Although you may not want to hear this, internet marketers and politicians have quite a few similarities. Pretending to care for their target audience, networking with influential lobbies, following popular opinion, and making every effort to stay in the news are all things that both of them do.
Why?
Because both need votes.
Political officials need money to maintain their power and influence.
If internet marketers want to get to the top of Google’s search results, they need to get other websites to link back to theirs.
on Google To rank at the top of Google, create engaging content and get more votes (backlinks).
The comparison sounds bizarre but it’s pretty well-documented.
A study done by SEMRush found that there is a direct correlation between the number of domains that link to a URL and that URL’s search ranking.
But there’s one key difference between the two
As long as you’re a politician, you can rig elections, make it to the top government post, and never get caught – even when everyone knows what you did.
You can’t do that as an internet marketer.
In the world of SEO, not all votes (backlinks) are created equal.
A handful of backlinks from high-authority websites are much better than dozens of backlinks from less reputable websites.
If you have too many bad links, your rankings will decrease.
You will not be able to maintain a top ranking on Google’s search engine results pages if you create fake, spam, cheap, or irrelevant backlinks, or hire Russian link builders.
If you’re not careful, you’ll eventually get caught and penalized by Google to the point where you can’t recover.
Then avoid the following five link-building blunders at all costs. If you want to avoid wasting your time, money, and energy, then avoid the following five link-building blunders.
Then keep reading.
I’m going to share some common link-building mistakes that a lot of marketers, brands, and SEOs make.
But First; Why Do People Link To Other Content?
It’s a fundamental question.
But have you ever thought about it seriously?
If you know the answer to this, it could help you get more backlinks, which is what you want, right?
The surveyed found that the most common reasons for linking to another site were for professional networking, traffic, and SEO benefits.
In other words, people link to content on other websites when they believe that content is valuable.
The link to content makes their content look more complete.
The content that makes them look more credible and trustworthy is linked below.
The content that strengthens their arguments can be found at the link below.
It’s all about them, not you
Remember this when you are creating links to your website.
Is your content fulfilling any of those needs?
If not, you’d always struggle to get natural backlinks.
And remember!
The core reason behind all link building mistakes is that the links look artificial rather than being acquired naturally.
If Google believes that a link has not been earned willingly, then it will penalize the linked site as well as the site that provided the link.
. Any links you include on your website should appear natural, or at least not appear to be artificial.
If you want to avoid being penalized by Google, you need to make sure your website is up to par.
Got it?
Now that we know what link building is, let’s take a look at some common mistakes people make when trying to build links. This way, we can avoid making them ourselves.
Avoid These 9 Common Link Building Mistakes
Do you want to rank in Google?
The following nine link-building mistakes should be avoided:
1. Writing Poor Quality Guest Posts Only To Get Backlinks
I receive numerous emails from companies, bloggers, and link builders who want to pay me to write guest posts.
How many do I actually work with?
Less than 1%.
Many people believe that guest logging is an easy way to get backlinks from prominent websites in their field.
Here are some of their common beliefs
-
They can hire a cheap writer to create one great post for them.
-
They can create multiple versions of the same “great post” for multiple sites.
-
They can use the same content to link back to their site’s money pages
-
content Any site owner would be happy to accept a guest post because it is free content.
Change this mindset NOW!
There are many benefits to guest blogging, one of which is the ability to get links. The only way to get top blogs to accept your content is to create something awesome that they can’t resist.
I have a lot of experience with writing guest posts, so you can trust me on this. Many of the most popular blogs no longer allow guest posts because people have been using them to spam links.
Matt Cutts said that guest blogging is not a good way to solely build links. After Matt’s initial statement, he clarified that he was talking about guest blogging that is done solely to gain links and is of low quality. If you have something genuinely high-quality to share, guest posting is still a useful way to get your content seen. So guest blogging for link building still works
The only way to get published on a reputable blog is to create great content.
If you want to increase your website’s ranking and improve your brand’s image, you should focus on getting backlinks. This will not only improve your website’s ranking, but it will also leave a positive impression on a larger audience.
2. Limiting Your Guest Blogging Efforts to the Top-Tier Sites
I would like to always get backlinks from CNN, Harvard Business Review, or The White House.
But that’s not happening, of course.
If you limit your guest blogging campaign to just the top blogs in your niche, you’ll never be successful because these blogs have very high editorial standards and receive thousands of guest blogging proposals every day. Even if your post is accepted for publishing, it will still take a few months for it to go live.
The post didn’t go live for almost 5 months. The editor told me that my article would be published on February 16, but it actually went live in the first week of March. This is because the site’s editorial team kept pushing my article down in favor of their own content. The link was powerful for promoting my profile and brand.
But 5 months is a lot of time.
A couple of other sites kept me waiting even longer. I’m sure you don’t want to wait for years to get a single backlink.
So the best strategy is to mix things up.
You should focus your efforts on any blogs that are more popular than yours. Domain Authority and Domain Rating are not the best indicators of a site’s popularity, but they can give you an idea of the site’s strength. A high DA/DR score means that a site is popular.
The best ROI in terms of reputable links and shorter publishing queues can be achieved with blogs that have a DR of 30 to 70.
