What happens when Link Building goes wrong and is there an impact on a business?
Within the field of SEO, one of the most commonly turned to methods is Link Building. Now it is important to recognize that link building offers numerous benefits when done right, from more trust and traffic to higher domain authority. However, link building isn’t a one-sided coin with only positives to gain. On the other side, when link building goes wrong, it can bring about penalties and a drop in rankings, which ultimately means a reduction in your traffic and conversions. All in all, this is not a good position to be in.
Most of the time, making an error within link building is by complete accident; other times, it will be a deliberate move by webmasters and business owners.
It can and will happen if you aren’t following the correct SEO practices, and the negative impact on your business can be hard to overcome. Everything you will have been working for will suffer as a result.
There are plenty of ways that it can go disastrously wrong but being aware of these is the first positive step to avoiding finding yourself in one of the following scenarios.
Scenario 1: Black-hat strategies
SEO, in particular, link building branches off into two strategies: Black-hat and white-hat link building. Both refer to a set of strategies put in place that will increase your website’s ranking. The difference? Black-hat SEO uses techniques that violate the search engines’ guidelines.
This can be done through:
Cloaking
Cloaking, also known as link masking, refers to showing different content to the search engines compared to what the users see. The technique will involve a redirect to conceal the destination of the link. The target URL will be replaced with a custom made one instead. Not only is this strategy seen as deceiving, but it will not aid your position in the SERPs ranking either.
Injecting hidden links
Seeing links within a piece of content isn’t something we are unfamiliar with; however, when these links seem inappropriate in the content, then the chances are that this is the use of black-hat techniques and, more specifically, the act of exploiting a security flaw on a website. Injecting hidden links into a website that you do not own and do not have permission to do so could result in a penalty by the SERPs.
Using hidden text
You can hide more than just links on a website; you can also hide text. The text is usually hidden by using the same color font as the background, e.g., black text on a black page. If you are hiding text on a page that is only visible to the search engines and not to the users to try and rank for more keywords, then this would be considered a black-hat strategy.
The result? You could find yourself banned from the search engines. Any great SEO work you have completed up until that point will vanish, and you will have to start from the bottom. Overall, not a good position to find yourself in. Therefore, if you have been told that concealing content to manipulate a computer into thinking you have used a keyword you want to rank for is a good idea, then you have been unfortunately misled.
Using Black-hat techniques
Most digital marketing agencies, like our own, will use white-hat SEO, which is viewed as an organic way to boost your ranking. However, black-hat strategies are still used, as it often generates results quickly, despite the penalties put in place.
Suppose an agency offers you the chance to increase your SEO quickly, or you have come across a technique that provides a quick solution. In that case, you will be the one facing the consequences of violating the guidelines set in place.
What is the impact of black hat strategies?
No matter how tempting the quick fix solutions may seem to you, black-hat strategies can seriously harm your business, reputation, and your ranking position. In worst-case scenarios, you could even find yourself banned from the SERPs.
Scenario 2: Manual penalties
When black-hat strategies are chosen over organic white-hat SEO, the perk of providing fast results quickly vanishes once you find yourself with a manual penalty. Being handed a manual penalty means a member of the web-spam team has manually applied a penalty to your website.
Why?
They will have found something that was in violation of their guidelines. In other words, you have done something on your website that they don’t like. This could be anything from duplicate content to keyword stuffing. However, it is usually because you have used black-hat strategies in link building, as mentioned above, such as sneaky redirects and cloaking.
Many websites are aware of what they are doing, such as deliberately deceiving the SERPs by concealing text and links. Beginners to SEO who are trying to go it alone might not be aware they have done anything wrong.
Not being aware that buying links, for example, could be a problem that businesses face if they aren’t caught up with the latest SEO rules. In turn, this can negatively harm their rankings. So, if you have found in recent weeks, or even days, that your sales have dropped, then it could be that you have been handed a penalty.
The quicker that you notice that you have a penalty, the less damage it will do. This is why you should either work with professionals that will guarantee white-hat strategies or ensure that you keep yourself up to date on the latest SEO link building practices.
Scenario 3: Algorithmic penalties
When you choose black hat strategies such as hidden text or cloaking, you could find yourself facing serious implications because of it. The search engine will find a problem with your site, and they will apply a penalty. In the case of not following the algorithm rules or trying to cheat the system, you will be handed an algorithmic penalty, and it can go on to eradicate your ranking and traffic.
