Definitive guide
Real-time statistics about Link Building
Link Building Statistics 2023 – 75 Key Figures You Must Know
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1. 65% of marketers believe that link building is the most difficult aspect of Search Engine Optimization.
Link building is vital in SEO since it drives organic traffic via search engines, especially in competitive industries. Link building may be extremely efficient at driving more organic traffic when combined with strong technical SEO foundations, outstanding on-page SEO, fantastic content, and a nice user experience.
The need for quality, relevance, and authenticity has never been greater. While low-quality, spammy link-building strategies can be effective, they should not be part of an organization’s long-term organic search success strategy.
The meaning of Link Building
The process of obtaining hyperlinks from other websites to your own is known as link building. A hyperlink (also known as a link) is a method for users to browse between pages on the Internet. Search engines use links to crawl the web. They will crawl the links between your website’s individual pages and the links between larger domains.
Not all links are created on purpose by SEOs or marketers. Many of them will be generated for a variety of reasons, such as a journalist covering a news story and linking to a source or a blogger who is so excited about the new coffee maker that they link to the shop that sold it to them.
Obtaining links that you did not request is the pinnacle of SEO. You should always strive for and work for it in the long run. This is accomplished by making your website link-worthy, whether through a wonderful product or part of your service or by creating amazing content that is referred by other websites.
What is the process of Link Building?
Earning backlinks from reliable, high-quality websites is the best strategy to increase your authority through link building. If you have a lot of backlinks, but they are from spammy, unrelated sites, they are unlikely to help you rank higher.
Backlinks can be obtained in a variety of ways, including:
- Blogging as a guest
- Promotion on social media
- Hands-on outreach
- Obtaining backlinks from competitors
Keep in mind that backlinks aren’t everything—you should first and foremost focus on providing valuable, high-quality content.
When looking for techniques to boost your ranking, leveraging the power of link-building can be difficult for both beginners and experienced pros. However, it can be one of your most effective organic success techniques.
There are three kinds of links.
When developing your link-building strategy, it’s critical to understand the various types of links.
The most significant types of linkages to understand are shown below.
1st: Follow vs. Nofollow
When you want to link to another website but do not wish Google to crawl it, you can use nofollow links.
2nd: Links from users
Regarding SEO, using user-generated links as a link development technique is not the best way to go. Google formerly penalized individuals that attempted user-generated links.
You may create user-generated links with the intention of promoting your own work. They are also frequently of poorer quality than other kinds of link development that Google favors.
3rd: Links from other blogs or websites
Natural links are generated more organically by readers who come across your website and include a link on their blog or website without being requested. You do not request backlinks from other webmasters or users using this link type.
You will need to make a regular effort, as with any other part of SEO. While link building demands more effort than most SEO tactics, it will be lucrative in the end and last for a long time.
With enough effort in applying your link-building techniques, your website may improve to the point where you won’t need to work as hard for links in the future. Instead, you may concentrate on creating high-quality content that other websites and companies will want to link to.
2. External links are present in only 94% of the world’s content.
The number and quality of external links you use are important. Adding high-quality, trustworthy, informative website links to your pages will help boost your website’s credibility. However, adding low-quality spam links would harm your site.
Linking to external websites will not harm your page rank as long as the necessary material is from authoritative sources.
External links are more beneficial if they go to popular and relevant pages that are highly ranked and related to the content on your website.
3. On average, blog posts with 3,000+ words are confirmed to earn more backlinks.
Moz examined a million online articles and discovered that 3,000+ is the ideal number for natural link building. Blog entries with more than 3,000 words have attracted more backlinks than articles with fewer words.
3,000 words should be the minimum word count for any in-depth guide designed to attract natural backlinks. Otherwise, you can stretch beyond 7,000 words of good content, which referring sites can then mine for deep yet relevant insights.
4. 58% of marketers believe backlinks significantly impact Search Engine Rankings.
