Link Building Mistakes To Avoid And Strategies To Follow For Your Ecommerce Brand

Building a strong online presence requires a close combination of effective SEO tactics and digital marketing. A strong online presence is the need of the hour for any business that wants to succeed in the digital age.

Getting your SEO strategy right requires a lot of effort. One of the most effective SEO tactics, and one that is among the most challenging, is link building. While it can be arduous to succeed in building a strong link-building profile, it can produce hefty rewards when done right.

Link building dictates the content and other outreach strategies of a website. When you build quality links from authoritative sources, you can improve the stature of your website on the SERPs(search engine result pages). A better rank on the SERPs improves your brand’s visibility and helps bring more organic traffic to your web pages.

Even for eCommerce brands, effective link building can play a vital role in bringing more prospective customers to their websites. Ecommerce brands require slightly different strategies than usual websites when it comes to link building.

Want to learn more about the link-building strategies for eCommerce websites? Keep reading.

In this article, we will first discuss the importance of link building for eCommerce websites. Next, we will take a look at some link-building common mistakes you should avoid and get them out of the way. Finally, we will discuss some top strategies to build a strong backlink profile for your eCommerce brand. So, let’s begin.

Why Link Building is important for an Ecommerce Website

First of all, we need to understand that link building is closely related to improving your website’s rankings on search engines. Link building forms a crucial part of your website’s off-page SEO and acts as one of the most influential signals for Google’s search algorithm to determine a page’s ranking.

A recent study indicates that of all websites that rank in the top position of the search engine rankings on Google, most of them have a greater number of backlinks from high domain authority websites. The same can be concluded for other search engines as well, based on topical evidence.

Therefore, just like any other website, your eCommerce brand needs to strengthen its backlink profile to improve its visibility among the target audience. Better visibility can amount to more people considering your product offerings. The higher the number of people who view products on your eCommerce store, the greater the chances of sales. More sales directly amount to improving the bottom line of your brand.

Link Building Mistakes to Avoid

Now, before we go any further and discuss the strategies that can elevate your backlink-building game for your eCommerce website, we would like to discuss some mistakes. Link building mistakes can play spoilsport in your quest to become one of the most visible eCommerce websites in your category. The first step to advanced eCommerce link building is avoiding these common mistakes.

Link building mistakes that you must avoid are as follows:

1. Link Spamming

Link spamming is the practice of forcibly placing links to your web pages in a context where they would not be appreciated. These could be short, meaningless website comments that contain a link to your website. You can even attract the wrath of search engines like Google for attempting this misadventure.

Google, for instance, has a mechanism in place that penalizes spammy links if it identifies them. These penalties can come from website links shared in blogs or website comments or for websites that share their links as a part of forum profiles.

When you receive penalties for spam links, your website gets considerably affected. The negative impact reflects in your depleted rankings. In the worst-case scenario, you can even get de-indexed by Google. That way, you will have to say goodbye to most of the organic traffic on your eCommerce website.

Spam links are classified as duplicate content by search engines and can play no part in improving your visibility on SERPs. Irrespective of how these links are set up, manually or through automation. This is because search engines are quick to track the footprints left by these links. Therefore, never try to depend on link spamming. It’s not good at all. Period.

2. Exchanging Links

Link sharing between websites is a common practice. All websites regularly share links with some websites in their niche. But you cross the line between sharing and exchanging when you enter a reciprocal agreement with a website. An intentional reciprocal link exchanging agreement entails partner websites building links on a reciprocal basis between them.

While this practice boomed a lot during the early days of the first decade of the 21st century today it is not ideal. Search engines can now detect a steady inflow of links between websites and identify it as a link exchanging deal.

The right way to build links is to add them in the content piece for relevant information only. The idea is to use links as a means of improving the overall user experience. Search engines give more importance to a better user experience.

