Link building is a vital aspect of search engine optimization. But are you doing it wrong? Check out these 25 link building mistakes to make sure you are doing it right. If you got a mistake that you see out there in the trenches, feel free to leave a comment!

2. 25 Mistakes Link Builders Make
I could have easily padded this out to "100 Link Building
Mistakes" but, like #1, I wanted to provide quality over
quantity. Substance over fluff. Jedis over Storm Troopers
(too geeky?). I also wanted to keep these strictly to "link
building". This could have easily gotten out of hand if I had
gotten into on site mistakes, social media faux pas, etc.
Some of these you've heard 6 times since Sunday. Some
might be new to you. There are even some great tips from
heavy hitters like Brian Dean, Chris Dyson, and Jason
Acidre. I sincerely hope this helps your link buliding
endeavors. Live long and link on.

3. 1. Focusing on more links vs. better
links
I started my list with this one because I believe it is the
most important tenet of search engine optimization.
10,000 links from low quality, irrelevant sites with
hundreds of outbound links to other crappy websites
are not worth 10 high quality, relevant links. I'll break
that down into a math equation. 10,000 crappy links <
10 great links. The time you waste submitting your site
to directories and commenting on auto approve blogs
would be better spent writing one piece of great
content, emailing a webmaster in your niche about a
broken link you found on his resources page, or
learning how to play "Wagon Wheel" on the guitar.

4. 2. Anchor Text Diversity
Too many "exact match" anchors/Not enough branded
keywords/Not enough semantic keywords/Not enough natural and
generic anchors. These could be broken up into four separate items
but they are all part of the same problem: Anchor Text Diversity.
The Penguin update penalized webmasters whose link profiles
consisted of too many exact match keywords in their anchor text.
Since then, SEOs have changed their tactics to include more
"natural" anchor text patterns. There are many formulas out there
for how much of each you should have (Moz has a great post on it)
but I wouldn't get too caught up in following it exactly. It is hard to
predict which links are going to get accepted, get indexed, get lost,
etc. So use the ratios as a rule of thumb but mainly, use your
common sense. How do you link to sites? How would you think a
"natural" link profile will look? While we're on this subject, ask
yourself how many times you've legitimately used the phrase "click
here" as anchor text for a link.

6. 3. Focus only on high PR links
We all want links from high PR pages. They are
search engine catnip. But remember that a link
on a low PR, high trafficked site can drive
TRAFFIC to your site as well as passing you a
bit of link juice. A good mix of both would be
ideal. A link from a high PR site with loads of
traffic would be worthy of a naked lap around
the office.

7. 4. Not understanding the Nofollow
attribute
The simple explanation is that a link with this attribute will not pass link
juice to the linked page. There are a couple of schools of thought on this.
Many linkbuilders see these links as useless and disregard them entirely.
Personally, I don't agree with this. First, a link profile that is 100% dofollow
looks suspect to me. Second, I don't think these links pass NO juice. You
can bay at me all you want but I think these still have some value. Lastly,
and most importantly, a link of any color can still drive traffic to your site
(more on this in #5). Recently, press release sites got a lot of heat from
Google about people gaming the system and getting dofollow links from
high DA websites (Domain Authority, a metric compiled by Moz that highly
correlates to rankings). So, as a whole, all of the big Press Release sites
changed their external links to nofollow (Raven Tools does a much better
job of explaining this than I ever will). Does that mean you should
completely abandon press releases? No. Not if you have something that is
actually newsworthy. If your business just merged with another big
company in your city, that might be something your local newspaper would
like to report. How many more visitors do you think your website will get
after that? How many more sales?

9. 5. Ignoring referring traffic
The purpose of linking to another website is not
to give it a bump in the SERPs. We link to other
sites because we want people to visit them. We
think they provides value, information, or cat
videos. So even if it is nofollow, that link can
still drive traffic to your site. And isn't that the
reason we want to rank higher? More visitors =
More $$$.

10. 6. Not using alt text on images
I've seen this more times than I should.
Google's fancy little arachnids can't see
images so if you post an image with a
link, make sure to have an alt tag that
describes what the picture is about
(great place for keywords).

11. 7. Focusing only on your niche
Yes, relevant links are key but if there are some
great link opportunities in a semantically related
niche, go for it. If you have a mobile phone site,
does that mean you can't get links from iPad
blogs? Or VOIP websites? Not at all. Make
your paper, boo boo.

12. 8. Writing for spiders
Is it important to have keywords in your
title/description/article/URL? Yes. You know
what's more important? Writing engaging copy
that makes people want to click, read, and
share your content. Stop writing for Skynet and
start writing for your audience.

13. 9. Freaking out when you lose
rankings
Yeah it sucks. But it's part of the game we play.
Some days you're up and some days you're down.
The thing to focus on is whether the overall trend is
steadily improving. Which is why I only check
rankings once or twice a week (OK, I break this
rule a lot but it's a good one to follow to avoid
wasting a day because you're depressed one
keyword out of 50 dropped 10 points). This also
goes for losing backlinks. Checking Ahrefs all day
will have the same effect. Take your punches and
move on. Not to say don't ever check them, just
don't obsess.