Unlike a manual penalty, it is not so easy to spot straight away that you have been penalized. You won’t receive a notification to inform you of what you have done. Instead, the first sign that you have an algorithmic penalty attached to your name and website will be a drop in traffic.
If you haven’t been tracking your traffic from your link building processes so far, then this will be harder to determine, and so it is a fine example of the repercussions of when link building goes wrong.
There are two main reasons you can find yourself with a penalty such as
this:
- The algorithm has changed, and your site no longer fits their criteria for ranking.
- You have manually changed your site to no longer fit the ranking requirements.
In the latter case, thin content and hidden text are all examples of how you could change your website to no longer fit the criteria. Choosing to introduce spammy links to your brand or cloaking your links will also mean you will not meet their requirements.
Scenario 4: Google Penalties
Just the thought of being handed a penalty isn’t a welcome thought, but to receive one from the frontrunner of the SERPs is like giving your competition a golden platter to feast on. When you receive a Google penalty, you know your link building has gone wrong.
Most of the time, when done correctly, link building offers benefits, as we discussed earlier in the guide. However, many organizations and brands trying to boost their awareness often find themselves getting penalized for doing so. Why? Because they made some basic mistakes.
How can you get a Google penalty?
There are several reasons why you might find yourself facing a Google penalty. However, one of the most commonly made mistakes in link building is overusing exact match anchor text. This can result in a penguin penalty.
A penguin penalty is an algorithmic penalty handed to you by Google. The penguin update was first released in 2012 and experienced ten updates before becoming a part of Google’s core algorithm. The purpose of it? To reduce the number of results on SERP that had instances of keyword stuffing and other black hat strategies to improve a ranking position quickly.
As well as keyword stuffing and overusing exact match anchor text, you can find yourself with a Google penalty through:
- Unnatural links: If you have a piece of content that contains a link to another unrelated page, you could be quickly penalized for it. Unnatural links (or bad links) are designed to manipulate a ranking position in the SERPs, and some examples include injected links, sitewide links, link exchanges, and building links in the blog comments.
- Private blog networks: A PBN, or private blog networks, is a network of websites that is generally owned by the same company looking at link building opportunities. This is often at an attempt at increasing a site’s authority to, in turn, boost a ranking position. By building up links on what might appear to be a third-party site at first glance could actually be a website that is a part of their network. In link building, this is considered a very high-risk strategy that isn’t recommended. The reward for this old link building tactic doesn’t outweigh the penalty you would receive.
- Low-quality links: Low-quality links are a big no-no for link building. It goes against everything that organic link building is about. Links need to be earned, and so Google made sure that this was the case by ensuring that low-quality links didn’t rank as well as high-quality ones. To avoid a penalty, you must show Google that your link provides value and comes from reputable sites.
Reasons for needing link building
At the very start of this guide, we explored just a couple of the link building benefits your business could enjoy. However, link building isn’t an easy campaign to get started by yourself. It needs time, patience, and the know-how of avoiding the repercussions of when link building goes wrong.
With this in mind, it seems only sensible to reach out to our services, especially when the rewards make it a profitable venture for you in the long term.
The question that remains then is why you should use our services? What reason would you have to need link building? Is it even the right form of SEO for you? It is just as important for you to understand how it can wrong as it is why you need it in the first place.
Our six reasons should help make that a little clearer.
Need help with search visibility
Search visibility plays a huge role in the success of your brand online. It allows your customers to find you easily, new customers to discover you, and instill more trust in them (and Google) that you are a brand that can be relied upon. Therefore, having a lack of or non-existent visibility online can cause a problem. This can often come down to issues on your own website. For example, your on-page content doesn’t currently have any target keywords. You are not telling Google who you are and what you offer.
However, what makes a huge difference on top of this is where you are on the rankings. The higher you are in the SERPs, the better your search visibility is overall. A lack of visible will then affect how much traffic you experience, having a chain effect on your profit turnover and year on year success rate.
What is the solution?