3. Using Exact Match Anchor Text Excessively

An anchor text that contains a keyword closely resembling, or in other words, almost mirroring the content of the page it links to, then it is known as an “exact match. For example, a web page that contains an article on space missions that changed science, “Science altering space missions”, will be an exact match anchor text.

The idea behind an anchor text is to help users and search engines obtain the required information about the content. Search engines need this information for accurate indexing and ranking. Similarly, the anchor text also plays a crucial role in informing the users about the content they will be led to upon clicking the hyperlink.

Excessive use of exact match anchor text became a risky proposition after an algorithm update by Google in 2012. The update included provisions that levied penalties on websites using excessive exact match anchor text.

You can still use exact match anchor text, but you need to be careful and must pair it with other types of anchor text as well. Make it a point to not overdo it in any content piece. Some alternative anchor text types you can try include:

Natural anchor

A natural anchor contains no keywords or references to any brand or keyword in the content it links to. For example, if you want to link to your eCommerce brand’s site, you can use “this eCommerce company”.

Partial-match

In a partial-match anchor text, you only use a part of the keyword phrase. In the case of a brand name, you only use some part of it instead of the full name.

Naked link

In a naked link, you simply put the complete URL as anchor text. You could use it as, “You can try the URL <insert URL> to get more information”.

4. Creating Poor Quality Content

The biggest kryptonite(a debilitating weakness) in the link-building process is creating poor quality content. The first rule of building a strong backlink profile is creating linkable assets. Content, therefore, is one of the biggest assets of link-building endeavors. Content that compromises its quality loses its linkability.

You must not make the mistake of overlooking the value of your content, for it can haunt you later. You will face difficulties in finding websites that want to link back to your content.

You should first identify link opportunities on high DA(domain authority) sites, and then create quality content around their needs. You can also take a cue from your competitors and analyze how their content finds its backlinks.

When you create high-quality content, you can pitch it to relevant blogs or websites. You will have a higher probability of earning backlinks if your content matches their requirements and is of good quality.

5. Buying Links, or Selling Them

Link buying and selling was a commonplace practice until 2012, and there were no ill-effects of the same on search engine rankings. But since 2012, Google tightened its grip on the sale of links. Even though link buying and selling still work on a large scale, albeit underground, we highly recommend against it.

Google penalizes websites when it catches a website involved in selling links to other websites. Google even wants websites to use “rel=nofollow” for any paid links on their web pages.

You might feel like paid links can elevate your rankings on the SERPs, but the truth is far from it. Paid links do no good to your website other than giving you a false sense of satisfaction. These links play no part in impacting search rankings whatsoever after Google’s algorithm update in 2012.

Top Link Building Strategies for Your eCommerce Brand

Following are some strategies to help your eCommerce brand build a great backlink profile:

1. FAQ pages can do wonders

If you’re an eCommerce website, FAQ pages hold extra significance for your business. FAQ pages provide valuable insights in the form of answers for your target audience. When a prospect is interested in a product that you sell on your platform, they go to the FAQ section to find minute details about its functionality and other crucial aspects.

You can leverage the FAQ pages on your website to earn quality links. FAQ pages help you rank your website higher in SERPs as is. The answers to FAQs can contain keywords, and they help increase the organic visibility of these pages. Since FAQ pages solve problems, they are considered relevant by search engines and users alike.

Given the problem-solving nature and greater visibility, FAQ pages and their content have a higher probability of getting linked. These can be shared on various forums, and you can earn quality backlinks out of these shares.

 

2. Place your faith in Digital PR

Another excellent way to earn valuable backlinks for your eCommerce website is Digital PR. Digital PR is a great outreach strategy and can fetch you links from high domain authority websites. Digital PR revolves around building strong relationships. It requires you to connect with bloggers, publications, journalists, and the like.

When you succeed in forging these relationships, your content and your website increase their probability of being cited or mentioned. In this way, digital PR can help you earn quality backlinks.

