Do you have a website and want to drive lots of high quality organic traffic from search engines like Google, yahoo, Bing.com? If your answer is yes, keep on reading this post. You need to have a website with good search engine rankings for most searched terms in your industry for gaining huge amount of traffic to that website. And link building plays the biggest role when it comes about gaining top rankings for highest competitive keywords in any industry. So in today’s post, I’m going to highlight 10 deadly link building mistakes one should avoid while creating links for their websites and blogs:
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1. Going for non-indexed websites in Google
On lots of occasion, people make the mistake of adding links and getting links from websites that have no page indexed in Google. If you blindly keep on getting links from such websites, you may end up adding some bad neighbors on your website. And in that case, you have to face some kind of penalty from Google. So don’t get links from new or old but un-cached websites in Google. And to know the number of pages indexed for a website in Google use:
site:domainname.com
2. Getting links with nofollow attribute
You will not get the benefit towards achieving high page rank and search engine rankings if the website from which you got link added a nofollow tag with your link details. So make sure you get dofollow links i.e. nofollow tag should not be added with your link detail. How to check if a website has added a nofollow tag with your link detail:
Suppose someone added a link for my blog in the format (will be available when we view source code for that page):
<a href=”http://www.scopeformoney.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Making money online</a>
Click here to know more in details about nofollow tags
3. Getting links from unrelated websites
Sometimes we make the mistake of getting links from unrelated websites or websites no way related to our website niche. In that case, we are just building junk links for our website. So we should avoid just practice and should focus on getting links from the websites or blogs in the same niche or related niches.
4. Links from websites with no backlinks in Google
Another common mistake we make while getting links for our website are we agree to share or exchange links in blogroll, footer or on individual pages with websites with no links at all on Google. You may be creating relationship with some spam or penalized websites in Google in this manner. So don’t go for websites which shows no links when checked on Google with link:domainname.com. Also make sure you don’t build any form of relationship with websites:
- Having page rank and no backlinks on Google
- Websites with NO Page rank Available i.e. websites that does not have even zero page rank.
5. Using Link exchange websites or programs
We start using some link exchange (reciprocal) websites or programs with an intension to build some quick links for our websites. I would suggest not going for such websites or software’s. You will get a huge list of websites when make search with terms like link exchange or reciprocal links. Some of these websites pretends to be offering their services for free and some even charge for their services. If you have to do link exchange, I would suggest doing it manually.
6. Backlinks with no proper anchor text
Another common sin people make while building links is they get links from quality websites in their niche, but the anchor text used to link to their website is of no use. Links like ‘Click Here’ or ‘More Information’ holds no logical information about the content on a page. So when you get links from a website, don’t forget to include keywords that you want to get high rankings for as part of your anchor text.
7. Links in the Form of Images
On some occasions, we get links for our website in the form of image links or banners. No doubt, banner links may help in bringing more traffic than a text link, but image links hold little value from SEO prospective. And if you must get an image link, don’t forget to get your keyword included as part of ALT text to that image link.
8. Getting links from websites with too many outgoing links
On some occasions, we got invitation where our link will be added on a page having too many links (outgoing links more than 100). So we should aim at getting links from websites having very few out-bound links.
9. Getting links for home page only
It is bad practice to have all links pointing to your website home page. For better search engine rankings and business, I would suggest get links for services based or product based individual pages on your website. Website home page generally keeps an introduction kind of content about the services or products you are offering on your website. But product based pages have lots of content related to the kind of keyword you are targeting and chances of people staying on that page for longer and actually giving some business are quite huge. So instead of targeting all keywords for your website home page, target individual pages and get links for them.
10. Ignoring the importance of internal links
If you check the backlinks of any popular website in your niche, lots of links pointing to this website will be links from its own domain. So these domains are making use of internal linking and anyone can do that. If you have a content rich website where you post content on regular basis, you can get some page rank and traffic to your website if you interlink your website pages properly. Only links to relevant pages. You can think of showing some related articles for each content on your website and link within content even when it makes sense. Show all your website major links or services in the navigation.