If you have already started an SEO campaign to optimize your own website, then this is a great start to improving your search visibility. You are making it more possible for Google to rank you higher and for people to flock to your site as a result. However, optimizing your site is only the first step. Another great technique is about building links to spread more awareness of your site. Having more awareness of your brand on relevant and high-quality third-party sites will help build your authority up. With an increased authority, you will be certain that your ranking position will start to improve.
What service do you need?
To help you achieve better visibility, you should first start with our Managed SEO Campaigns that focuses on ensuring your website will not harm any efforts you put into building up links. It will ensure you are optimizing it with the correct keywords, the content on your website is the right length, and it is adding value to the reader. The great thing about turning to our Managed SEO services is that you can then benefit from link building at the same time. With our blogger outreach team by your side, we can work with you to start introducing your brand to new audiences you have yet to reach. We do this by building high-quality links and writing great content for high authority sites. Doing so will increase your own authority and boost your page ranking, which will boost your overall visibility.
2. Brand Exposure & Recognition
No matter what sector you work in or how niche your business is, you will still struggle to find success without great brand exposure and recognition. Brand exposure is all about making your business recognizable to allow more customers to find your products or services. It is this exposure that the general public will view and make judgments about, and so having consistency, the audience in mind at all times, and goals to achieve is key. However, is brand exposure necessary? Yes, is the simple answer. Think of some of the most famous brands worldwide, from Apple and Nike to Coca Cola and Adidas. What do these brands all have in common? You know what it is they offer to their customers simply by hearing their name. Therefore, many people will turn to them instead of a lesser-known brand. People want to be reassured that their money is being well spent. However, these brands had to start somewhere to get where they are today, and you can be certain that they went through a vigorous brand exposure process.
Gaining more exposure allows you to drive more traffic and increase online visibility, and so failing to do so can result in being unable to generate bigger and better profits. It also allows you to gain your customers’ trust and loyalty (both current and new), show yourself as an expert in your field, and, most importantly, keeps you at the top of their minds all the time.
What is the solution?
Brand exposure is a crucial area of marketing to get right, and fortunately, there are many tactics you can implement that will help you find success. Before you jump into the more complex techniques, you need to ensure that you have a memorable logo and an easy to use website. These are the basics to get right, and once these have been adhered to, you can start spreading more awareness of your brand across the web. Of course, you can use social media to help in this case, but link building is a great way to gain new customers. First, you will need to have a backlink audit to ensure that any links you have tried to build in the past aren’t hindering your brand itself. Afterwards, you should focus on content creation, as you can set yourself as an industry expert, build awareness, and climb the SERPs. The higher your piece of content is on a third-party site within the SERPs, the more traffic you could experience, and the more exposure you could benefit from.
What service do you need?
To find the most success in brand exposure, our link building services are the ideal solution. We will thoroughly research your brand, industry, and keywords and compare it to your competitors so that you have the best chance of standing out for all the right reasons. Any content creation will be accurate to help build the profile of your brand being experts.
3. Not Ranking For Target Keywords
When a customer searches for a product or service online, it makes no difference what search engine they use; they all start with the same process: entering a keyword(s). It will then pull up results for the customer to browse through. All businesses that want to stand a chance in the online world must discover their keywords for their particular industry. In other words, you need to know what your customers are searching for. You can discover this through keyword research. However, it might not be at this stage you find problems.
When a search engine pulls up results, most of the time, it won’t just pull up one or two results – it can bring up millions. Despite a keyword pulling up tons of results, which doesn’t necessarily mean people will roam through all these pages. In fact, hardly any people will venture further than page one. Therefore, ranking on the first page is a goal that must be achieved, and if you are struggling to do that with your newly found target keyword, then you have a big problem: your consumers won’t find you.
There could be several reasons why you aren’t ranking for target keywords:
- Your website might be too new.
- There are no target keywords on your site.
- You have a lack of backlinks with the target anchor keywords.
- The keyword you have chosen is too competitive or general. If too many of your competitors are ranking well for this keyword, trying to utilize it yourself might not yield results.
What is the solution?
Not ranking for target keywords is a problem that needs to be solved fast. You will first need to narrow down which reason applies to your own situation. One business might find that their keyword is sufficient, but because their website is too new, they don’t have enough trust and authority yet. Older sites generally rank better as they have more authority and trust. Another company might not have used the keywords correctly on their site, while a different business might have a combination. It is important to distinguish what problems and how many of them you have to achieve the best results.
