While SEO is changing and evolving all the time, Link building remains one of the most important aspects of any search engine optimisation strategy.
If successful, the link building can

• Increase the visibility of your site.
• Strengthen brand awareness.
• Boost referral traffic
• Increase authority through indexing.
• Boost readership.

Essential tips when deciding on link building

• Identify links that drive relevant and accessible traffic
• Choose a link that can enhance your brand
• Look for links that have a genuine endorsement

On November 8, 2019, Google Algorithms update created a buzz in the search community, most of which focused on the power of site links.
The world’s most popular engine relies heavily on links to calculate the importance of specific search pages. No matter what niche or market you operate in, Google favours a page with the highest quality links pointing back to it.
Although it sounds like a pretty straightforward strategy in theory – it’s a whole different story.
You need to spend a certain amount of time, attention and effort in building links if you want to stay relevant online and pique the interest of your desired audiences through search engines.
This article highlights six of the most prevalent challenges to link building success and suggest ideas on how to deal with the problems.
 

Challenge #1: Poor quality of content 

The development of linkable content will help you provide your readers with valuable information, meet and accomplish critical goals and improve Google and users ‘ ability to access them.
Building links require quality assets such as human resources, research and data, product and service pages and articles. These assets provide an opportunity to link back to your website organically or by contacting you via a link.
The development of linkable content will help to provide the readers with valuable information, meet and accomplish critical goals and improve Google and users ‘ ability to access them.
 
Solution one: These three tricks will help you generate backlinks to your website.

•       Generate influencer-based content: Get industry influencers and experts to share their exclusive insights, perspectives and opinions about their work. Influencer based content is a great way to reach out not just to the influencers but also their targeted audiences.
•       Research and reports: Do not underestimate the importance of research findings for your customers. Customers have questions, and they want answers. So do your research and publish the answers to your readers’ questions. Break down statistics in simple terms.
•       Share unique and better strategic resources on your website: Vital resources like coupons, software, e-books, Whitepapers, FAQ content, computer graphics and other multimedia collateral, serve as an excellent strategy to generate links because they help your audience to meet common challenges and to respond to their day to day queries.

Challenge #2: Inadequate onsite optimisation 

Onsite optimisation will make your link building much more manageable. You must make sure that your website’s appearance is attractive to get buy-ins from other site owners. Nobody wants to send users to encounter a bad website experience. One of the good examples of a bad website experience is assigning a user to a site that is either nonexistent or is not active.
 
Solution two: Create a solid technical base for your website to optimise your link-building efforts. Besides, conduct regular specialised site check-ups.
Consider the following techniques to conduct a proper SEO audit

• Page loading time and rates
• Redirect broken links
• Reload broken pages and unclear images
• Crosslink internal strategy

Download this E-book to find out more about the Ultimate SEO Audit Checklist
 

Challenge #3: Minimal Research 

Isn’t it nice to acquire links from all these famous and renowned websites like Forbes, CNN, The wall street journal, The Guardian and Reuters?
Possibly your answer is why not. Well, before you take that step, do your research and find out what benefits does your website stand to gain by building links with these brands. Here is how to solve the inadequacies in the investigation.
     1. Conduct a detailed analysis
Conduct an in-depth market analysis to find out the short-term and long-term link building opportunities. Points to be remembered in your market analysis include;

• Where are your competitors connected?
• Which publications link to competitors ‘ sites?
• What tactics do you need to implement to achieve this goal?
• Can you relate these tactics to your current tactics?

     2. Conduct a Keyword Research and SERP Analysis
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) analysis is a tactic of looking at the top-ranking to determine whether the keyword you want to rank is essential and the likelihood of outranking your competitors.
A detailed keyword research and SERP analysis will help you

• Identify the relevant keywords
• Determine whether you can outcompete other industry specialists

How to do keyword research and SERP analysis

• Pick relevant keywords for your niche by looking up websites that show words related to your market.
• Identify the source of links for these websites
• Analyse the tactics being used to get and execute the link building
• Find out whether any of these sites is conducting any business listings or reviews.

    3. Research your industry
Know the most important influencers, authors and publications In your field. You may realise how important it is to build links with brand websites that acquire links from respected publications.
Link building with popular brands will drive you to meet new and relevant markets interested in working with you. Use social media tools and platforms to help you understand your industry. FollowerWonk and Twitter Advanced Search are some of the favourite tools that you can use in your research.
 

Challenge #4: Poor tracking and automation 

The organisation is vital in linking building. Your link building strategies are probably going to fall flat without organisation.
Organisation in link building begins by identifying the status of each link building opportunity and confirming the contact details.
Start by creating a sound tracking system using either Excel file or BuzzStream to follow up with critical targets proactively.
To save time spent on looking for link relationships, it would save you the hustle by keeping all your contact information in one location. Another good alternative is to automate all your tracking systems.
 

Challenge #5: Poor Outreach 

Another significant barrier to link building is poorly executed outreach. Poor outreach can destroy your entire link building efforts. Avoid the mistake of reaching out to the wrong or non-existent link contacts.
To solve this problem, you need to do the following;
     1. Identify the correct contact details 

• Analyse the reasons why you want to build links.
• Conduct your research and find and the best way to reach the right contacts
• Identify the contact persons where to send your outreach mail
• Make sure you have the correct contact details to assist you in reaching the right connections.

     2. Reach out to the brand contacts before submitting a request for link building opportunities. 
Tracking and interacting with social media before reaching out on a link-building opportunity will help you build confidence and trust with your brand.
One option is to create Twitter lists to track the activities of the brand and monitor their audience, goals and messaging style.
Tools like BuzzStream can help automatically detect the social media profiles of targets.
      3. Create engaging messaging 
Create highly customised and pleasant communication to cut your goals and build luxurious link building. Avoid using generic email templates, stop spamming, write in clear and straightforward language, focus on clarity and make sure that your goal is to connect with the right links, within a specific timeframe.
 

Challenge #6: Short-sighted planning  

Short term thinking is one of the significant obstacles to link building. Success with link building comes with a long-term thought process that takes into consideration building essential relationships with influencers, website owners, big brands, digital content writers and content publishers.
Look for engaging ways to attract the attention of your clients and make sure that your email is enticing enough not to be discarded in the bin.
You can vary the ways of reaching out to your contacts through social media and show that you have what it takes to build a great relationship with your site.
 

Challenge #7: Manual Link building 

Manual link building using guest bloggers to link back to your site can be tricky, especially if you can’t find a host. In this case, your guest post site needs to have its significant authority to support you from the reference.
 

Conclusion

Link building has become much more sophisticated these days. It requires more time and preparation. Most Digital content marketers now focus on quality over quantity. The critical element of any successful link building strategy is top-notch content.
 

Key take away

• Don’t build links just for the sake of establishing more links
• Plan your link building strategy, select the right goal and implement your plan.
• Direct your efforts to building sharable links.

Most importantly, follow the tips provided and more guidance from reliable sources to avoid the pitfalls of building rich links.