Backlinks are vital for SEO because they tell Google that another resource values your content enough to connect to it from its own. As a website receives more backlinks, search engines deduce that the website has valuable material worthy of ranking high in the SERPs.
How Do You Get Backlinks?
Obtaining backlinks is a critical component of an off-site SEO strategy. Backlinks are, in fact, the most important off-site ranking component! Backlinks can be obtained in three ways.
1st: Natural links are the ones that develop naturally (not easily seen as being placed by your company).
2nd: Manual links are obtained by participating in link-earning activities. The backlink would be manual if the hiking gear website contacted the climbing resource and sought a link. Another strategic strategy is guest writing for a relevant website.
3rd: When site management manually enters a backlink into a forum, blog comment, or online directory, they create self-created links.
5. Over 60% of organizations outsource their link-building efforts to agencies or contractors. While 30% of businesses implement link-building strategies in their website on their own.
Link building may assist you in improving your SEO ranks, increasing your monthly visitor number, and increasing your conversion rate and monthly sales. As a result, any SEO agency should provide this service to its clients.
An example of organizations or companies that outsource their link-building efforts is REPRESENT CLO, a British-made luxury clothing for men. The company was skeptical about the power of link-building to increase its website traffic and product sales until it hired Outreach Monks.
After a span of a year, the clothing line discovered they were wrong about link-building after the successful campaign it launched by Outreach Monks. The campaign resulted in website organic traffic doubling every month from 66,000 to 132,000. This resulted in traffic value that grew almost threefold at an estimated $15,000 to $40,000.
REPRESENT CLO eventually increased its link-building budget and shifted from a heavily paid Google Ads campaign in order to increase website traffic and sales.
6. 56.3% of marketers believe link quality and quantity affect rankings.
When building links to your website, you may ask if having many connections is preferable to a few links from high authority or trusted domains. Is quantity more important than quality, or should your efforts be focused on establishing one truly outstanding link rather than a hundred “good” ones”?
Is the quality of the links more significant than the quantity? Without a doubt. If the number of links were more essential than the quality of the links – that is, the quality of the source – it would be quite simple for websites to trick search engines by generating hundreds of links on irrelevant or spammy websites. As previously stated, this was once a prevalent technique, but Google’s algorithm upgrades now penalize websites that engage in this activity.
A single link from a widely read news website, a popular blog, or another high-quality resource can be worth more than a hundred links from other sources. If Google trusts the website you were linked to, it will also trust the connection. A followed link is effectively an editorial endorsement.
7. 85% of marketers acknowledge that link-building significantly influences brand authority and brand establishment.
Link building can also help you brand your company. People will begin to regard you as an expert in your industry if they see you cited on well-known websites.
As a result, they are more inclined to conduct business with you and refer you to others. Link building can also aid in the development of trust with your target audience. People will be more likely to believe you if they see that you receive links from websites they appreciate.
8. Most companies spend $1,000 to $15,000 monthly on link building.
The cost of link building varies greatly based on quality and volume, ranging from $1,000 to $15,000 per month.
9. Most companies that outsource link building devote at least 25% of their SEO funding to link building.
Link building is an important component of SEO, but it is also a significant investment that can be costly.
Most successful firms with an SEO staff that generates web traffic will engage in link-building initiatives, whether in-house or outsourced.
Before you plunge in and start developing links, I strongly advise you to prepare ahead. Consider the types of sites and keywords you want link building to affect, create a prioritized list, and thoroughly investigate your competition to see what it will take in terms of backlinks to compete and eventually outperform them.
10. Almost half of all SEOs spend $10,000 or more on link building each year.
When considering a link-building project, planning, and budgeting are critical. And, whatever you do, creating your own framework with reasonable goals and expectations is definitely advised.