If your keyword is too competitive, then you will need to carry out more in-depth keyword research. It is not enough to just find out what the keywords within your industry are. You need to know how many people are searching for that keyword and the level of competition. Looking at how many other sites are trying to rank for this keyword will give you a good idea of whether a keyword is worth targeting. Carrying out more in-depth keyword research could open the doors to other niches you had yet to consider, so there are benefits.
Then, with better-targeted keywords, you need to make getting these on your site a priority. With this in place, you can then start building backlinks. By building up high-quality links, you are expanding your online presence and increasing your search traffic. This, in turn, increases your authority, which can solve the problem of your website being too new. All of these steps will enable you to start ranking for your target keywords.
What service do you need?
To carry out all of the steps we outlined, you need two services: link building and content creation, as high-quality content, both on-site and off-site, will play a huge role in your ranking position for any targeted keyword. Our content creation package will allow you to publish blogs, articles, social media content, e-books, and more, fully optimizing each piece with your chosen keyword(s). Meanwhile, working alongside this, we can then get your link building package up and running. With this, we will introduce you to new targeted audiences and draw them into your services. Both campaigns will increase authority, drive traffic, and improve your ranking.
4. Not Getting Any Traffic To Your Site
There are few things more frustrating than creating a functional yet aesthetically pleasing website and producing a fantastic range of products or services ready to sell only to find that you don’t have any visitors. However, you won’t be alone in feeling frustrated by it. Not getting traffic to a site is a major problem for businesses across the globe. Why? More than 1 billion websites exist on the internet, meaning there is a lot of competition out there. With so much information out there, SERPs like Google had to find a way of displaying these results coherently. Enter the algorithms.
The complex system that retrieves data from the search index has more than 200 ranking factors and has one goal: to deliver the best results for a query. They will find only the most relevant and valuable sources and present them in the most helpful way to their users.
Remember, Google has competitors too, and they want to ensure they are keeping as many customers as possible by only providing high standards. Google is quite open about only wanting to display relevant, high-quality results, and so it is no surprise then that people rarely venture past page 1.
While some people might dip into the second or third, most people, and likely your customers, will stick to page one. Therefore, if you are not ranking here, then traffic is going to be hard to come by.
Some of the problems that might be affecting your inability to rank and, in turn, get traffic include not having a strong SEO campaign in place, using the wrong keywords, or not having worthy enough content. However, there is another standout reason why you might not be getting the traffic. You don’t have enough backlinks to your site.
What is the solution?
Before you start building links, you first need to ensure your own website, including your content, is optimized. If you are just churning out less than mediocre pieces of content in the hope that Google will notice you, then this is the wrong approach. Instead, you need to focus on optimizing your content for the SERPs. This means producing content for an intended audience, bearing in mind the correct tone of voice, level of knowledge, and user intent goals. Then look at what is it that your audience is interested in? Do they love in-depth guides, video content, or infographics? Your competitors might hold the answer to this. If they are ranking well for in-depth guides, then there is no point in producing 500-word blogs. You need to be aiming for those in-depth guides as well.
This is in addition to the content being engaging, well-written (if it is a blog or guide), and informative, and of course, including keywords. By optimizing your high-quality content, you are likely to be hitting the E-A-T guidelines that Google set in place.
You will be showing that you are an expert, have authority, and a trustworthy source. Google will reward content that has considered its E-A-T guidelines with a higher-ranking position. An optimized site is only the start, however. Link building is the next vital step in getting traffic. Link building not only helps you gain traffic but enables you to make sales. Why? Well, you won’t just be getting traffic to your site; you will be getting targeted traffic. You will be getting people who require your services.
However, you need to start with a backlink audit to determine if you have any websites have linked to your site. Low quality or spam sites linked to your site will affect your ranking and lead to penalties. If there are any, you will need to start removing these before building up high-quality links.
What service do you need?
You will need our link building services as well as our content optimization strategy. Our outreach team has a great reputation for building relationships with bloggers and finding relevant, high DA sites that will help boost your ranking and send targeted traffic to your site. Combine this will our excellent content, and we can help you earn that spot on Google you need.
As we offer a range of packages, you can build up the right number of links for your business the way you want.