15. 10. Links to only the homepage
Tell me how this looks. A website with 8 pages
and 30 posts, 1,600 links to just the home
page. Sounds fishy right? Is that the way
normal people link to websites? Probably not. If
they think a post on the site is relevant, they
link to that page. If they want to show their
Nana which Power Ranger pajamas they want
for Christmas, they send her a link to them, not
to eBay.com. Deep linking is something we all
do naturally so make sure your backlink profile
reflects that.

16. 11. Link velocity
I haven't heard much about this lately. I don't know
if that means it is no longer a factor or that
everyone knows it and it isn't worth talking about
anymore. I'll side with the latter. Basically it looks
very suspicious when a website gets 10,000 links
in three days and then none for the next nine
months. If you are consistently building links then
this shouldn't be an issue. But if you drop 30 bucks
at fiverr and call it a day, you might have
something to worry about. Though your bigger
problem will be the thousands of trash links
pointing to your site...

17. 12. Ignoring social signals
There has been a bit of a squabble this month about
how much +1s affect rankings. Even Matt Cutts got
into it. Whichever side you fall on, I think it's safe to
say that social signals, whether they be Facebook
likes, Twitter retweets, Google Plus +1s, or Reddit
whosadunnits (I'm not a fan of Reddit. I don't care what
they're called. Bite me). A recent study by
Searchmetrics lays this out point blank. Or as point
blank as correlations can be. Even if it doesn't affect
your standings, social sharing is a good way to
increase visibility and traffic.

18. 13. Abusing social networks
I know you read the last item and decided you're
going to go tweet the link to every one of your
pages to all of the followers you bought off of fiverr.
Don't be that guy. Don't be the dude who
contributes nothing and just yells about how great
his website is. There are enough Mike
TheGuyFromJerseyShore's. Blatant self promotion
won't entice visitors to check out your site. You
know what the best way to get social mentions?
Write good content. Add value to the internet
instead of stopping it up with more trash.

20. 14. Analysis Paralysis
"The biggest mistake I see advanced link
builders make is to spend WAY too much time
link prospecting. I see a lot of agencies spend
hours pouring over DA,PA,PR and LDRs...
instead of just sending their pitch and getting
their links." –Brian Dean. It is easy to fall into
this trap. Getting into the "research zone" is
one thing but when you've spent two weeks
looking for the perfect link and you've got
nothing to show for it, how effective is your
strategy?

21. 15. Not thinking long term
"I'd say the biggest mistake advanced link builders
make is not thinking about the future value of their
links. Many people consider themselves great and that
they build links that "work", but many of them are on
domains that will erode and/or go down in value.
Sometimes the lowest authority site will have the
largest future value, and sometimes the highest
authority site will not be the one you really want to put
a lot of effort into obtaining a link on. I think the best
link builders today think in terms of the future value,
even if present isn't great." -Ross Hudgens

22. 16. Expecting results immediately
We've all done it. Gotten a great PR6 link and
run straight to our rank checker to see how
much we've risen. And more often than not,
there's a big steaming pile of nothing. Results
don't happen overnight. As much as we preach
this to our clients, I think there's a small piece
inside of us that still expects A to equal B in
that order and just as quickly. Patience is
required in this industry. Keep yourself busy
and go get another awesome link.

23. 17. Only having one type of link
I'm going to say it again. Does it look
natural to have a backlink profile
consisting of only blog comments? Just
like the stock market, you should diversify
your portfolio. Especially if big G decides
to devalue article directories and that's all
you've been building (they already did
this. Stop posting to Ezine Articles).

24. 18. Exchanging links on a large
scale
Your buddy has a blog on kiteboarding and you
want to exchange links for your surfboard site? Be
my guest. You want to create a blogroll and
exchange links with 300 other sites about cooking,
penis enlargement, and baby clothes? Get out of
the internet. I shouldn't have to say this but I will.
Exchanging links with a bunch of other
webmasters, especially ones who run sites
COMPLETELY unrelated to yours, is dumb. I don't
care if it's a three way exchange, a five way
exchange, or a nine way, pick and roll exchange.
Grab your ball and go home.

26. 19. Limiting yourself to a few
strategies
"I think the biggest mistake link builders (especially advanced)
make is being too myopic. A lot of link builders will look at a web
site and if they don't see a quick win such as a guest blog
opportunity or a broken link on a resource page they give up.
Some links are worth a bit of extra work than just the usual
tactics and you need to think outside the box a little." – Chris
Dyson
If you're using the same strategies, getting the same links as
everyone else, why would you expect to stand out? I read
something recently and can't for the life of me find it again. The
point of it was to go out and find the links that are hard to get,
that webmasters don't usually give out. Not only will it be a solid
link but it will be one that your competitors won't be able to
duplicate.

