant will check how users interact and engage with your content, the backlinks, the shares, the comments, the likes, the time a reader spends on your site, and numerous other metrics and then rank your site accordingly. That means that if no one is reading your content, no one is linking to it, and hence Google knows your content is thin (sub-par content or poor quality).
Apart from content quality, user experience is also another essential factor Google looks at when ranking websites. For illustration, if your web pages take too long to open, you will have a high bounce rate.
Focus on creating high-quality and useable content that answers the searchers’ questions, and people will link to your website.
2. Exchanging Links for Money
Google hates bought links. For this reason, the search engine uses intelligent bots or crawlers that can detect if you bought links from other sources. Moreover, Google enables people to report obtained links or PBN networks. To be on the safe side, avoid buying links.
although you game the system by acquiring links, put this inside consideration:
Acquired links will drive low-quality traffic than natural links
You will get a hefty penalty when Google detects paid links on your website
Obtaining penalized by Google means you will pay more money to rectify the situation.
Acquiring links from other sources can harm your search engine rankings. Hence, although you have the money to purchase links, you’d better spend it on something else.
3. Forgetting to Get Relieved of Toxic Links
First of all, what are toxic links?
Toxic links are those unnecessary or unnatural backlinks that can hurt your website’s search engine rankings.
Now having far-formed what toxic links are, did you hear of Google’s Penguin update?
Don’t worry. We, moreover, didn’t know that Google was rolling out this “sweet” update but here is why Google rolled out the Penguin update.
Penguin update was released to boost Google’s search results by gaining rid of web pages with toxic backlinks.
Penguin update’s main aim is to monitor and penalize websites with tons of toxic backlinks and those with a poor backlink profile.
Getting rid of toxic backlinks is easy. There are various backlink analytics tools such as SEMrush you can use to evaluate your backlink profile and exclude toxic backlinks.
4. Focusing on One King of Backlinks
even if a good link profile continues to be a powerful indicator of a site’s quality for search engines, many people tend to focus on one type of backlink.
To build a healthy backlink profile, you should spend on various backlinks that drive more traffic to your site and increase revenue.
There are two major backlink types: Dofollow and Nofollow.
Most skilled bloggers and SEOs will tell you to focus on building Dofollow links, but this is one of the link-building mistakes you should avoid. Concentrating on one type of backlink is a poor SEO practice. Moreover, your site risks becoming penalized by Google for doing that.
Undeniably, Nofollow links don’t pass any link to your site but can raise your site’s SEO, particularly when they come from different domains.
Endeavor your best to build the two backlink types frequently. If you build Dofollow backlinks by guest posting, you can also build Nofollow links by commenting on other relevant blogs.
5. Generating Links from No-Index Domains
As you build backlinks, you should be careful not to get links from websites, domains, or web pages that aren’t indexed on Google. Google search algorithms penalize sites that obtain links from pages or sites that aren’t indexed.
Before you get those links from a website, make sure you do sufficient research to see whether a site is indexed or not. It’s more beneficial to contribute more time investigating a site before you build links of it than to rush building links then regret later.
You can use tools like SEMrush to observe your backlink profile and if you discover a non-indexed site linking to yours, exclude those links.
6. Focusing on Outranking Your Competitor
Sure, it’s good to spy on your competitors’ link profiles as this is the best way to know how to beat them but focusing on outranking them by chasing their link profile won’t help you.
As a rule, you should search on your competitor’s link profile to see how you can fine-tune your link profile but find resources to develop a content strategy that will help you create your link profile.
7. Building Irrelevant Links
In an attempt to build links from authority sites, bloggers and content marketers ignore niche suitability.
If you own a digital marketing blog, obtaining a backlink from a health and fitness blog is just bad for your SEO.
Except for the blog you are getting a link from is general. It would be best if you ever built links from suitable niches.
Well, it’s feasible to build quality links from a blog with several niches to yours, but you should make sure the topic you write about is relevant to your blog.
8. Focusing on Quantity Over Quality
No one stops you from issuing two blog posts per week. Though, if you will sacrifice quality for quantity, then stop doing it.
According to HubSpot, long-form posts generate more shares and backlinks, but no one will link to your blog posts if the content is of poor quality.
Always focus on creating and distributing high-quality content, and people will link to your content.
9. Not Diversifying Your Link Building Practices
There are plenty of link-building practices. The most basic ones are guest blogging and blog commenting. If you rely on one type of link-building technique, you won’t get the results you want within the specified time.
10. Hastening Link Building
Google does not limit your speed of building backlinks but creating thousands of links in one day can make Google get suspicious and penalize your website.
Similar to point #8 over, always focus on building quality backlinks than quantity.
That means you are more suitable for making links from 2 authority sites than getting 20 links from low-quality websites.
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