Link Building: The Do’s, Don’ts and Everything in Between

Two weeks ago, we discussed the differences between follow vs. no-follow links. Today, we will dive a bit deeper into this subject and discuss the dos and don’ts of link building. 

Link building is a critical component of search engine optimization (SEO), which involves acquiring links from other websites to your website. These links serve as votes of confidence in the eyes of search engines, indicating that your website is trustworthy, valuable, and relevant to users.

In today’s discussion, we will focus on the dos and don’ts of link building. Link building can be complex and time-consuming, and it’s essential to follow best practices to avoid penalties and ensure long-term success. Some dos of link building include creating valuable and shareable content, building relationships with other website owners, and focusing on quality rather than quantity. Some don’ts of link building include buying or selling links, using automated link-building tools, and participating in link schemes that violate search engine guidelines.

Do Link Building the Smart Way

Yes, I know this is a given about linking smart, but this doesn’t always happen in many blogs and websites.

When linking, you should ask yourself, “Does this make sense to link to this page here?” If the answer is no, don’t add the link to link back to a post.

While internal links are always great (excellent for your bounce rate), external links are just as great. Linking to an external site when you find statistics is always great. This will help not only with your link portfolio but with your credibility as well. 

Do NOT Purchase Links

During my time as a blogger and SEO content creator, you do not know how often I’ve seen my clients and colleagues purchase links. You should not do this, and Google will penalize you for it. Your link-building strategy is not something that you will accomplish overnight. This is something that will take time to grow organically. Trust the process; you’ll get there before you know it.

Don’t Spam That One Link

Yes, you’re there; put down that link! You know who you are. There is no need to link to that post, particularly in every other paragraph. Yes, it may be very relevant to the topic, but linking it once is more than enough.

Your goal is to look credible, not spammy. When you open a post or website, you don’t want 100 + links because that turns people off. You want links to credible and reliable sources.

Linking once to a particular post is more than enough. It’ll get your point across.

Do Link The Same URL 

By linking the same URL, I mean that your homepage has your website.com/index and yourwebsite.com. You want this to be uniform. So, if you are linking to your website, you want to pick one. Don’t interchange them. 

It all goes to the correct page for you, but it’s a whole new page to Google and other search engines. You don’t want that. You want to keep all traffic on the original, one page. 

Pro-Tip: Using WordPress, you can link internal posts within the link view. It’s very easy and user-friendly. 

Do Link to Internal Content

Of course, you say, “Duh, I know this already.” You probably do, but I guarantee that if you go back into your website or blog, a handful of pages haven’t been linked to at least once.

Yes! You need to link deep into your content. If you are a blogger, this is more difficult than if you have a standard website. That’s why I highly recommend a directory for bloggers. I have one I made in Google Docs that I update when posting a new post. This will allow you to see what content you have and what you can link to. 

Don’t Forget Your Deep Internal Links

This point goes off the last point, don’t forget your posts. You take time out of your day to write these high-quality articles; it’s a shame for them to get buried and never to be seen again.

Always, always, always link back to posts when you can. Interlinking is just one of the few keys that you will need to have a successful SEO strategy. 

Do Use Descriptive Anchor Text

This is one a lot of people fail to do. Most people instead say, “check this out here.” That’s their anchor text. It’s best to use descriptive anchor text. Tell the reader what they will be clicking on.

For example, you can say this, “Monies in my twenties is a new series coming to the blog in March.” See, you can hyperlink monies in my twenties because readers would know a little snippet about it.

Granted, the anchor text doesn’t have to be that long. It can only be a few words if needed. However, you will want to be careful of using the exact anchor text throughout your site. It gets a bit spammy. Spammy is no good. 

Don’t Use “rel=nofollow” on Internal Links

There will be times you won’t want search engines to crawl the content you have, but when it comes to internal links, you when it comes to internal links you want the search engine to see the content.

There will only be a handful of times when you will use the “rel=nofollow.”

Example of When You WILL Use “rel=nofollow” on Internal Links

Let’s say you have a blog post on your website that discusses a specific product or service you offer. In that post, you mention a few different products or services related to the main topic, and you link to those pages on your website to provide readers with more information.

While providing readers with helpful information and resources is essential, you may not want to pass on link equity or PageRank to those internal pages. For example, if you have a page that is less important or relevant than other pages on your site, you might not want to pass on link equity to that page.

In this case, you could use the “rel=nofollow” attribute on the internal links to those pages. This tells search engines not to pass link equity to those pages, which can help ensure that your most important pages receive most of your website’s link equity.

You should only use the “rel=nofollow” attribute on internal links when necessary and not as a default setting for all internal links. Using “rel=nofollow” too often can signal to search engines that you’re trying to manipulate your website’s link profile, which can result in penalties and lower search engine rankings.

What’s Next?

Understanding the difference between follow vs. no-follow links is a crucial first step toward building a successful link-building strategy. By learning the dos and don’ts of link building, you can create a sustainable and practical approach that helps drive traffic, boost your search engine rankings, and establish your brand’s authority and credibility online.

However, link building is just one aspect of SEO. There is much more to learn about how links impact your website’s visibility and ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you want to expand your link building and SEO knowledge, plenty of resources are available on my site.

So, I encourage you to explore these resources and continue learning about link building and SEO. By doing so, you’ll be better equipped to create a comprehensive and effective digital marketing strategy that helps you achieve your business goals.