7 Reasons Why Your Link Building Results Are Frustrating

You've been doing a great job in backlinking but your results are disappointing. What could be wrong with your strategy? And how can you fix it?

Even novice search engine optimizers know that backlinks are a crucial factor for SEO success. Most of us also know that it's link quality, not quantity, that matters.

I assume that none of you are applying a bulk link building strategy, or worse, are paying for links. You do keep your link building act clean and don't do link schemes, but still find your rankings disappointing.

Define 'High Ranking'!

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Rankings can be disappointing in numerous ways. Of course, if you are not the top result for your keywords, it's obvious you can always do better, but is this a reason to label your rankings as 'disappointing' or 'frustrating'?

Before we go on with the reasons why your link building results are frustrating, we need to clarify what 'frustrating' is.

First, how do you define 'high ranking'? How high can you rank? Is this always being the top result for popular keywords? If you (or your clients) expect this and won't settle for anything less, then you really have a serious problem – with judgment.

It's great when you are the top result for popular keywords, but in practice unfortunately this doesn't happen even to many top sites. Simply put, your expectations aren't realistic and no link building or any other SEO activity can help you achieve such high rankings.

After you get realistic expectations about what you can achieve in search rankings, you need to sit down and think about whether you really have what it takes to get there. Yes, you could be number one for less competitive keywords. If you are OK with this goal, this is doable, so go for it.

If you are aiming for more, sit down and analyze your chances. Only after you figure out what's realistic to expect, then proceed with the link building analysis. Think about what in your present link building strategy prevents you from reaching your goals.

There are a number of reasons why your backlinks are great (at least in your opinion) while your rankings are everything but. Here are the most common of them:

1. Links from Irrelevant Sites/Pages

The most common reason why your thousands of backlinks don't work is that they are from irrelevant sites or pages. Even if these sites are high ranking, if they are not relevant to your site, these links don't help. In the best case Google just ignores them but in the worst case these links are used against you.

It's really tricky to say what is relevant and what isn't. Since I don't know of any information straight from Google about how Google determines link relevancy, you need to use common sense in this.

For instance, if you are linking to a WordPress template page, links from any Web design/development blog should be relevant. Of course, it's best if you link from a site/page that is only about WordPress, or even better WordPress templates.

Some SEO experts speculate that Google has tightened their relevancy requirements and a link from a general Web design/development blog isn't that relevant anymore but since I don't know of anything from Google that confirms this, I suggest we don't believe it and simply disregard it.

2. Links from Low Quality Sites

Your links might be relevant to your content but if the site they come from is a low quality one (as perceived by Google and possibly common sense criteria), this again could hurt your rankings. Long gone are the days when any link counted. Now, the rankings and the trustworthiness of the source matter a lot.

Unfortunately, there is no universal definition of a low quality site. Generally a site with poor content and low rankings by Alexa, PR, and the other Web site ranking services is considered low quality for the purposes of SEO.

One of the worst places to get backlinks from are link farms. However, even if the site is not a link farm, if it has tons of outbound links, this is bad for you.

Another scenario with low quality sites is when a good site goes bad. It's quite possible that a site was good at the time they linked to you but later this changed. In such cases you might want to contact the Web master of the site and ask for the link to be removed. Alternatively, you can tell Google in your Google Webmaster tools to disavow the link from this site.

3. Low Domain Diversity

If you think that when your links are from relevant, high quality sites only, you are safe, this isn't so. If your thousands of links come from a couple of domains only -- even if they are high ranking and relevant -- this can also hurt.

The reason for this is simple. When your links come from a couple of domains only, this tells Google that you are popular with these sites only. This is why it's best to have, let's say, 5 or 10 links from a domain but have hundreds of domains link to you rather than have thousands of links coming from a couple of domains only. See our domain diversity profile to see what a good domain diversity is:

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by Ada Ivanoff via SitePoint