Mistakes when linking externally - make sure you don't make them!

Link building is an integral part of any effective website positioning strategy. However, when you carry it out incorrectly, instead of enhancing a site's position, it will undermine it. Plenty of companies face the same problems related to link building. They spend time, energy and resources on the activities, but keep getting the same unsatisfactory results. Do you too feel that your efforts have become a linkbuilding Groundhog Day? It's time to break this cycle! Find out what mistakes you may be making and how to fix them.

Repetition - what is external linking?

Before we focus on the mistakes made during linking, it is worth reminding ourselves what linking actually is and why it plays such an important role during SEO.

Let's start with the fact that we divide website positioning activities into on-site and off-site SEO. On-site is (as the name suggests) all the activities directly related to the website, to its optimisation with users and Google's algorithms in mind. On-site can be further divided into SEO technical and content. However, in addition to on-site, off-site SEO must also be taken care of. This is the more difficult part because sometimes we don't have total influence and full control over it. Off-site SEO factors are signals sent to Google not by us, but by third-party sites.

Inbound links are the most important element of off-site SEO. Links from pages with authority are a strong signal, saying - this page is valuable. An important concept here is link juice, i.e. the power conveyed by the link to the landing page. It makes it able to rank higher in Google search results.

Another important term in the context of linking is anchor. It is simply the content which, when pressed, redirects us to a particular page. An anchor can be a simple piece of text, a call to action or an address URL. 

How is external linking carried out?

You have already recalled what link building is in theory, but how do you acquire inbound links to your site in practice?

The ideal but time-consuming way is to write attractive, high-quality and substantive content, promote it and make the owners of other sites will themselves want to link to them on their site. This, of course, is not the only option. A popular way to earn links is to write guest posts, i.e. guest blogging. Guest posts are nothing more than content prepared by us for inclusion on another blog with the author's permission. You could, for example, find people in the industry on networking groups and write to them saying that you would like to feature a guest post on their site. Of course, the response will not always be positive, but it is worth trying.

However, these are not all options. You can also use the services of portal ownerssuch as Linkhouse or Whitepress. On the platforms, publishers add publication offers to their sites and advertisers can browse them and select those that meet their requirements. Registration on the platforms is quick and easy, and access is free. You only pay for specific publications.

The 5 most common mistakes made when linking

You have, of course, only learnt about some of the options for acquiring external links, but these are the most popular and effective ones. It is time to check whether you are making mistakes when planning and implementing your linkbuilding strategy.

Ignoring users' intentions

Have you come across the opinion that every backlink is a good backlink? Well, that's not entirely true, especially in the context of user intent.

User intent (also known as search intent) is the purpose for which a person searches the web.

There are 4 types of searches depending on the intention:

• information

• navigation

• commercial

• transactional

How does this relate to link building? Suppose you have written a guest post and gained a backlink. However, the site that chooses to place your link is thematically irrelevant to your site. What is the problem? Well, it's not just Google's algorithm that will recognise this irrelevance. Site visitors are likely to click a link that leads to your site. Great, that's what you want! The problem is that if the content they arrive at does not match the user's intent, the visitor will quickly realise this. They will leave the site without going to any other sub-page, they won't perform any other action, i.e. they will increase their rejection rate (bounce rate)! 

Therefore, you should only post your content on thematically related external sites.

Prioritising quantity over quality

Buying low-quality links from link farms and investing all your resources in 'infinite' linking - this is not a good strategy. The days when the number of links was the most important thing are over. Now, in order to improve the visibility of the site, there must be quality links leading to it. Low-quality or spammy links will hurt your rankings more than they will help. When a search engine sees that your site is linked to by such links, it too will consider it to be of low quality, so it will not promote it in search results. 

Focusing on one phrase

The linking profile should be as natural as possible. So think about it now: if there are 100 links to a page and the same anchor text is used in all of them - is this a natural profile? No! What is more, such keyword abuse during optimisation can be penalised by Google. For this reason anchor texts should be diversified in various ways - adding synonyms, variations, brand name.

Focusing on linking only to the homepage

It is worth diversifying not only the anchors, but also the sub-pages to which the links lead. If the site has a properly built internal linking structure, valuable links directing to any page on the site also strengthen the other sub-pages. Such differentiation also helps you to rank for more key phrases and thus attract more visitors. So don't just focus on the homepage!

Assessing the quality of a website solely on the basis of one indicator

There is no doubt: sites with high domain authority, thematically related to yours, are the best 'donors' of backlinks. However, don't become a linkbuilding snob. Of course, avoid spammy, low-quality sources that contain duplicate or irrelevant content. However, don't completely dismiss small and medium-sized sites that publish quality content and have established themselves in a niche similar to yours. On their own, they won't provide your site with tons of authority. However, two, three, four or more smaller sites - will!

Furthermore, many people judge the authority of a site solely on the basis of a single parameter, e.g. PageRank'u, which can be misleading. It is worth contrasting it with some other indicators such as mozRank or Ahrefs' DR.

It is important to look at your link building methods and identify where you may be making mistakes. By fixing them, you will improve your search engine position and enjoy better results!