So far, you must have got a clear idea of the popular link-building strategies that work for the leading business industries. Starting from link insertion to local directory link-building, we have shared the detailed processes to acquire backlinks for your commercial websites.
But did you ever wonder why your site’s ranking is still stuck on the SERPs despite implementing these top-tier link-building strategies?
Well, it might be due to some link-building mistakes that no one told you about.
Frankly speaking, we also learned from our past mistakes, and now, we are going to share them with you so that you do not repeat them.
So, in today’s blog, let’s address those ecommerce link building mistakes that might cost you a faster website ranking on the search engine.
Walking You Through The Real Landscape
Hello everyone!
Welcome to today’s blog, where we will be talking about the most common link-building errors that we usually make.
Around 98% of the websites suffer from poor website traffic, with less than 3000 visitors a month, due to the high competition in today’s digital marketing landscape. Though there might be a thousand reasons for this, lack of continuous link-building effort and these link-building mistakes are also to be blamed.
If you have been experiencing poor search engine rankings for your e-commerce website despite implementing the best SEO and link-building strategies, then it’s time to stop and think again!
What if you have been making these deadly ecommerce link building mistakes for the past few months?
Here are 8 such link-building mistakes that might have dragged your site down on the SERPs, without even giving you a ‘warning’.
So, keep on reading to know whether your link-building efforts are on track or not.
Red Flags in E-commerce Link Building to Watch Out for
The link-building mistakes we are going to talk about are very common, and most of us make these without even knowing. We hope you will never make these link-building errors ever again after reading this blog, and your industry network will grow even stronger.
Remember, it is all about the approach that will change your link-building game!
❌ Prioritizing Quantity over Quality
Link building is all about building authority for your website.
That is why we always target websites with a higher authority score and credibility. But when you secure backlinks on a site that is less authoritative, the search engine does not consider your site as a valuable source of information.
As a result, the search engine rankings of your e-commerce website drop rapidly, leading to poor organic traffic, less online visibility, and decreased traffic conversion.
But some of us make the situation even worse by acquiring multiple backlinks from such resources.
❌Building too many backlinks too fast is considered a manipulative practice by the search engines
❌Securing backlinks on less authoritative websites repeatedly seems manipulative to Google
This is the SEMRush report of one of our clients’ websites, where the number of backlinks is 14.1K, with organic search traffic of 7K and an authority score of 27.
Now, see another SEMRush report.
As you can see, despite having 35K backlinks, the website’s authority score is only 5, with 800 organic search traffic on average.
Do you know why?
It is because the backlinks are of poor quality or must be acquired from a low-authority website, which results in a significantly poor authority score and traffic generation. This shows the importance of the backlink quality over quantity when it comes to link-building for your e-commerce website.
💡 So, it is always better to acquire backlinks for your e-commerce websites from authoritative industry resources. Even if it takes time, reach out to the site owners manually and secure quality link placements to grow your site online.
❌ Targeting Irrelevant/Spammy Websites
Did you know?
Acquiring backlinks from some websites can do more harm than good.
We are going to mention websites that you should avoid at all costs for backlink acquisition.
❌Private Blog Networks
❌Link Farms
❌Link vendors
❌Low-quality online directory
❌Websites with high spam scores
But that’s not all!
Avoiding these websites alone will not help you until you identify the real dangers.
Here are some of the aspects that you should be aware of when selecting the target websites pr webpages.
❌Websites with irrelevant content
❌Sites containing unverified updates
❌Webpages overloaded with commercial ads
❌Sites that load slowly
❌Poorly designed websites
❌Websites with complex navigational features
Such websites do not add any value to the users and often result in a poor user experience. So, the search engine considers these as low-authority sites with less niche authority and user value.
Securing backlinks for your e-commerce site on such platforms will drive less referral traffic, generate poor conversion, and result in higher bounce rates.
💡 Try to acquire backlinks from sites that are contextually relevant, highly authoritative, and have a low spam score. Also, consider the content quality and the number of referring domains linking back to the target site.
Here are the metrics of a target website where we secured a backlink for one of our clients. As you can see, the site is close to 8 years old with a good authority score, backlink quality, and significantly low spam score, perfect for backlink acquisition.
So, remember that a successful ecommerce link building campaign is the result of acquiring trust from the search engine and your potential leads. The more authoritative your link placement resource is, the better the quality of your backlinks will be.
Want to know how we build high-authority backlinks for our clients? Click here.
❌ Linking Only The Home Page
Let’s be honest.
Most of us always end up adding links to our site’s home page only on relevant platforms. Isn’t it?
But, what if I tell you, this is one of the gravest link-building mistakes that almost all of us have been making for the past couple of years?
Well, linking only your home page with other industry resources not only appears unnatural and manipulative (to some extent) to the search engine, but also you miss out on some of the most crucial link-building opportunities.