11. Personalized emails for link building are confirmed to increase response rates by 33%!
Personalized emails stand out in the inbox as highly relevant, customized content. Emails that are personalized are more likely to be read and clicked on. By sending the correct material to the right people at the right time, personalized emails improve customer experiences.
12. 13% of search experts say link building is the “most” helpful SEO tactic.”
Lin” building is an important component of SEO services since it assists search engines in discovering new websites and determining which pages should rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
13. 38% of marketers state that page rankings are the “top “PI” the” use to assess the efficacy of their link-building efforts.
A key performance indicator, or KPI, is a quantitative measurement of performance over time for a certain goal. KPIs offer goals for teams to strive towards, benchmarks to evaluate progress, and insights that aid individuals throughout the organization in making better decisions.
14. 51% of marketers say it takes 1 to 3 months to see the effect of link-building efforts.
Ranking improvements may begin immediately when the link is created but take time to manifest completely.
15. 41% of marketers anticipate the expense of link building will rise.
The expense of acquiring new links is projected to continuously increase in the future by 41% of online marketers as the demand for this SEO tactic increases. Competition online amongst businesses are getting tougher, especially with the increasing awareness amongst business owners of the importance of link building.
16. 42% of SEO specialists devote equal time to external and internal link building.
You must comprehend the distinctions between an internal link and an external link, as well as how each might benefit your SEO strategy, to have a solid SEO plan for your website.
What advantages do Internal Links offer?
Internal links encourage visitors to browse your website for longer. Overall, they offer a satisfying user experience. This can persuade them to buy something or follow you.
These links make your pages and the entire site more authoritative and accessible to viewers. A call to action is frequently used with internal links.
What advantages do External Links offer?
It affects how many and what kind of external connections you use. High-quality links from reputable, educational websites will increase your website’s visibility, while links from spammy, low-quality websites will damage it.
17. Brands that blog generate 97% more inbound links.
Search engines may give higher rankings to websites that receive a lot of inbound links. Inbound links basically inform search engine spiders that your website is an authority on a certain topic; hence, the more inbound links you have from high-quality, high-authority sites, the higher your website will rank (SERPs).
18. In a survey of 310 SEO and marketing professionals, Semrush was favored above Ahrefs by 51.3%.
Semrush makes sure that marketing professionals always have time for innovation and creativity.
19. Google’s top 1 results page has an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than pages in positions 2 through 10.
Backlinko analyzed 11.8 million search results from Google and discovered that it is common for websites that rank 1st in it have 3.89 more backlinks than the rest in the top 10. This means that backlinks remain a key factor on how Google ranks website in terms of its content and credibility.
20. 95% of all web pages (uSERP) have no backlinks pointing at them.
In the same analysis, Backlinko highlighted that most websites or 95% do not have any website linking to them (aka backlinks). This means that most of the content on the internet do not have external links, which are links referencing another website that would then be called a backlink to the one referenced. Roughly, there were 10,000 websites that had links in them.
21. 91% of internet pages receive no organic traffic, primarily because they have no hyperlinks pointing to them or to their content.
The foundation of the World Wide Web is hyperlinks. Due to their capacity to offer a visitor a lot of high-quality information and their part in how modern search engines rank websites; their significance is very high.
22. 50% of websites with higher clearscope content grades showed higher Google rankings
Backlinko ran a test on the top 30 Google results using Clearscope.io to check the correlation of content grade with the said search engine’s rankings on desktop and mobile. Both means of access–desktop and mobile–showed that 50% of the top 30 Google results with higher clearscope content also had higher Google rankings. This means that there is a clear correlation between content grade and Google rankings.
23. Infographics have a reputation for drawing links. To obtain backlinks, 53% of SEO experts create them since they can compress complex material.
Infographics are the ideal combination of text and images. Most infographics are aesthetically pleasing and frequently include relevant facts about a subject that readers can quickly scan through.
More importantly, effective infographics may increase website traffic, create high-quality backlinks, and help your content go viral.
