Link building is a challenging task. In fact, the link building tactics of an SEO agency may be the defining factor of an experienced agency to an agency that’s just full of promises.
Backlinks are still the #1 search engine ranking factor. That’s why caution must be implemented because search engines take this very seriously. Some people tend to forget that search engines are almost omnipotent these days compared to 5 years ago where there are tons of loopholes to manipulate.
Link Building is a strategy. There are numerous ways to get backlinks. There are good ways and bad ways. We must learn the proper guidelines and which strategies to avoid. Misguided efforts to build up links cause more harm than good.
Here are 3 Link Building Failures and the ways to avoid them.
1. Spam – Because It’s Only for Eating
Spamming is a common black hat strategy, there are numerous kinds of spam and some of the most common spams are:
A. Forum Spam
This refers to posting on forum threads for the sole intention of getting backlinks. Webmasters who uses this strategy creates profile spams, joins different forums and posts their backlinks on different threads.
Here’s What You Can Do Instead
Don’t join communities just to post backlinks. Simple right. Genuinely join communities, be legitimate and contribute. Also, avoid joining forums that don’t monitor spam content. If the community is full of spammers, then there’s a risk that you will be branded one as well.
B. Trackback and Comment Spam
Trackbacks allows bloggers to communicate between websites. You wish to write a post and link to another blog but also want your readers to see your post. A trackback is a way for you to ping the other bloggers and let them know that you wrote a post that links to their blog. They will receive a trackback notification and will decide whether to display it as a comment or not. If shown, the comment will include a title, excerpt and a link to your blog post.
What spammers do is to generate countless automated scripts or scraped contents to send tons of trackbacks to different websites hoping that they could leave their links on websites where trackbacks are not being monitored. Comment spam, on the other hand, is done by posting random, irrelevant, nonsensical comments on a blog article.
Here’s What You Can Do Instead
If you wish to send a trackback, make sure that what you post and the blog you link with is in high quality, relevant, and is related. Some authors monitor their work so if you post something on their blog that looks spammy they may report you. Avoid this by writing comments that matter. Be authentic. Same goes to your blog. Monitor your blogs and the trackbacks you received and make sure that you don’t get penetrated by spammers.
C. Article Directory spam
An article directory is a site where you can submit articles with anchor texts linking back to your site to obtain backlinks. Once the articles are uploaded users can download it and use it on their own website. If they publish your article, you will get inbound links from their website, this becomes a spam when webmasters upload inappropriate contents, spin-off articles, and uses irrelevant anchor texts, hoping that other websites publish their work, which resulted for search engines to become critical of this link building strategy.
Here’s What You Can Do Instead
If you wish to use article directories, then make sure that the content of your work is relevant, unique, and with an appropriate anchor text. You should also make sure that the article directory where you put your article is a high-quality directory.
2. Buying Links
Buying links are easy, quick, and convenient. Purchased links can get you many links with the proper link text pretty quickly, and could give you a boost in search engine rankings. A powerful link with a high page rank and many outbound links will cost more but will garner better results. It’s an extremely effective link building tactic. Unfortunately, search engines are very strict about it, and we strongly advise against it. It’s not worth risking for the penalties can be severe.
Here’s What You Can Do Instead
Never buy links. Invest in good content instead. Use your money to hire a great writer. Do inbound marketing. Create infographics. Remarkable content is the most effective way to build links.
3. Private Blog Network
A private blog network is a set of blogs that is owned or controlled by a single individual or company. Usually, PBNs are created by getting expired domains that has links pointing to it. A webmaster uses this as a link building strategy. They buy numerous expired domains, and they “revive” those by adding trash content for the purpose of funneling links to their main website which, in return, increase the SEO ranking of that site. This worked for quite some time a few years ago but Google took action against private blog networks and penalizes sites that are using this tactic.
Here’s What You Can Do Instead
PBNs are not entirely bad. It’s only wrong if you create it for the sole purpose of link funneling. There are ways to utilize PBNs without being penalized. Instead of buying expired domains, it would be better if you create new ones. Refrain from making many microsites, keep it to a minimum and make sure that you actively promote and market each, and create unique and valuable content on each of the websites. In fact, the popular blogs LifeHacker, Gizmodo, Kotaku, and more are all part of a blog network.
