- Have you ever wondered why your website
isn't getting the traffic it deserves?
You may be falling victim to some common backlink mistakes.
In this video, I'm gonna show you what they are
and how you can avoid them.
So here's how backlinking works.
A backlink is like an online citation.
It's a link from one website to another resource
in anchor text, which is just text you can click.
The backlink will take you to the resource
being referred to.
It could be a website, webpage or directory.
You wanna make sure the citations you use,
or the ones using you,
are from good and reputable sources.
Because the more authoritative incredible
the domains you're linked to,
the more Google promotes your site.
Which means you rank higher for search
and that leads to more visitors,
more credibility, more clicks, and more money.
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Getting backlinking wrong can harm your brand
by risking search engine penalties
that can drastically reduce your traffic and visibility.
Here are the top mistakes to avoid.
Mistake one, putting quantity over quality.
People can be tempted to cram as many backlinks as possible
into their website copy.
After all, the more links you have,
the more your website will appear,
well researched and authoritative, right?
Well, not necessarily.
You need to be selective
about the kinds of websites you linked to.
If you happen to overheard a slam dunk investment idea
for someone who's just been interning at a bank for a week,
would you act on it?
Lots of websites out there are just like that person.
Backlinks from low quality, spammy, and irrelevant websites
can hurt your search engine rankings,
and if you start trusting your authority
to those kind of sites, you'll find your website
and brand being pulled down to their level.
Forget this, and you'll not only slow down your traffic,
you'll actively harm it.
That's why it's so so important
to only use high quality backlinks
and anchor texts that lead to sources with domain authority.
SEO Gurus Moz coined the term to evaluate
how well a page will rank in search.
(typesetting)
A single page with a high domain authority
will often outperform several pages with lower authority.
So when it comes to backlinking,
quality trumps quantity every single time.
Seek out backlinks from reputable
and high authority websites that are in your niche.
You can use Moz's link Explorer tool to see if a website
you're interested in has reliable backlinks.
Just enter the website URL,
and Moz will give you a complete breakdown
of that domain's authority and reliability.
You'll get loads of insights that'll help you decide
if a website is one you wanna have a relationship with
including broken links, spam scores, anchor text analysis
and much, much, much, much more.
The more specific your website's area of expertise,
the better, and it works both ways.
Backlinking is a reciprocal relationship.
If you want quality backlinks,
you'll need to produce quality content.
After all, interesting people wanna be associated
with interesting people.
If you consistently produce engaging content
that's targeted towards helping a specific audience,
you'll attract backlinks from other high grade websites
and influencers, which in turn will lead to more visitors
more visibility in all the buildings.
If you wanna start producing super specific
and consistent content,
check out our free persona template to see how you can start
to connect with your target audience.
Mistake number two, favoritism.
It's really important to nurture relationships
with other high quality thought leaders
and content creators,
but sometimes that value exchange can turn into something
that's way more transactional than anything else.
So make sure you don't start flooding your copy
with tons of anchor texts linking to the same places.
Google has gotten very, very wise to these methods
and excessive reciprocal linking, can look manipulative
and lead to penalties.
So what should you do instead?
Well, when you've earned the attention
and trust of other great influencers,
you can contribute articles to their websites.
Make sure your content is valuable, unique
and relevant to their audience.
To do that, you need to build relationships.
Connect with industry influencers, bloggers,
and website owners in your niche to foster collaboration.
If you're partnered with a supply business,
ask them to link back to your website.
Say you have a very trusting relationship supplying hardware
to an electronic store.
You could ask the store to include a backlink
to your website,
targeting similar retailers looking for quality,
and reliable electrical supplies.
They'll also be more inclined
to help you out since you already have a relationship.
Ask customers who already reference you on their sites,
to provide a backlink.
Google keywords you wanna be known for and find blogs,
influencers, and brands in your niche.
Send them your product or offer your service
for free of charge in exchange for a review.
This is a great way to potentially earn backlinks
and build your own personal brand
and credibility in your domain.
You should also join online forums,
communities and social media groups.
Contribute to discussions, share your expertise
and include a link back to your website,
but only do so if it's warranted,
and there's an appetite to hear more.
Otherwise, that's just spam and no one likes a spammer.
So put some feelers out to the community
and become a person of value.
If you want some tips on how you can do that,
you should check out our video
on how to build your online profile.
Mistake number three, set and forget.
If you sprinkle some lovely backlinks
throughout your website,
you may feel like it's mission accomplished.
Just sit back,
let that domain authority build itself, baby, let's go.
Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy.