5. Need To Increase Websites Domain Authority
There might be one thing that is holding your website back from ranking well, and it isn’t to do with how well your content is optimized or your choice of keyword. It could be that you have a low DA.
What is a DA? DA stands for domain authority, and it is the search engine ranking score that was developed by Moz. The score ranges from one to 100, and the higher the score, the higher the DA. It was put in place to help organizations predict how likely a website would rank. You can check your score at any time using the free tool by Moz.
Several factors are taken into consideration when calculating your DA. One of these is how many links you have. Sites that have a large quantity of high-quality external links have a much higher DA score compared to sites with very few. So, if you don’t have enough links or the links are considered to be low-quality, this will be reflected in your score. The lower the score, the lower your ranking position is likely to be. Therefore, you will need to increase your DA.
What is the solution?
First of all, a lot of patience is needed for this, as improving your DA won’t happen overnight. It requires a well-thought-through strategy for the best results. In this case, your best strategy is link building. Not only can you start to build up your DA, but you can also gain exposure for your brand at the same time. This is why it is so great for new websites. As a new site, you will always start off with a score of one, but with link building, you can increase your DA and bring in traffic. Eventually, the fact that you are a new site won’t matter.
However, if your site has been around for many years and you still have a low DA, you should start by having a backlink audit and regularly have one. The reason why? As you have been around for a while, there might be other sites that are linking to your website. While this is great that you have exposure like this without doing anything, it could be doing more harm than good. Other low DA sites, or spammy sites, can bring your DA score down.
A backlink audit will allow you to discover all the sites that are linking to your website. It is here you can check the quality of them. If they are too low, you need to remove this as soon as possible to avoid a penalty.
Other great ways to improve your DA include internal linking on your own site, producing amazing on-site content, and improving your on-page SEO.
What service do you need?
As one of the best ways to improve your DA is through our link building packages and carrying out a backlink audit. We can help you build high-quality links, write unique, valuable content that is compelling for the audience, and then measure the results. The measurement of your link building campaign will allow you to see the progress you are making. We do all of this on top of thorough research and a backlink audit to ensure you will get the results you need. If you want to take this one step further, you could also reach out to the other services we offer, including content creation and managed SEO.
6. Not Converting
Getting your business online requires hard work, so it can be disheartening to find that you are still not converting these to sales despite getting visitors. There are many reasons why you might not be converting:
- While it might look nice, your website hasn’t considered the user experience, and the flashy gimmicks or broken links are sending people away before they have even had the chance to look over what you offer.
- Your website loads too slowly. Customers won’t wait around for a site that takes too long to load. Ideally, it needs to load within two to three seconds. If it doesn’t, you will experience a high bounce rate.
- You might not be showing customers that you are trustworthy, or you might not be providing a solution to their specific needs. A customer needs to be reassured that you are a business they can trust to part their money with.
These problems can result in potential customers bouncing off your site to head to another that might have the information they are seeking. However, one of the biggest reasons why you might not be converting is that you simply can’t be found online. If you are not ranking for target keywords and showing up in the SERPs, your customers will not find you.
What is the solution?
If your problem lies with the website itself, this can be easy to fix, from compressing images to removing plugins and fixing broken links. However, if you can’t be found online, this is a huge problem, and until you solve it, you won’t be able to convert leads into sales. You have two solutions at hand, and we recommend a combination of the two.
You need to start focusing on content creation before building up links. The better your content is on your own site, the higher your ranking position should become over time. This is because Google loves great quality content that delivers answers to its users. Your content needs to be engaging, optimized with keywords, and well thought out. By discussing your industry, products, services, showing your team, and more, your site’s visitors will start to realize that you are a trustworthy source.
Guest blogging, as link building is known to many, will then allow you to build up trust over time in both the eyes of your customers and Google. Remember, if you have backlinks from high DA sites, then your own DA will improve. As a result, Google will reward you with a better ranking position. You can start to pull in targeted traffic from across the web with well-written content. Still, to this day, content remains king. The bigger you can grow your online presence through link building, the better chance you have at securing leads and turning them into sales.
What service do you need?
You will need our link building services and content creation to be able to solve the conversion problem you are facing. We will ensure that all content we produce is high-quality, relevant, accurate to your industry, and works to improve your ranking position.
