Mistakes and fixes
Anchor text backlinks: seven mistakes agencies make
These are the slips we would expect from a social-led agency that adds link buying to a retainer, each paired with a fix you can apply this week.
SMM SEO Pro editorial team ·
The seven, at a glance
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Every link uses the money keyword | Looks engineered, reads badly | Mostly brand and page-title anchors |
| Links point only at the homepage | Product pages get nothing | Spread across pages with a job |
| Link orders ignore the calendar | Article and post go live weeks apart | Order a week before the campaign |
| Bought in bulk before any test | One mistake repeated 30 times | Start with three, read, then scale |
| Cheapest rows only | Low-quality sites, nothing to promote | Set an authority floor |
| No log of what was bought | Report cannot be reproduced | Keep ordered links as source of truth |
| Client never told | Surprise when asked | Put the link line in the contract |
Mistake one in detail: the anchor
Anchor text is the visible words of a link. Over-optimised anchors are the classic footprint, and Google's spam policies name link schemes as manipulation.
The fix is plain. Use the brand name, the page title, a natural phrase from the sentence, and only now and then the keyword. When you order, the content modes let you give a prompt or your own article, and that is where you set the anchor.
A rough starting split for a new client, as an example and not a rule: most anchors branded or generic, a minority descriptive, one or two exact. Adjust after you look at what competitors show in Ahrefs. Then compare against the price ranges. Do not overspend.
Before you pay a basket
- Each target page has a purpose and a keyword
- Anchors are varied and read naturally in a sentence
- Donor niche matches the client's customer
- Language of the donor matches the audience
- No two links from the same site this month
- Post and article dates line up in the calendar
- Total matches the amount in the client's budget line
Mistake three: the calendar and the order disagree
Timing sinks more packages than quality does.
Suppose the social team plans a launch for the 12th. The link order goes in on the 10th, the article goes live about a day later, and the post on the 12th has nothing to announce but a link that is already a day old. Small slip. Yet the story is cleaner when the placement lands first.
The fix is a shared calendar with two columns, post date and article date, and a rule that the article date is never later than the post date. A spreadsheet is enough.
Mistake five and seven: cheap and silent
Cheap is not a crime. Silent is.
At $1 a link you can learn a lot about what a placement looks like, so run a small test on a low-stakes page. What you cannot do is bury the purchase from the client, because if they ever ask about their link profile, an unexplained list looks like a cover-up.
Write one sentence in the proposal: the package includes purchased editorial placements chosen for relevance, and these are listed monthly. That sentence has saved more awkward calls than any dashboard.
For a package that already covers both halves, copy the line items in the joint monthly layout and edit them to suit the client.
Follow-up questions
How many links before it looks unnatural?
There is no published number. Google evaluates patterns, so vary anchors, pages and timing, and keep volume in line with what the client's content can plausibly earn. Start small and watch Search Console.
Can I ask for a specific anchor?
Yes, through your own prompt or finished article when you place the order. The automatic mode takes a target URL and keyword and writes a clean article with one link.
What if a placement stops working?
Check the status in ordered links first. Then use the contact options on the account page and name the order.