If you own a small business or provide some sort of service to the community, whether it’s a local lawyer or a landscaping company, you most likely have a website. But, just having a website is not enough in today’s competitive online world. If you want to be in one of the first 3 spots on Google, Bing and Yahoo you will need an SEO strategy that uses your ability to build links.
The theory of “if you build it then they will come”, does not apply when it comes to the Internet. You can have the most expensive and “pretty” website in town, but if nobody is directed to it, the site will be a huge waste of your money. It’s kind of like building a brand new store in the middle of a cornfield with no roads or advertisements telling people about it. That doesn’t really make sense, does it?
How to Not Build Links
Today we are not going to tell you how to build a bunch of great links; instead we want to talk about how to not build links. Yes, there are right and wrong ways to do link-building. Here are 4 ways of link building that you might want to reconsider when setting up your SEO strategy.
1) Blog Comments: This used to be a widely used tactic; however dropping links into blog comments or forum threads simply will not help you rank better in organic search results.
2) Blind Requests: Do not ever send out mass emails to websites blindly asking for links. There is no reason to buy an email list and blast them asking for a link back to your website. This will prove to be a waste of time and money.
3) Link Injection: This is an advanced tactic that most of you will not know how to do. It’s best that you never learn how to either. It’s a way of spamming by hacking a site and injecting your link into the content. Remember to make sure your site is secure!
4) Guest Blogging: By no means is guest blogging a bad thing, however guest blogging just to gain links is. Your intent for guest blogging should be to drive traffic, build your brand, and create awareness. With all of the search engine changes, guest blogging will not do much to help your SEO strategy.
This list definitely does not include all of the things you shouldn’t do to build links. But, hopefully you will get a good idea on where not to start your SEO strategy. Contact Leap Clixx today and speak with one of our experts to help set up a proper SEO strategy including appropriate link building techniques.