The link juice gets concentrated on one single webpage instead of getting distributed equally to the other webpages on your e-commerce website. As a result, the link-building process does not improve your site’s authority as a whole, leading to poor search engine rankings, online presence, and reduced user engagement.
| The link juice refers to the ‘authority’ of the target websites passed on to the sites linked with them through link building. |
💡 Instead, focus more on strategic internal linking by adding a link back to other existing relevant web pages on your site in the newly published articles and blogs.
Pro tip:
☑️ Try to use different anchor texts for link placements for higher click-through rates
☑️ Add links back to the other webpages as well if the context is relevant
If you are facing trouble in building backlinks for your e-commerce website, connect with us. We implement just the right strategies that will secure the best backlinks for your site.
Acquiring Only Do-Follow Links
Have you been securing only do-follow backlinks for your e-commerce website?
Well, most of the website owners do just that!
However, SEO experts nowadays suggest acquiring both do-follow and no-follow backlinks for your site to build niche authority.
Focusing only on do-follow link acquisition makes your site’s backlink profile look unnatural, which triggers severe search engine penalties.
💡 To build trust and authority for your e-commerce website, do not ignore no-follow backlinks.
This is the Domain Rating of one of our clients’ websites for which we are building backlinks currently. As you can see, we have pitched to 700+ different site owners for quality backlink acquisition. Among the 2K backlinks that we have acquired so far, 1120 are do-follow backlinks, and the rest of the 880 backlinks are no-follow links.
Our team focuses on manual backlink acquisition for a natural backlink profile of our clients’ websites. Click here to know how we build effective backlinks faster.
❌ Relying on Only One Strategy
Well, let’s make it clear.
Suppose, you want to score ‘A+’ in your exam.
Now, will you follow only one reference book? Certainly not because it will limit your potential to acquire more knowledge in a specific topic, resulting in a poor grade.
Similarly, implementing one single link-building strategy is risky, making your campaign vulnerable to limited industry growth opportunities.
Here are a few reasons to avoid implementing one link-building strategy only:
✅Homogeneous backlink profile
✅Seems manipulative to the search engine
✅Targets a specific audience base
✅Limited reach to potential target websites
✅Risk of penalization due to algorithm changes
✅Lack of diverse traffic sources
✅Limited opportunity to align with current market trends
💡 Analyze your business niche, monitor your competitors’ growth, & identify relevant target sources. Try to learn the link-building strategies adopted by your industry rivals and implement as many of them as you can.
❌ Over-Optimizing Your Anchor Texts
When you target similar anchor texts or those that match with the keywords for link placements, it signals the search engine that you are trying to manipulate your website’s search engine rankings.
This may lead to an unnatural backlink profile, Google penalties, reduced click-through rates, frustration, and distrust in the minds of your audience.
| 3 tips to avoid over-optimization of anchor texts: ☑️Use Latent Semantic Indexing keywords, conceptually related to your target keywords ☑️Avoid using repetitive anchor texts on the same page ☑️Make sure your anchor text reflects the context of the linked page |
💡 Instead, it is advisable that you use a blend of varied & branded anchor texts for link insertion. This will lead to improved audience engagement and increased time spent on your website.
❌ Non-personal Outreach Approach
Sad but true…
When it comes to link-building outreach, generic emails are always ignored!
It is because until the recipient feels like you have done enough research on their work and you are genuinely a niche expert, it is not possible for them to build trust with you.
Non-personalized outreach efforts often lead to missed link-building opportunities due to the misconception on the part of the recipient about your not-so-genuine interest in profile analysis & growing industry network.
Here is a sample outreach email that might be helpful for you:
💡 Instead, craft a compelling message to the industry owners that is informative, well-researched, and engaging. Make them realize that you have taken out your time to have a detailed insight into their work, have significant authority in the e-commerce niche, & hence, your content is a good fit for their audience.
❌ Creating/Publishing Thin Content
Thin content refers to webpage content that offers almost no user value, lacks originality, and misinforms the audience, which negatively impacts a site’s search engine rankings and user experience.
Posting such content on your website not only damages your e-commerce site’s reputation & audience trust, but also leads to missed opportunities to attract natural backlinks from authoritative resources.
When an industry leader, blogger, or influencer finds duplicate & irrelevant content on your site, they refrain from linking back to your website due to the potential risks of Google penalties.
💡 Create product-focused pages for your e-commerce websites that are linkworthy, informative, and educational. Make sure your site’s content addresses the queries and issues of your target audience as these types of content attract natural backlinks from industry owners.
6 Things You Were Doing Wrong So Far…
Now, let’s discuss some of the link-building mistakes that you have been making for the past few months or years (unknowingly, we guess).
❎Failing to build industry relationships prevents your site from getting authoritative backlinks naturally.
❎Not actively building local backlinks makes your audience reach significantly limited, leading to less niche authority & brand reputation.
