We all know that backlinking is essential for SEO success. I outlined this in my article about off page SEO. However, there are still a couple of backlinking mistakes committed by people worldwide which is costing them dearly in search engine rankings, traffic and most importantly, revenue.
1. No Anchor Text
This is the most basic principle of a good backlink. If you want your backlink to help your website rank for a certain keyword, then the keyword must be in the anchor text of that backlink. For example, if the main keyword of your website was “designer wedding clothes”, then the text which should be included in your backlink should be “designer wedding clothes.”
2. Linking To The Wrong Page
This follows on from the previous backlinking mistake. It also emphasises the importance of choosing to target 1 keyword per page. For example, if you have a webpage which is optimised for the keyword “designer wedding shoes” then all the backlinks with the keyword in the anchor text should be sent to that page. Don’t send it to your home page or any other page. Sounds simple and logical, but so many people forget about this.
3. Linking From Irrelevant Sites
Search engines thrive on relevancy and reward those who help it achieve that objective. Make sure that all the links pointing back to your website are from relevant websites. For example, if your website was about designer wedding clothes, make sure that a plumbing website does not link to you. Sometimes, there may be cases where you cannot control this, however, in most instances, the website linking to you will get punished for linking to an irrelevant website instead of you.
A certain exception to this rule include article directories, video sharing websites and social media sites. However, all of them have categories and as long as your backlink is in the most relevant category, you will be fine.
4. Linking From Dodgy Websites
Make sure that the website you are getting linked from is not a dodgy website. Apart from affecting the reputation of your website, this can lead to your website getting punished from the search engines. A dodgy website refers to any website which uses black hat SEO strategies. For example, there are a lot of “link farms” out there on the Web which have been created specifically for website owners to put a link back to their website. Avoid such websites because they only encourage unnatural linking (which is black hat) and which will only get your website punished.
In rare cases, you may get other put a link to your website on one of these, however, most of them do require your consent. At the end of the day, these link farms will become harmless when the search engines start ignoring them.
5. Getting Reciprocal Backlinks
Many SEO experts out there encourage website owners to get reciprocal backlinks. This refers to 2 websites linking to one another.
The truth is that reciprocal backlinks give you very little if any SEO benefit. This is because it appears unnatural to the search engines for 2 websites to be linking to one another.
On the other hand, one-way backlinks give you the most SEO benefit. And you get this through a variety of ways as indicated in my article about off page SEO.
Avoid Mistakes To Succeed Online
Sometimes it’s those little things which make something successful. When it comes to Internet marketing and SEO, doing backlinking correctly is one of those little things which pays off in droves.
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Great article! Thank you for sharing this.
No worries Nojiri.
If you’ve got any questions about SEO, just send me an email.
Cheers,
Martin