27. 20. Concentrating focus on only
main site
"I would say the biggest mistake is plunging in and building links to a website
without thinking way outside the box, i.e. answering this question:
Would these links I'm about to build better benefit the existing site, or would there be
a higher ROI in linkbuilding for a completely new website?
Often a new website, focused perhaps on a narrow topic area, might bear more fruit
and results than just piling links onto an existing site. Not to mention, there is a lot of
wisdom in splitting your risk across multiple sites. If it ain't broke, don't fix it - why
modify a site's link profile when you can build an entirely new link profile?" - Ted
Ives
Say a cooking website that wants to specifically target "slow cooker recipes" creates
a new website, slowcookerrecipes.com, with quality articles, etc. Then they write an
in depth article comparing the top slow cookers and reach out to other food bloggers
to possibly use them as a resource. This is more topical and would allow a hyper
focused site to rank quickly. "And in an ideal world, try to get people to convert right
on that site, rather than driving them to their main site."

28. 21. Not doing competitor analysis
You know the easiest way to find links that
work well in your niche? Check out the links
that the people already at the top have. I feel
like this isn't used enough. This is low hanging
fruit. Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs, and Majestic
SEO are all great tools to easily find out what is
already working and where to start your
campaign. Most likely, you won't be able to get
all of their links but it's a great place to start.

30. 22. Not adapting
One of the reasons I love this industry is that it is always
changing. You have to stay ahead of the curve to stay
relevant. Doing the same thing you did in 2011 isn't going to
be as effective as it was back then. I have a competitor who
bases most of his strategy around PRWeb. As of a week ago,
he's got to change his process or he'll get lost in the dust.
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the
most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most
adaptable to change. In the struggle for survival, the fittest win
out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in
adapting themselves best to their environment." -Not Charles
Darwin

31. 23. Quantity over conversions
“I think one of the most common challenges that link builders
(intermediate and advanced) face is trying to meet the client's
expectations through the quantity of links acquired - when it should be
the results (or the value) that the links can contribute to the business as
a whole (branding, relationships, traffic/lead generation, customer
acquisition, rankings, etc...).
The problem is in the mindset more often than not. When your
campaign's goals are based on what the business really needs to
achieve, then it's easier to come up with conversion-oriented strategies.
But many practitioners are only doing link building for a sole purpose
(to improve search rankings) - which I believe is wrong - given that
there's so many areas that link building can impact.” – Jason Acidre

32. 24. Sending canned, automated
emails to webmaster
Whether you're contacting them about guest
posting, broken link building, or just straight up
link begging, it's pretty easy to tell that you just
threw a bunch of crap at the wall to see what
sticks. I don't want your crap. Webmasters
don't want your crap. Take the time to let me
know you actually visited my site and that
you're interested in helping me improve it. Not
to say that you can't have a template for these
emails, just make sure you make me feel like
I'm important. Because I am.

33. 25. Black hat techniques
Do black hat techniques work? Somewhat. Depends on how good you are.
I won't lie to you and tell you that there aren't a bunch of people killing it
with some less than savory methods. I think the best analogy for this is that
blackhatters are like drug dealers. Stay with me here. Can you make a lot
of money quickly selling drugs? You're damn right. But if you don't know
what you're doing, if you aren't careful, if you don't stay one step ahead of
the fuzz, you're going to get caught. And you're going to lose everything
that you built. It's not a great long term strategy. For the vast majority of us,
just like dealing drugs, the risk isn't worth the reward. And we like being
able to tell our mother that we have a steady job and not a "street
pharmaceuticals salesman" position. I've heard a lot of definitions of what
black hat is. The real definition has to do with automation and violating
Google's TOS. But it's like knowing the difference between right and wrong.
It varies person to person and there is a lot of grey area. To me it is not
adding value to the internet. Trash like spun articles, press releases, and
web 2.0 profiles. Pointless automated blog comments and spammy forum
signatures. You know it when you see it and it makes you feel a little
unclean.

35. BONUS!

36. 26. Focusing only on getting more
links
"Improve old Links: Perform a Backlink Audit on your clients
website. Isolate low PA10-19 and PA20-29 page links and
build links to those pages to increase their pages value.
This will increase the value of the existing link to your
page." - Pieter Verasdonck (More on that in this great
article on actionable linkbuilding tips). Whether you've hit a
wall with your linkbuilding efforts or you just want to change
gears, this is a great strategy. An added benefit is that you
don't have to be as careful when building to these second
tiers. Brian Dean has a unique twist on this technique that's
worth checking out.

37. Before I wrap this up, I want to add in one point that I took out of
the list. After doing my research, I can't definitively say that this is
a bad method, if done correctly. Buying links. Stop. Before you
say anything, let me qualify this. There are totally legit reasons to
pay for links. Donating to a charity to get on the sponsors page,
buying ad space on a popular mommy blog, paid directories like
the Better Business Bureau or the Yahoo! Directory are all great
tactics to set your site apart. And yes, you can buy contextual
links from sites like CNN.com and Reuters.com, which I have
seen work extremely well. This is against Google's TOS but it still
works. If you aren't convinced, here's what Rand has to say
about it. Whatever hat you wear, you can't deny that it's effective.

38. What are some mistakes that you've seen? I'd
love to hear from you. I'm sure I missed a
couple so let me know. We all know the search
engines are constantly changing, tweaking,
improving their algorithms so there are
constantly going to be new mistakes to add to
the list.