❎If you don’t link your webpages internally, you are not helping the search engine understand your site’s structure, leading to slower indexing/crawling of your site.
❎When you build too many backlinks from a single website and that too, within a short time, it triggers Google’s spam detection system, leading to severe penalties and a major drop in search engine rankings.
❎If you are not monitoring the performance of the acquired backlinks, you are missing out on the potential issues such as spammy or broken links that might harm your site’s overall SEO performance.
❎When you do not remove harmful backlinks from your website, it leads to a significant drop in the search engine rankings and website traffic as Google stops featuring your site at the top of the SERPs.
Trust The Experts for Effective Link Building
E-commerce link-building is definitely not a piece of cake.
However, it does not need to go off course.
The secret to successful e-commerce link-building is growing your industry network by connecting with the industry leaders and, of course, great content creation.
We have shared some of the biggest e-commerce link-building mistakes that might lead to poor-quality backlink acquisition, or even Google penalties ( in worst-case scenario).
Make sure you never make similar mistakes even in your link-building journey and practice only white-hat link-building techniques that align with the search engine guidelines.
If you do not want to invest your time and resources in link-building, talk to our experts. We have 7+ years of experience in e-commerce link-building and other niche-specific backlink acquisition.
Remember, it is all about quality, and not quantity.
That’s it!
Wish you a great link-building journey ahead.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1. How to build backlinks easily for e-commerce websites?
Ans: You can try out multiple link-building strategies when it comes to e-commerce link-building. Since the industry relies highly on improved audience trust, it is crucial that you put in active efforts to connect with the industry leaders and top influencers in your industry.
This way, your e-commerce website will capture the attention of the already-established business owners, potentially securing more high-authority backlinks. Popular link-building strategies include guest posting, digital PR, HARO, linkable asset creation, etc.
Q2. Is it crucial to build backlinks for e-commerce websites?
Ans: Yes.
Millions of e-commerce websites are created each day; however, not all of them are ranking on the SERPs.
So, to beat the big industry players, you must build backlinks for your e-commerce websites that signal to the search engine that your site is credible & contains valuable information for the users.
High-quality backlinks not only help your site secure the top spot on the SERPs, but also drive a massive referral traffic from other industry resources, resulting in improved niche authority & higher traffic conversion.
Q3. How many backlinks should I build a day for my e-commerce website?
Ans: Frankly speaking, the number of backlinks does not put your e-commerce website at an advantageous position. In fact, hundreds or thousands of backlinks would not help you much if they are of poor quality.
Instead, focus on acquiring quality backlinks from authoritative industry websites even though it takes time. 3 to 5 high-quality backlinks a day are good to start with. However, try to build more with each passing day for better website rankings and improved organic traffic.
Q4. How to hire the best e-commerce link-building agency near me?
Ans: Before you start looking for the best link-building agency for your e-commerce website, consider your business goals first. Ask yourself what you want help with: is it your site’s search engine rankings, brand reputation, traffic, or something else?
Next, look for the best link-building agencies on the search engine and analyze their track records, portfolios, samples, reviews, testimonials, or case studies to know how they work and the strategies they implement.
List down the best ones, talk to the experts personally, and let them know the results you want. Evaluate their expertise in link-building and compare the pricing details before coming to a conclusion.
However, make sure that the agency you partner with is open to communication. Also, discuss your priorities, budget, & timeline beforehand to avoid future misunderstandings.
Q5. How much do professional link-building agencies charge for e-commerce link-building?
Ans: Professional link-building agencies charge depending on the complexity of the project, authority score of the target websites, and the number of backlinks you want to acquire for your website.
Typically, agencies charge around $100 to $1500 per link, though the monthly charges generally start at $1000, ranging up to $20,000.
Now, backlinks from websites with a Domain Authority score of 50+ and more would cost you significantly higher, approximately $600 per backlink. Also, poor quality backlinks from irrelevant industry resources cost you less compared to those from reputable websites with high Domain Rating and relevant content.
Some link-building strategies, such as guest posting and blogger outreach, are more expensive to implement due to the time and resources invested in creating linkworthy content and reaching out to bloggers/influencers for negotiation.
Q6. How much time is needed for e-commerce link-building when done by professional agencies?
Ans: Expert link-building agencies take around 3 months to secure 10 to 15 high-quality backlinks for business websites. However, the exact timeline depends on a lot of factors, such as the Domain Authority of the target websites, number of backlinks, and niche competition.
Within 1 to 3 months of acquiring high-quality backlinks for your e-commerce website, you will see some improvements in the search engine rankings of your site. In the next 3 to 6 months, you will find increased referral traffic to your site.
However, to see significant improvements in the Google rankings and organic traffic to your website, you need more high-quality backlinks. Usually, link-building experts take around 6 to 12 months to acquire 20 to 30 high-authority backlinks for your website.
