Have you been keeping up with the most recent Google Algorithm updates? If you follow our ASTOUNDZ Facebook and Twitter accounts, or even our blog, you’ll find many of our comments and posts about the most recent update (Google’s Mobile-First Index Roll-Out on March 26th of this year). Although this update was primarily focused on mobile-first indexing, our SEO specialists at ASTOUNDZ noticed fluctuations in visibility for other reasons – specifically, the penalties of purchasing backlinks.
SEO Advantages of Building Links
Link building is an SEO strategy of acquiring quality hyperlinks back to your website or page. The more activity a website has, the more credible the website seems to search engines. The more high quality websites that link to your website, the more likely a website is to rank. Other than the ranking factors, link building offers opportunity to build relationships with other companies in your industry, referral traffic, and your company’s brand.
SEO Backlink Mistakes, and Correct Way to Build Links for SEO
There are right and wrong ways to build links for SEO. Without the right guidance, it is easy to make an SEO backlinking mistake that users might never think of. Keep in mind, search engines such as Google and Bing are constantly changing their criteria for ranking a page. As a result, these tips are not a confirmed, fool-proof list. Regardless,
Mistake #1: You’re Linking to the Wrong Page!
Most websites make the mistake of requesting a link back to the home page. Remember what the purpose of a backlink is… would you rather link a recipe to the grill company home page, or the grill company’s recipes page? The best link building campaigns start with having a relevant and valuable page to link to.
Mistake #2: Quantity over Quality
Another misconception of SEO backlinks is that more links equals better rankings. In this old adage, it’s actually the other way around – quality over quantity. One blackhat SEO technique is buying a large amount of backlinks. Most of the time, these links are not originating from legitimate or strong websites. In the most recent algorithm, we found that agencies that conduct this backlink SEO strategy are falling in visibility.
Conclusion
In the recent updates, Google has penalized websites who have overused SEO backlink techniques. In our experience, we have found better activity from editorial links with a <nofollow> tag. This tells the search bot that the article serves a purpose other than SEO.