24. In comparison to videos and “how-to” posts, “why” posts, “what” posts, and infographics receive 25% more links.
There are particular content formats that get more links. These are infographics, “What” posts, and “Why” posts. The most list posts and “How-To” posts get are two links. While general posts, videos, infographics, and “What” posts get two to three links. “Why” posts, on the other hand, get more than 3 links. “Why” posts, “What” posts, and infographics get the most referring domains though they do comparatively poor when it comes to average social shares. Ironically, list posts get the most number of average social shares and is only seconded by “Why” posts.
25. Less than 10% of an SEO budget is appropriated by 31% of online marketers to link building
Most online marketers (31%) admit that less than 10% of their SEO budget are actually alloted for link building efforts. While 26% say they allot 10% to 25% of their SEO budget to link building, which is closely followed by 25% who dedicate 25% to 50% of their SEO budget. Some (14%) set aside 50% to 70% of their SEO budget to link building as against a 4% who set aside 75% to 100%.
26. Bloggers should include 2-3 internal links in a blog post, according to 51% of SEO experts.
Avoid overwhelming the reader. Try to limit the number of inbound and outbound connections per 1,000 words to three to five (3-5).
27. 53% of online marketers who created a campaign alongside content creation for link generation say it generated 1-9 links in a year
Majority or 53% of online marketers reveal that a campaign they launched for new content meant to generate links actually do so in a year resulting to 1 to 9 links. While 49% say they were able to generate 10 to 19 links, 39% say 20 to 39 links, 27% say 40 to 59 links, 22% say 60 to 99 links. Surprisingly, 100 to 149 links were generated by 19% of online marketers, 150 to 199 links by 14%, 200 to 249 links by 11%, and 250 to 299 by 8%. It is surprising to not that 29%, however, reveal that they did not generate any links (0) after the 12-month campaign.
28. 46% of online marketers expect their link building appropriations to increase in their SEO budget the next year
There is a small gap between the number of online marketers who believe their link building funds will increase the next year (46%) and the number who anticipate it will stay the same (43%). While 11% project it will decrease than the present year’s.
29. 59% of online marketers who launch link building campaigns admit not setting targets for it
More than half or 59% of online marketers admit they do not set link targets for each campaign they launch. While 41% say they actually do. RicketyRoo SEO Consultant pointed out that this practice needs to be changed if online marketers want to get support for their budgets. Metrics, she said, determine the value or worth of acquisition, especially for budgets meant for SEO.
30. 37% of SEO experts say achieving 1 to 9 links for a campaign is a good metric for success
In a survey conducted by Aira, 37% of SEO experts say setting expectations of getting 1 to 9 links for a campaign is already considered successful. This is closely followed by 28% of experts who say 10 to 19 links is a good metric. Aira said that it would be good to say 65% of SEO professionals find that 1 to 19 links generated from a campaign is successful.
31. Links are paid for by 74.3% of online marketers
One of the key takeaways from the survey conducted by Authority Hacker is the surprising reality that 74.3% of online marketers and SEO experts pay for links, which is unexpectedly high. The average cost paid per link is $83 and generates only 2 links per month
32. 36% of companies use independent contractors or consultants for link construction projects.
In a 2022 survey conducted by Aira on companies using in-house efforts for link building, 64% responded that they do not hire freelancers, agencies, or contractors for this SEO tactic. While 36% responded yes. In-house link building efforts have seen an increase by 56% in 2022 compared to the 2021 data.
33. 25% of in-house SEOs have an average monthly budget of $10,000 to $25,000 for link building.
Majority of in-house SEOs (25%) appropriate a monthly budget of $10,000 to $25,000 on average for link building through external contractors, agencies, or freelancers. While 19% appropriate only $2,500 to $5,000, 13% for $1,000 to $2,500, and another 13% for $5,000 to $10,000. Some appropriate either $25,000 to $50,000 (9%) or more than $50,000 (9%). Only a few allocate a ceiling of $500 (6%) or around $500 to $1,000 (6%).
