7 link building for SEO mistakes (and what to do instead)

What zoo animal does SEO love the most? An inbound lynx. That punny joke might be a groaner, but inbound links are no laughing matter, especially when it comes to search engine optimization success. And—now that the volume of web content is growing astronomically on a daily basis as content creators leverage AI tools to expand resources online faster than ever—backlink acquisition is at the top of many website managers’ minds. So, how can you avoid link building for SEO mistakes when working to acquire high-quality backlinks?

The task of increasing links might feel impossible if you’ve just dipped your toes into content creation for SEO, even if you have a firm grasp of the basics, like how to choose keywords. After all, according to research from Backlinko, 94% of web content doesn’t have any backlinks. Even though it’s a big challenge, investing time and effort into getting links from reputable sites is worth it for this main reason:

• Content with a significant number of links from authoritative sites is often rewarded with higher placement in search engine result pages (SERPs)

Not convinced? Consider Google’s famous PageRank Algorithm. For over twenty years, it has used links back to a webpage as a quality signal for ranking its content. Search Engine Land even claims it’s one of the three top criteria considered.

So, how do you get the right kinds of links back to a webpage? And, what can you do to steer clear of toxic backlinks that can diminish Google rankings when doing this work?

Keep reading to learn about the seven common link building mistakes for SEO that I’ve learned to avoid from years of testing. For each, find out what to do instead.

Link building vs. backlinks

You might have noticed that the terms “link building” and “backlinks” are often used interchangeably. Even I slip up and do this! But, when it comes to SEO, here’s a simplified breakdown of what makes them different:

Link building

Link building is the process of actively acquiring backlinks. Some common tactics include guest blogging, content marketing, and outreach.

Backlinks

These are the individual hyperlinks from a page at another website that point to a different page on your website that search engines interpret as a vote of confidence in the quality or relevance of the destination content.

Now, let’s look at seven common mistakes some people make when link building for SEO.

7 link building for SEO mistakes

The Declaration of Independence states, “All men are created equal.” Unfortunately, if Thomas Jefferson was alive today and working in SEO rankings, he couldn’t pen a derivative line about links. This is because—in this instance—the self-evident truth is that bad links can do more harm than good.

Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. In web design, hyperlinks are often styled in a different color (like blue) and are sometimes underlined. They may also change on on-hover or on-click. Google and other search engines look at anchor text to get an idea of what the linked page talks about.

While you can’t control what anchor texts others use (backlinks), you can prevent this potential problem when link building for SEO by using variations in addition to the target keyword for anchor text.

For example, this post is about “link building for SEO.” On some blog posts, the anchor text hyperlink to this article will match that exact keyword target. However, to prevent over-optimizing the anchor text, other internal links to this content might include:

• Partial match (e.g., include a variation or part of the keyword phrase, such as “Learn about best practices for link building to improve search rankings”)
• Generic (e.g., non-descriptive text, like “learn more”)
• Images (e.g., as a link on a picture, where the graphic’s alt text acts as the anchor text)
• Headline (e.g., using the full title, or H1, of an article for anchor text for end-of-article, related links often may include the exact match of the keyword as well as other words—sometimes even secondary keywords— from the H1)

There’s no quick solution for generating high-quality backlinks.

Sometimes, folks buy backlinks because they’re in a hurry to improve their organic search results or don’t pay for a link building service that offers backlinks because they don’t have an expert on their team with the time and expertise to build up links naturally.

If you don’t do your homework and vet your vendor, you may end up disappointed if going this route because there are a lot of firms out there with teams that will gladly charge good money to people interested in buying (or renting) backlinks, even though often the links they have the power to deliver are low-quality.

Some common signs backlinks for sale will have no value or will hurt your SEO efforts include if their backlink creation process is automated, the links you’ll get are from irrelevant sites, or if the backlinks will be shared by spammy sources (e.g., link farms or sites with toxic domain authorities).

A nofollow link is a hyperlink with a rel= “nofollow” attribute. People use them to prevent the passing along of SEO value or page rank to outside sources. You see no-follow links used by default on all outbound links at some sites, including:

• Social media platforms (Facebook, X, Pinterest, etc.)
• Online forums (Reddit, Quora, etc.)
• Publisher websites and industry sites with news (comment sections)

Although including no-follow links as part of your content won’t provide direct SEO value, you should still include them as part of your SEO link building efforts because they can signal trust and sometimes still will help drive traffic to your site

Do you always get backlinks from the same place (e.g., social media posts)? Google and other search engines want to see backlinks to your site from a wide range of link sources.

Not only does diversification help your site appear to have a more natural-looking backlink profile, but it can also potentially increase reach and enhance authority more effectively, so your site is better prepared to withstand algorithm updates than if you were to rely on a single source.

So you’re off to the races, posting to social media, guest blogging, and basically doing everything else the right way to increase the visibility and authority your content deserves, but did you also remember to execute a strong internal linking strategy for your most important pages?

Make sure thorough and thoughtful internal linking is on your radar because this task helps distribute link equity across your site, improves user navigation, and enhances search engine crawl efficiency.

This works because clustering interlinks around a hub helps bots more easily discover and understand structure and hierarchy, making it easier for them to index your most important content.

Slow down to allow link building for SEO to catch up with you.

Rapid backlink acquisition—e.g., hundreds of new links to your site’s content from low-quality directories and blog comments within a week—is a big red flag to search engines as this sometimes indicates potential link buying and spamming.

These sudden spikes in backlinks can hint at manipulative link-building for SEO, and signs of unnatural growth may result in your site being penalized (which may lead to a drop in rankings or even de-indexing).

As mentioned earlier in the post, relevancy matters. Links from sites that have content that’s contextually unrelated to your niche won’t appear like a genuine endorsement of your website’s content.

So, if you’re working on link building for SEO to improve the ranking of a healthcare organization’s website, remember that acquiring backlinks from sites like pet stores or fashion blogs won’t provide value, may harm your site’s SEO, and can diminish user engagement.

More relevant & higher-quality backlinks = better results

Every aspect of the process of getting backlinks—from targeting suitable sources to ensuring gradual, natural growth—impacts your ranking results. This is why smart link building for SEO offers a unique opportunity to enhance your website content’s search engine rankings.

Jumpstart your linking building for SEO with help from pros

For over 20 years, TBH Creative’s team has been helping clients from across the nation improve their search engine rankings with a thoughtful strategy for creating and optimizing website content. Contact us to discuss your goals and find out how our experts can help you get more backlinks.