If you leave your backlinks unattended for a long time,
you run the risk of your anchor links leading
to outdated pages or even dead links.
Your content doesn't just need to be valuable today,
it needs to be evergreen,
so Google and other search engines continue
to highly rank your website.
If you don't, your cert will fail
and your domain authority will spiral downwards.
To stop that from happening,
there's a few technical tweaks you need to maintain
and improve your backlinking hygiene.
A really simple one is to regularly check
your backlink profile with SEO tools like Moz or Semrush.
You can use Semrush's backlink analytics to analyze others
and your own website's backlink health.
Just enter your domain URL,
and you'll get a ton of analytics
that will show you how people are engaging
and if your links are performing.
You'll see your authority score.
Identify incoming links and linking domains.
Analyze link quality.
Understand just how authoritative referring websites
actually are, all based on reliable data and sources.
This will give you a sense of how your website is performing
and which links are contributing to your domain authority.
Use these insights to track progress,
and find new opportunities.
Which backlinks are getting the most traffic.
Which ones are getting ignored.
Figure out what areas of yours
and others content are engaging your audience.
You should also catch or remove any harmful
or spammy links that may have snuck into your backlinks.
Some links just go wrong or their content becomes stale.
Go hunting for broken links on relevant websites.
When you find a solid website with poor back links,
contact the site owner
and suggest your content as a replacement.
You should also aim to write anchor text,
that's as descriptive as possible.
Anchor text is the clickable copy in a hyperlink
that links one webpage to another.
It's often underlined or in a different color,
usually blue for me.
Good anchor text gives context to users
and search engines about the content of the linked page.
Having unclear or super vague anchor text copy
can turn off potential clickers,
and lead to a lower search ranking.
So keep it snappy.
Use short and clear copy that's easy to understand.
Finally, don't be afraid to use internal backlinks,
internal links that send people
to different parts of the same site,
help search engines understand your site structure
in hierarchy and improves quotability and indexing.
Mistake four, pay to play.
Everything we've spoken about falls
under the label of White Hat SEO.
These are fair, legal,
and value-based practices that search engines love,
but there are some dark arts
when it comes to acquiring backlinks.
You may have heard of Black Hat SEO.
These are attempts to game the system,
to buy credibility rather than earn it.
Loganix defines Black Hat SEO as the process
of acquiring links through illegitimate or unethical means.
Here are some black hat techniques to avoid,
buying links, Google's very clear on this.
Exchanging money, goods and or services
for a link is a big no-no.
Sponsored guest posts and paid reviews, forget it.
These are standard practices, but Google is very
much cracking down on all of them all of the time.
Buying links, violates search engine guidelines,
lowers your ranking and can even lead to your website
being removed from search results altogether.
Link farms, these are links to fake sites designed
to boost the backlink catalogs of legitimate sites.
When you include links from a farm,
you're messing with Google's ability to put the best answers
in front of honest searchers.
So don't do it.
Spamming comments.
You've definitely seen this one.
Anytime you go into the comments section of a blog, video,
or any piece of content,
and you see someone plugging a shady looking website,
that's common spam.
It negatively affects visitor's experience,
and yet your search ranking,
as you've probably guessed at this point,
search engines hate Black Hat SEO.
They're constantly releasing new updates
to catch malpractice.
While these techniques may feel
like they can pay off in the short term,
they're a recipe for disaster in the long run.
So let your content speak for itself,
associate with other high caliber people
and let search engines do the work for you the right way.
And finally, mistake number five, over automating,
everything can be automated nowadays.
It can be useful making payments,
ordering food, setting reminders.
One thing that's not useful, yep,
that the problem with automation is the more dynamic
and complex the task, the worst results become.
What content is
and isn't valuable can change very, very quickly.
If you're only relying on automation platforms
to provide you with backlinks,
you run the risk of losing your grip on quality control.
It can result in low grade unnatural
or just plain spammy links
that hurt your search engine rankings.
Here's the long and short of it.
Backlinking is one of the best ways
to boost online credibility in searchability.
A successful backlinking strategy can't be bought.
You can only earn it,
because like all things marketing,
it starts with delivering value to your audience
and delivering value to your partners,
who in turn then share that value
with others in your ecosystem.
It takes time,
it's hard, and it can definitely look easier
to try to gain the system,
but done well,
it can change the game for your online presence.
If you wanna do your backlinking journey the right way,
check out our complete SEO starter pack.
It's full of handy templates, MythBusters,
and insights that'll help you get started right now.
And as always, don't forget to subscribe,
so you're never behind on the latest backlink tips.
Until next time, bye-bye.
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