Correcting common link-building mistakes could notably increase the traffic to your e-commerce website, according to an in-depth study conducted by Delante, one of Europe’s leading SEO agencies.
“A strong link-building strategy remains an integral part of the SEO process that complements on-site activities,” said Michael Burkiewicz, Delante CEO. “When performed correctly, link building can have a significant positive impact on rankings. When done incorrectly, it can actually hinder your rankings, as our report details.”
The Delante report indicates many websites are riddled with these common mistakes (link report here) some of which may even cause Google to impose a penalty on your website. The good news is the errors are easily corrected once discovered. For example, backlinks are a great way to drive traffic or rank higher on Google, but you don’t want to add too many backlinks at once.
“A rapid increase in the backlinks to the site is dangerous as Google may categorize it as unnatural,” says Matt Calik, Delante’s Head of SEO. “This happens because a rapid increase in backlinks can be defined as a trend that doesn’t correspond to website positions in the search results and isn’t similar to website traffic.”
According to the report, the number one mistake is solely focusing on your landing page in your link-building strategy.
“When building valuable backlinks to your site, remember the importance of long-tail SEO. At the very beginning of your activities, it’s worth improving your landing page parameters,” says Calik. “However, your next focus should be on improving the subpages that generate the most traffic to your website.”
Another tip from SEO experts is to make sure your link-building strategy includes topically related sites that rank higher than your own site.
“One of the main errors that I see a lot happening to this day is trying to force links to landing pages that don’t make sense with the post,” says Antonis Konstantinidis, SEO Expert at Charlotte Tilbury. “Linking to one page needs to make sense and not be forced. Also, many times companies pay for guest posts on websites that don’t get any internal linking value at all.”
The report analyzes 50 Delante clients’ websites with an average of 8,202 subpages and goes into an in-depth analysis of the common link-building mistakes and how to fix them. Several SEO experts also give impactful link-building strategies that are highly effective at increasing website traffic.
“Quality over quantity,” said Duray Pretorius, SEO Expert at Viaduct Generation. “Thinking about link building is like thinking about your reputation. Show me your 5 best friends, and I will tell you who you are. A similar story should be true for link building.”
To review the report or for further tips and takeaways on link building, visit the Delante website, where you will find more information on the latest SEO strategies and trends. Or reach out to our team of SEO experts and we will create a winning SEO strategy to help increase your websites’ visibility and online sales.
Delante is a performance marketing agency specializing in SEO. It has one of the largest SEO departments in Poland, is one of the world’s top 8 largest SEO agencies, and ranks among the top 10 large SEO agencies in Europe. It performs SEO activities in more than 20 countries across the globe. In 2020, Delante was nominated for the European Search Awards and the Global Search Awards in three categories.