Some of the best ways to earn links through Digital PR are as follows:


Get featured on roundups

You can earn backlinks by getting featured in roundups related to your industry. You can get in touch with the top publications that publish such roundups and woo them to include your eCommerce brand going forward.

Offer Discounts

Everybody loves discounts. You can earn backlinks by launching discount programs. You can earn referrals from discount aggregating websites and earn backlinks.

HARO

You should harness the power of HARO. HARO is a platform that helps you connect with journalists and news publishers. If you use it right, you can get featured in news articles and earn top-quality backlinks for your eCommerce store.

Donations and Charity

When you put genuine efforts towards community outreach, you get featured in articles and news publications. In this way, your business can earn some quality backlinks. That said, never do charity for returns. Do it because you want to.

3. You must create linkable assets: The right ones for Ecommerce

We have mentioned how a lack of linkable assets and good quality content can make a dent in your backlink-building efforts. The idea is to find topics and content types that are sure to add value to other websites and platforms.

You can propel your eCommerce website to link building success if you create some of these linkable assets:

Detailed guides to products

One of the best linkable assets for eCommerce platforms is an in-depth guide on a product. You can create detailed informative guides about various aspects of hot-selling products. These guides can become a source of information for other platforms, and you can earn backlinks.

Relevant Tools

You can earn a great number of referrals if you create tools or widgets that can solve pressing needs. For example, you could create a tool that aggregates the best-selling sneakers in various categories.

Top Lists

You can create lists aggregating the top sources(websites, brands, etc.) for a given category of product. These top lists have a high chance of getting featured in relevant blogs and earning you backlinks. For example, you can create a list of the best sneaker styling blogs that can be picked up in exchange for backlinks.

4. Make the best use of influencer product reviews

You can also leverage the power of influencer marketing to earn backlinks for your eCommerce store. You can pay popular influencers to leave favorable reviews for your products. All you need to do is connect with influential bloggers or internet celebrities.

You can offer them your products or some fixed amount of money in exchange. The price would depend on the reach and popularity of a particular influencer. But always remember that you cannot hide the fact that these reviews are sponsored by you. You must display a “paid partnership” or “sponsorship” tag with these reviews.

Even though such product reviews may be tagged “nofollow”, they work wonders in giving you traction on the web. These reviews, though sponsored, can hold the key to giving your eCommerce brand some extra online visibility. You can use this visibility to get brand mentions on popular websites and blogs and earn backlinks.

 

5. Strengthen your social media presence

Social media is a very powerful tool when it comes to building your online presence. A good online presence of your eCommerce store increases its visibility. Greater visibility on social media gives your brand the legitimacy that it can leverage for forging meaningful connections in the industry.

You can interact with comments on your social media posts, host Live sessions, post short-form content around the ease of using your platform, and much more. You can create awareness about your brand among the target audience and use your connections in the industry to get featured on high-domain authority websites.

When you get featured through your social media posts or stories, you can earn the much-required backlinks to your eCommerce website.

 

6. Focus on building affiliate partnerships

In addition to being an excellent way of driving sales, developing affiliate partnerships can also help you build your backlink profile. All you need to focus on is parenting with the right affiliates.

Develop an affiliate program for your eCommerce website and connect with prospective affiliates. Show them the profit margins of your program and woo them to get on board. Once you partner with the right affiliates, they can spread the word about your brand and help you get backlinks from quality sources.

 

 

Conclusion

By now, you have learned how you can build a strong backlink profile for your eCommerce business. You can take a cue from this article and avoid mistakes while carrying out your link-building strategies. You can also adopt the top strategies mentioned in the latter half of the article and give a boost to your overall link-building efforts.

Author Bio

Vaibhav Kakkar is the Founder and CEO of Digital Web Solutions, a globally trusted agency with a full suite of digital marketing services and development solutions. Vaibhav believes in building systems over services, and has helped scale up agencies from scratch to niche-leaders with million dollar turnovers.