Do you take care of any of these mistakes when doing link building for your website and blogs? And if I missed something that was worth mentioning here, please share in the comments section below.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
awesome post mate !!
very informative !
Link exchange was a waste of time for me. i am making money online heres a youtube video if anyone is interested http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtmJGx4Z8P0
Not a bad post. I would however like to correct some of the points raised here:
2. White it is true that you will not get any pagerank passed from nofollow links you WILL get anchor text attribution passed to your site. So it can help you rank for keywords where other link building efforts are being focused on pagerank – DONT DISCOUNT NOFOLLOWED LINKS.
3. This makes no sense at all. While its true that a relevant site could help your rankings this doesnt mean that the site is keyword focused on your topic. Instead go through the SERPS for the top 900 sites and look who ranks for your terms… THESE are the sites that are relevant to your topic, not some spam site created around your terms.
5. While i wouldnt advocate using link exchanges as the majority of your link building strategy, a few well placed links on a reciprocal basis will not hurt you. In fact ive many older domains that were wholly placed using reciprocal techniques that havent moved in many years (no further work as been added in years to these). Just use standard link qualifying techniques to make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck.
6. If your onpage seo is strong then you should have a diverse backlink anchor profile including non relevant terms… its only seen as natural in Googles eyes.
7. alt text and image links are just as worthy as text inks
Hope that helps.
Number Nine is spot on. Deep linking is a great SEO technique, especially if you need to spread PR throughout your site (which you do!).
Fantastic tips there, thanks for taking the time to put it together.
Nice tips and great looking blog.
I disagree with some of your points though…
Getting links from sites that aren’t related to you doesn’t penalise you in any way shape or form. I know as I have a site on the first page with links from many unrelated sites.
Whilst the above is just my opinion from my experiences it doesn’t mean what you’re saying is wrong. SEO tends to be subjective and what works for one site may not work for another.
Very great article with useful informations, thanks for sharing your tips!
I agree with the importance of linkbuilding, anchor text is very important, when i start to build links, i didn’t know the importance of its and start to build backlinks with my surname… Big mistake, it was big waste of time!
You are totally correct. Sometimes it’s hard for people to get the hang of it. great article for beginners.
I have tried link building before and I reached to pagerank 3 within 9 months. I did commenting on blogs or website which is related to my blog. Most of the time I leave comments to those blogs who has a 100,000 maximum ranking on alexa and all blogs on the top 30 of the google search result.
“You will not get the benefit towards achieving high page rank and search engine rankings if the website from which you got link added a nofollow tag with your link details.”
But why in Google Webmaster Tools (Links to your site) it also shows backlink from nofollow too, can you explain about it ?
Thanks
Point 2. I just add the nodofollow extension to my Firefox browser and you can turn it on and off easily. Saves time from having to view the source code manually. To turn it on, go to tools and click on the nodofollow to check it. To turn it off, go to tools tab, uncheck it and you are good to go.
I do agree its better to get links in your own niche, but I have seen many times, that a good quality link from unrelated sites is valuable. It also looks more natural to have links from all over anyways. Only links from your niche, to me that doesn’t look natural.
Hi Darrell, I himself use this tool to check links on a website are nofollow or dofollow without viewing its source code
@Anil Gupta,
Yup, it makes life so much easier and anything we as internet marketers can do to save time is something that we all need to do.
That is the one thing I really do is look for efficient ways to use tools and save time.
Cheers
Great tips overall Anil. In regards to point 9 – getting links to your home page. That is a big mistake. I usually link my home page about 20% of the time, while deep linking 80%. I want my entire site strong seo wise.
You mention getting links from unrelated niches as not as good. I agree, but on the other hand, I still much value in getting links from all over. Especially if its an authority site from an unrelated site, can still pass good link juice.