34. Nearly 50% of pages with high rankings contain reciprocal links.
Two-way links are reciprocal links. In other words, a reciprocal link exists if site A connects out to site B and site B links out to site A. Since reciprocal connections sometimes result from unethical SEO practices like link exchanges, SEOs have frequently fretted that Google might not like them.
35. Reverse links appear on about 50% of the top-ranking pages.
Links that are reciprocal are bidirectional. In other words, a reciprocal link occurs when site A links out to site B and site B links out to site A. Because reciprocal connections sometimes result from unethical SEO techniques like link exchanges, SEOs have frequently fretted that Google might not like them. Still, this statistic reveals that they are actually quite popular.
36. Only 8.5% of cold emails for link building get results.
That may seem like a tiny number, but most outreach programs for link-building entail mass emailing dozens or even hundreds of individuals at once. Therefore, even if only 8.5% of your cold email campaigns are successful, you can still get a lot of new links from just one campaign.
37. Domain authority is regarded by 65% of marketers as the most crucial aspect to consider when evaluating the quality of backlinks.
Your ranking power may be more impacted by a single link from a high-authority domain than by dozens of low-quality connections from low-domain sites.
38. In some circumstances, high-quality links can cost more than $1500.
Although the average price of a backlink is $360, connections from reputable websites and newspapers, which have a lot of authority, might cost you much more. According to Siege Media, a single high-quality backlink might cost as much as $1500. Additionally, Siege discovered that some backlink strategies might cost firms up to $200,000 per month.
39. 37% of experts find that links to a homepage of a website are not as valuable as links to a campaign page.
When SEO experts were asked which is more important for link building, 37% said links to a homepage was less valuable than a link to a campaign page. While 35% observed that there was no noticeable difference to this. In contrast, 28% find that links to a homepage of a website or domain is more valuable than a link to a campaign site. SEOFOMO Founder Veronika Höller sided with the latter group since her personal experience showed they get better results when links to the domain page or website is made than to the campaign page or landing page.
40. Google Search Console is the most used tool for link building (42.3%), followed by Buzzstream (14.8%) and Ahrefs (8.5%).
There are more than 20 link building tools available but the most common one included in top ten lists is Semrush. This is seconded by Ahrefs and Google Search Console. What makes these tools a favorite among users is their features for all things SEO. What sets them apart is the pricing, with the most expensive being Semrush for its minimum subscription fee or plan rate.
41. 49.8% of online marketers believe that link building will remain important in SEO in the next five years
In an Authority Hacker survey, almost half of respondents or 49.8% believe that link building will remain important or will have the same impact in the next five years. While 15.4% project it will have a bigger impact. On the contrary, 33.6% find it will have less impact on SEO and 1.2% see it will have no impact at all.
42. 48% of SEO experts move to their next campaign when a current campaign does not meet the link target
A survey made by Aira on SEO experts revealed that 48% of them just keep moving to another campaign when a current one falls or entirely misses the link target. While 41% persist until the given time or budget hits the limit. Only 11% say they persist in hitting the link target no matter what. Avast Head of SEO & Content Martin Vasko stressed, in reaction to the survey, that SEO experts should always make it a point to reassess the overall situation and costs whenever link targets are not attained.
43. Experienced link builders create 3.57 times as many links as beginners.
Authority Hackers suggests to hire experienced link builders over newbies since the former costs on the basis of results. Accordingly, link builders with more than 5 years in the industry get 67% more links than those with 2 to 5 years of experience. While link builders with a year’s experience generate an average of only 7 links a month. Thus, when one looks at it, though experienced link builders charge more (double the salary of junior link builders), they generate 3 to 4 times more links and are then 41% cheaper.
