Companies that want to thrive in the world that’s coming need to focus on their link-building. The better they can get at it, the higher they will rank on Google and the more organic traffic they will receive.
However, link-building is challenging, and most companies are doing it wrong. A lot of small businesses believe that all they need to do is work with the right digital marketing services and everything will be okay, but that’s not how it works at all.
In this post, we look at some of the reasons why your link-building efforts might not be working and what you can do about it.
Poor Quality Content
Low-quality content is a leading reason why link-building efforts fall flat. Companies simply churn out garbage and then expect it to have a measurable impact.
Remember, Google doesn’t like “thin” content. It wants posts to provide audiences with real value to keep them reading. But if SEO professionals are simply typing out endless listicles on random topics that don’t have much to do with your brand or audience, that’s not going to work.
Therefore, the focus should be on high-quality, well-researched content that works. Alternatively, entertaining content can also be effective, though it may not be relevant to your business.
You also want fairly long content. Make sure you give yourself enough room to deal with customer pain points and provide valuable information they can use to make their lives better.,
Outdated Tactics
Relying on old or outdated tactics is another significant reason link-building efforts fail. Many businesses follow best practices from ten years ago, even if things have changed substantially in the interim.
Outdated tactics can even be fatal in today’s SEO world. Companies that Google thinks are cheating can see massive down-ranking in search engine page results. As such, always use experts and SEO professionals who understand the risks and caveats. Make sure you pursue high authority domain links from sites Google trusts as these can provide even more juice to your website rankings.
Not Following Up
Lack of follow-up can also be a considerable issue for link-building efforts. You won’t get far if you miss out on this step.
Often, when you submit an article to a site, the owner won’t see it or may take a long time to post it. Therefore, it makes sense to put a process in place to ensure the link appears where it should.
This process usually takes the form of various follow-up emails. These get sent automatically at first and then become more hand-written as the delay continues. Most site owners are usually pretty good, as long as they agree to host your link. If they didn’t, you may need to look elsewhere.
Wrong Site Targeting
Targeting the wrong sites can also be a major drag on your link-building efforts. Modern search engines, like Google, are getting much better at detecting when a link doesn’t really make much sense in a specific context.
Worse still, you could target low-quality sites and Google may penalize you, actually lowering your ranking. Therefore, simply going to a link farm offering dozens of links for a low price from sites that no one has ever heard of is usually a bad idea.
Certainly, don’t construct link networks. Google can pull multiple domains if it thinks they have a deliberate internal link economy for the sole purpose of boosting rankings.
Ignoring The Anchor Text
Believe it or not, the anchor text matters a great deal in link building. However, optimizing it too much can hurt you.
For example, it is natural to link back to your site using your brand name or the products you sell. However, this approach can land you in hot water with Google if you get it wrong. That’s because Google knows that most sites have a variety of anchor text pointing to them, not the same text everywhere. If the search engine sees this, it may accuse you of building links artificially, which usually results in down-ranking. Therefore, pay careful attention to the anchor text. Make sure you are varying it sufficiently and that it isn’t the same for every site. If it is, disavow those links or ask the site owner to change them slightly so they aren’t identical.
Focusing More On Quantity
Sometimes when it comes to link building, focusing on quantity is an okay policy. However, you are more likely to gain traction if you can attract some high-quality links.
The best way to do this is to go to local hubs, like airports or universities, and see if you can list your services on them. For example, many car rental services use university websites for high-quality links from their transportation option areas.
Even landing just one of these links can be highly valuable. While they might be difficult to obtain, once you have them, they often last for years and push you up the rankings considerably for your chosen keyword.
Track Your Performance
At the same time, you want to make sure you track link performance. Check that you are making progress every week for your target keywords so you don’t fall behind the competition.
Performance tracking is easy these days thanks to the numerous SEO tools that are now available out there. Alternatively, your digital marketing agency can do it for you. These often have pre-existing blogger networks they can plug into while also providing performance reports on your dashboard.
Forgetting Internal Links
Finally, your link-building efforts may be falling behind because you’ve forgotten internal links. While external or incoming links might be the focus, these also matter for SEO purposes.
Internal links play a significant role in telling Google which pages matter most. For the vast majority of businesses, these are the home page and category pages, with contact details a close third.
Therefore, link in a way that tells Google’s crawlers which pages to prioritize when users make specific searches. Don’t leave anything to chance. Use a site map if necessary to plan it all out.
