7 Mistakes to Avoid When Doing Off-page SEO & Backlink Building

Whether your Internet presence is a personal blog or a business page, the end goal is to drive web surfers to that site. With 67,000 Google searches performed every second, you need to put in the work to be one of those results. You’ll want to ensure the efforts you’re making to drive traffic aren’t for nought. When making the effort to get to the top of the page, make sure you don’t make these off-page SEO and backlink mistakes.

1. Drive-by Comments: Surfing the web to find blogs just so you can comment on those blogs with links to your website won’t do anything to boost your own rankings. If you are going to use this off-page SEO tactic, do so meaningfully. Drive-by comment spam will not encourage any reader to check out your site. Make meaningful comments to attract new clicks.
2. Too many ads: You enter an address, a site comes up, and just as you try to read it, Pop! Ad number one pops up to ask you if you want to be on an email list. That gets quickly closed. Wait, where’s the content? At least 50% of the monitor is covered in ads. That’s it. The reader is gone. If your site is backlinked on a page filled with ad noise, it won’t drive traffic to your site.
3. Slow loading websites: Similar to having too many ads, readers won’t stick around on a slow loading site. The average consumer is busy. If you are backlinked on such a site, readers may not stick around to notice.
4. Don’t fake it: Make it look natural. If your comment on another site or blog looks like an ad or spam, readers will know. Remain authentic in your approach when using this off-page SEO tactic so that readers see that your site is legit and are encouraged to click through.
5. Duplicate content: If another site has identical content to yours, this will cause a lower ranking. Google is not able to distinguish between what site was the original and what site is using duplicate content. Replace yours with original content ensure your ranking remains high.
6. Quality over Quantity: It is far more important to make sure your site is linked from quality, relevant sources rather than just being backlinked in many different places. A backlink on a high-traffic blog will be more valuable then having many backlinks that are on less reliable sites.
7. Don’t backlink a backlink: If you are working with another site to provide content containing your own backlink, don’t jam in a bunch of other backlinks. This blogger wants your backlink. Plus adding too many looks messy and can negatively affect your credibility.

Demonstrating that you are a legitimate website with engaging content will serve your site well in your off-page SEO and backlinking attempts. Keep your interactions authentic and helpful without a ton of noise, and you’ll be rewarded with additional traffic and a bump closer to the top of the search results.