3. Obsessing over Domain Authority or Any Other Third-Party Metric
While third-party link metrics can be helpful, they should not be trusted completely.
Obsessing over them when doing a link building campaign may lead to:
- Constrained opportunities.
- Lack of subjective evaluation.
- Failure to plant seeds for the future.
- Creation of a lopsided link profile.
What to Do Instead
You should never miss a good chance to build links.
Some SEO practitioners use complex matrices to evaluate link prospects. After they finish evaluating links, they will only have a few link prospects to contact.
Always keep in mind that you will not be able to convert all of your prospects.
There is a lot of pressure on agencies to only create links with high domain authority. This makes sense because clients are paying for a service and it’s a cheap way to measure link quality. We need to build links that are of high quality.
However, remember that these figures are subject to change over time. A higher DA today can go down tomorrow. DA can be gamed.
A good link is still a good link. We all know it when we see it. Don’t ignore it.
Your link profile is organic. Plant lots of seeds.
The links you build are like living things. Some links will last a long time. Other links will last only a short time. Some links will become more authoritative over time, while others will become less so.
The low DA links you build today are the foundation for future link building efforts. It can be difficult to obtain links from large websites that have grown over time and have multiple levels of management.
If you only build links with high DA, it will look unnatural and will not be organic.
4. Failing to Create Content That’s on Trend or Surprising
There is a lot of content on the internet that is interesting but does not get many clicks.
Your content must offer something unique and unexpected to be successful.
Try to find topics that are important but haven’t been covered extensively when creating long-form, how-to guides.
If your goal is to create visual content that will capture attention, then the element of surprise is essential. Neat infographics that were popular a few years ago. While established ideas may be well-received, they don’t stimulate as much excitement as something that is innovative and unexpected.
5. Ignoring Seasonality or Timing
If you go against your gut feeling on seasonality, you will make a mistake.
You only get one opportunity to be promoted, so make it count.
If you have a great idea for content, but you think it would do better if you wait to post it in the fall, save it.
There is a common thinking amongst website owners and reporters that content will not be covered or linked to until it is of high quality.
After you finish promoting your project, you’ll never know how successful it could have been.
Whenever possible, try to take advantage of seasonal variations.
- Sports seasons.
- Weather seasons.
- Holiday seasons.
- Election seasons.
- Industry-specific seasons.
A seasonal or timely hook can make mediocre content more successful, and successful content even more of a hit.
6. Failing to Personalize Your Outreach
Telling the site owner how great their last piece was and how much you enjoyed it is no longer effective.
If you use the same old templates that everyone else uses, it will seem like you’re not being genuine.
Everybody can tell when something has been mass-produced and isn’t personal.
Form a personal connection with someone or tailor your outreach template to the persona.
Get to know your typical outreach persona like you would if they were your customer.
- What are their likes and dislikes?
- What are they stressed about?
- What do they find funny or annoying?
Weave that into your template. You are more likely to get a response if you hit a nerve.
7. Not Segmenting Your Outreach List
If you don’t segment your audience, you won’t be able to personalize your message for them.
If you don’t segment your audience, you are less likely to think in terms of all the different categories of prospects you could reach out to.
Segment your lists as much as possible by:
- Interests.
- Industry.
- Geography.
- Etc.
8. Not Having an Elevator Pitch for Your Content
If you don’t have an elevator pitch in your outreach, it will usually be ignored because it will be seen as a generic template.
An elevator pitch is a quick summary of your content’s unique value proposition. In order to be successful in your outreach, you will need to have a well thought-out elevator pitch.
A typical elevator pitch will highlight the three main selling points of your content – how it can help the people you are targeting, or their audience.
Some questions you might try to answer in your pitch:
- If you are selling informational content think about what problem does your piece solve, and for whom. How is it different from other pieces out there?
- If you are selling data insights or visual content what are the top insights, who’s lives are implicated, and how. How are these insights different from others?
9. Failing to Consider Your Outreach Strategy During Ideation
When brainstorming ideas for SEO, outreach should be considered from the start in order to weed out bad ideas.
If you cannot make your content sound interesting when you are creating your outreach templates, it might be because you did not think about your strategy before you started.
Ideation is the process of generating new ideas, so during this phase it’s important to also start planning your outreach strategy. This way, once you have a solid idea, you’ll know how to best get the word out there and make it a success. If you think about your idea before you start implementing it, you can figure out if it’s too complicated, not original enough, or just overdone.
Change Your Mindset To Avoid ALL These SEO & Link Building Mistakes (Or Your Site Will Be Killed By Google)
It’s about the quality. The number of backlinks your site has is not as important as the quality of those links.
If a site has low quality and unnatural backlinks, it will not improve its ranking, and may even be penalized.
Change your mindset.
To get started with link building, consider your target audience and create content that would be useful to them. Then, promote this content to people who might be interested in linking to it.
The nine foolish mistakes are: 1) Using too much shampoo 2) Not rinsing your hair thoroughly 3) Applying conditioner to your scalp 4) NOT using a conditioner 5) Overusing styling products 6) Not getting regular trims 7) Bleaching your hair 8) Blow drying your hair everyday 9) Not using protection when styling your hair
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