Are you guilty of these bad link building habits?
I sometimes am. Sometimes my link builders are. After realizing how many times I have reminded employees not to do this, or reminded me to supervise it, I thought I had made the mistake. 10 “I shouldn't” more common in recent years.
1. Not Tracking
I'm not saying that you follow someone all day, but follow up with them. There are people who will only respond to you on the second or third try. (I am one of those people.)
In a quick look at last month's work done for our clients, I'd say about 20 percent of the links were developed because of our follow-up with webmasters.
I reviewed the entire communication thread for each link we built, and there have been times where four or five follow-up emails were sent
2. Not Researching a Site Before Contacting It
This is one of my real pet peeves. Let's say you send an email to a webmaster, who responds affirmatively, ready to link.
You see the site for the second time and you realize that really and truly you have screwed up. The metrics were fine, but the writing is almost unintelligible. Every item looks paid for. There is hacked pages in the place. And oh wow, not anymore this indexed by Google.
Back when we were much bigger, we had link builders who had negotiations with sites like this, and when I said “there's no way we want a link there!”, the webmaster got upset, threatening to write a letter to the client.
I like to avoid that kind of nonsense. The approach of “casting a wide net” is not really better when it comes to build links these days.
3. Not Reading Advertising Information
Many sites have a page that shows all the things they will and won't do. If they don't link and you want a text link, let them.
If you only link on one page of the entire site, and you only want a link on a specific article, don't bother with them. If they say that under no circumstances do they want you to contact them, then well, don't contact them.
4. Not Willing to Listen to Webmasters
As link builders, we think we know exactly what to do, but many times, webmasters know best. They they know their readers, and they know what will and will not be appreciated.
If they tell you that you are out of line and flat out not, people who read a blog about keeping pet monkeys don't really want to see a link in the article about how to save money on a new car, listen to them. (Ideally you don't do that!).
If they tell you your content is fine, but they already have that on their site, see if they can suggest another need for resources, and provide them, if you can.
Just listen to them, and don't assume everyone is stupid.
5. Metric Blindness
Get a link on a site with a Domain Authority 60 is impressive, but that doesn't mean I want to see a link for my mat client on a site about bodybuilding supplements.
On the other hand, a new site that discusses how we can make school lunches healthy might be a good fit for a client who specializes in promoting better eating at school, even though the new site is not authoritative. still decent. You see? You can't rely solely on metrics.
The numbers are big, but they don't tell the whole story.
6. Not Knowing Who You Are Talking to
I know that you can't always know the exact name of the specific person you need to contact.
Usually, you can find out that the email from julie@linkfishmedia.com goes to me (the owner), though, so sending an email to that address asking if I could ask my boss to do something is ridiculous when the information about who I am is on my site.
I also understand that I have sent emails stating: “I don't know if you are the person I should talk to.”, but it is rare. That's a sadly common line in the emails I receive, and they usually come from marketing companies.
Maybe you don't know who you need to talk to, but if the information about this is on the site, you'll annoy whoever the email will be passing it on to someone else.
And don't get me started on the insane amount of emails I get when someone tells me all about how link building is a necessary part of marketing and would be happy to give me a quote.
7. Not Knowing Google and FTC Guidelines
Know them and follow them son, por supuesto, very different things, but no matter what, you need to be aware of them.
I'm not advocating that you ignore or violate any of them, but when you're trying to tell someone that nothing bad could happen if they sell them a link, you might be making everyone look bad.
There is a lot of information out there, so ignorance is unacceptable when you're talking about it can cause damage to someone's site.
8. Not Responding to Webmasters' Questions
One of our main rules is the following: If a webmaster is uncomfortable or worried about bonding, even if everything is as nofollow and all that, We don't force him to do what we want. And we never lie, hide the truth, or pretend that even though everything is fine, nothing bad could happen in the future.
It sounds obvious to say that you shouldn't lie, but given what we've seen in recent years, it certainly happens.
9. Poor Initial Outreach
Most of us we are inundated with emails throughout the day, many of which are from people we don't know. How many emails do you delete every day without opening them? How many do you actually open, read two sentences, then delete it?
Much of the reason why your emails aren't even opened es Why haven't you done research?, and that it is inappropriately directed. Make sure you know who you are talking to (See point 6 again).
And actually, try to write a decent introduction. Nobody has time to read 15 paragraphs. We want to know what you want from us, and pretty quickly.
10. Poor Understanding/Lack of Concern for Relevance
This is complicated because people's minds work in mysterious ways, and my idea of relevance might not be the same. I used to jokingly say, “Let me draw a perpendicular to this,” because I can easily relate things that are not related.
However, when I receive an email asking me to contribute to a roundup article about the best insurance plans because I am a business owner and therefore must want to answer these questions, I get very irritated. Yes, in a way, it is relevant, but… no.
Break Those Bad Habits!
Fortunately, These bad habits are easy to break, but as I said, they are also quite common. Part of that could be the pressure put on link builders, and part of that could be that they aren't continually trained once they know the basics.
I tend to leave my kids alone once they know what they're doing, for example, and that can be a bad thing.
Everyone loses their way a little sometimes and forgets, so Make sure you're always paying attention.
Source: Search Engine Land
