13 min 
What budget are you ready to waste on building links to the wrong pages? We’ve seen companies pouring over $ 10,000 into pages that will never show positive ROI. How could it happen? Because it takes dozens of trials and errors to distill the pages worth investing in backlinks.
In this article, you’ll learn 5 red flags to watch out for when choosing the right pages.
Learn from Digital Olympus' real case studies.
Building Links to Poor-Quality Pages is Like Buying a House without Looking at It
Ever looking for a new house or a flat? Remember that experience. You’ve been scouring real estate websites for that perfect place. Then, you stumble across a listing that seems too good to be true. On paper, though, the house is perfect. It’s got the right number of rooms, it’s in a great neighborhood, and the price is just within your budget.
Without thinking twice, you pull the trigger. You arrange a showing.
And here, reality sets in. The «great neighborhood» turns out to be miles away from the nearest grocery store. The home is riddled with structural issues, and the repair costs are going to sink your budget.
This example closely reminds us to link building — pages often look good on the surface and worthy of backlinks, but when you start evaluating their potential, they turn out to be a disappointment.
Though the pages have the right keywords and good-enough content — dig a little deeper, and the cracks start to show. Impressions are up to par, or the keywords aren’t relevant to your target audience.
The flaws might vary, but the end result is the same: you’ve sunk your SEO budget into pages that are unlikely to give you a positive return on investment.
Digital Olympus' Example:
Let’s consider an article from our blog. It’s SEO-optimized for «link building statistics» and meets the «A» grade by Clearscope. Articles reaching this score usually get easily ranked in the top-10.
Clearscope Content Score.
So, we’re in a good position at first glance.
Apart from real numbers in Google Search Console. Impressions and clicks plummeted over time.
3. The editorial team embeds several banners with call-to-actions into every article to drive more demo requests and trials.
4. Content writers highlight Userpilot’s features whenever relevant, thereby informing and educating potential users about the problems the tool can solve.
5. Almost every article finishes with a designated H2 encompassing best tools for [a keyword], where Userpilot’s features are discussed in detail.
That said, ensure your page content aligns with its purpose before acquiring backlinks.
Red flag #4: No stable visibility in the search.
Another red flag to watch out for is when a page has some impressions going but almost zero clicks. See an example of unstable performance in the screenshot.
Although the page received some impressions, it didn’t last long. Therefore, it’s not suitable for link building. What is likely to happen if you acquire some links is another dip in impressions and clicks afterward.
So, how do you know which page is worth link building efforts? Look for a rather consistent flow of impressions and clicks. The page may not currently rank high, but it should show the potential to do so. Build a handful of quality links and analyze metrics in several weeks. Ideally, you’ll see a subtle improvement in impressions, clicks, and rankings.
?Tip: Don’t build links to new web pages right off the bat. Wait for a couple of weeks and analyze their performance. This way, you’ll acquire links to the pages with an increased likelihood of securing the top-10 and driving conversions.
Red flag #5: The competition for a search term is fierce.
Facing wild competition for your primary transactional keyword in the SERP? The first gut instinct of newly-baked SEO and marketing specialists is to direct as many backlinks as possible to those pages and the keyword in the hope of outcompeting your rivals.
But that’s nothing but a trap.
Example:
We’ve got a client developing a video editing tool. Their main source of traffic is organic search. And of course, they strive to push their landing page for the keyword «video editing tool.»
However, a reality check
Ahrefs shows that competing pages by the KW come from highly reputable sources with an average DR of 90. These pages also have gotten thousands of links from authoritative sites.
The link gap is too huge to close.
Thus, a more seasonable approach would be to earn links for relevant content and redirect link juice to the main landing page through internal linking.
?Tip: Resort to digital PR tactics to earn backlinks and product mentions passively at a high volume. Next, reach out to the media outlets that cited you and ask them to put a backlink under the primary KW.
Which Pages Deserve Your Link Building Efforts?
To summarize, let’s go over the qualities of a page that is a good investment for link building.
- Ranking in Google SERPs and getting a handful of stable clicks.
- Pages that have been recently published or rewritten are showing some positive signals.
- The ones that don’t need hundreds of links to outrank the current competition in the SERPs.
Examples of such pages and the results of a consistent link building with Digital Olympus.
- The client is a LinkedIn automation tool targeting a highly competitive keyword.
Upon collaboration with Digital Olympus, the URL has limited visibility in the SERPs but showed a stable graph of clicks and impressions. It didn’t take long for link building results to show up. Within one month, the page improved in impressions, clicks, and rankings alike.
- The client invests heavily in content marketing as the primary lead generation channel. They first published an article optimized for lead capturing. Then, saw positive trends in impressions and clicks. We started building links, and organic traffic surged in just under one month.
Conclusion
Choosing the right pages for link building will help your website secure positions in the top-10 much faster. Pair it with robust link building tactics, and be sure to see a positive ROI.
Need a helping hand with a link building strategy that drives rankings and revenue? Contact our Senior SEO Specialist for a consultancy. We’ll discuss your objectives, assess the current situation, and offer the link building strategy to reach your goals.
