If you have been in business for some time — and you haven’t just recently discovered the importance of the internet for building and maintaining an audience — you might be able to remember a time when
If you need a refresher on how to build links successfully in this day and age, read on for some easy-to-follow dos and don’ts for
Don’t Link (Exclusively) to Your Homepage
Consider Wikipedia: It is the sixth most popular website in the world and ranks for almost any keyword phrase out there — but of its 606 million backlinks, only 1 percent point to its homepage. Admittedly, your website isn’t Wikipedia, but nonetheless you should consider building links to internal pages, especially those with content your audience might enjoy engaging with. Then, you can strengthen your site’s
Do Use a Variety of Anchor Texts
Google uses anchor texts, or the clickable text that contains your link, to better understand the context of the link. Most often, anchor texts should contain or be closely associated with the keyword phrases for which you want to boost your site’s rank — but that doesn’t mean you should use the same anchor texts over and over again. It is far too easy to over-optimize if you are focusing on a single keyword phrase and neglecting to vary your anchor texts, and over-optimization will thwart all other efforts to improve your ranking.
Don’t Aim for Infinite Backlinks
More links generally equates to a better rank, but you should have a definite number in mind when you begin to build your backlink profile. Instead of trying to get “as many as possible,” you should research your competitors and try to garner between 2 and 5 percent more links than they have. This will help guide your
Don’t Judge a Site by PageRank Alone
The number of links isn’t Google’s only consideration; it also pays close attention to the quality of site hosting the backlink. You want your links to be on sites that are related to your business and have a good level of authority — but you shouldn’t make the mistake by judging a site solely on its PageRank. There are so many other factors that indicate a site is high-quality, such as a dedicated and engaged following, a trustworthy look and feel and more.
Do Focus on Producing Quality Content
SEO and content marketing are closely linked, so having quality content available on your website is a must. If your content is unique in some way — comprehensive, expertly researched, creative, etc. — you won’t have to work as hard to get other sites to publish your links, and many publishers will begin linking to you organically, without your request. Plus, more content is always better for
Don’t Automatically Analyze Your Competition
If I asked you to list your business’s competition, you might name a few regional competitors in your field — but those businesses aren’t necessarily your competition when it comes to search rankings. In fact, the top five organizations within your industry might not come close to earning the top five positions on the results page. It is imperative that you conduct the right kind of
Do Take Advantage of Knowledgeable SEOs
You can’t manage your business’s
SEO mistakes aren’t always easy to recover from, so you want to start on the right foot when it comes to building links. By knowing about some major linking mistakes, you should be able to develop a linking strategy that improves your rank for years to come.
backlinks concept -DepositPhotos