44. Link building will improve ranking on competitive keywords and domain rating by as much as 22% with the right campaign
Using competitive keywords related to a company’s specialization through a link building campaign greatly improves keyword ranking and domain rating but also organic traffic and domain rating. This was the experience of Turkey’s BlueMagic Group when it commissioned Outreach Monks for a link building campaign last January 2023 designed to improve their online presence and overall website traffic. The campaign, which lasted three months, increased BlueMagic’s organic traffic by 7 times to 7,500 from 1,500; earned a traffic value of $20,000; and improved Domain Rating by 4 notches higher to 22.
45. As link builders gain years of experience, digital PR becomes 43% more popular.
Digital PR is a strategy for increasing brand awareness through online channels. It is similar to traditional PR in many ways, but it allows you to reach more people you would not be able to reach using only offline methods.
There are fewer options for promoting a business online. Being interviewed by online publications, increasing your online presence, and utilizing the interactive power of social media for further growth and recognition are all examples of digital PR marketing opportunities.
46. 46.3% of link builders said they used HARO (Help a Reporter Out) on a regular basis.
Help a Reporter Out, or HARO, is a wonderful way to gain links from high-quality sources. It’s a platform that connects you with newspeople looking for sources for their reports.
You can establish credibility and status in your industry by using HARO. As a source for reporters, you can get your reputation and specialization in front of a large audience, which can help you establish yourself as an expert in your field. Furthermore, being quoted in the media can help build trust with potential customers and clients by demonstrating that you are an ace worth listening to.
47. With 64.9% of link builders using it, guest posting is the most popular link-building tactic.
Guest blogging is a simple way to increase the number of visitors to your website. You will gain new readers if you use a variety of guest bloggers. The key is to keep them coming back based on the quality of your content.
48. Only a small portion of published content online–roughly 22%–has been found to have been linked back to more than once.
Linking websites as resources in your content is a good way to ensure its credibility since it connotes that the website being linked is one of authority. But it would also be best for a website, especially content websites if they are similarly linked back. Studies show that there are a few websites (22%) that get more than one backlink.
How does one know if one’s website is linked back to? That’s easy! Use Google’s Search Console Tools.
Simply create an account with them, then enter the domain name or “property” of the website to be checked. Next, go to the Links in the menu and you would already see what are the external and internal links used in a website, as well as, those that backlinked to it.
Take the case of my website. Besides internal links, I also have external links or links referencing other websites with regard to the validity of what I say in my blog posts. But there are also websites that have linked back to me.
To be exact, there are 975 websites that linked back to my website as of date. But a majority of them only linked back once and a few linked more than once such as pitchskills.com.
49. A majority of SEO experts (53%) anticipate that backlinks will become equally important as keyword searches.
Search Engine Optimization is primarily dependent on keyword searches, that is the use of keywords relevant to a brand or product such that it is used as a means for the said brand or product to be found online, especially through Google and other search engines available.
A big chunk of online marketers (75.5%) use keywords in creating content for their businesses and consumers through their websites. Experts now see a similar trend shifting to link building with more than half of online marketers (53%) projecting this tool to be equally important as keyword searches in the near future.
Seer Interactive SEO Director Alisa Scharf points to the need to use this tool strategically to gain its leverage online. The secret, she said, is authority-building in one’s content rather than paying agents to do link-building campaigns. Authority building means providing reliable and valuable content for your target audience and the general public so that your website will be linked back to other websites.
50. Quality content is regarded by a majority or 54% of marketing experts as the best tactic for search engine optimization.
Speaking of valuable content, the majority of online marketers (54%) actually regard it as the best tactic for search engine optimization. Content is king, as they say, particularly when it is valuable and relevant to the target audience.
51. Next to a site’s domain authority, almost half or 48% of marketers look at domain ratings to assess the quality of backlinks. While more than a quarter or 36% rely on a website’s or webpage’s authority for backlinking quality.
Authority building leads to domain and website authority. But what’s the difference? Moz explains that both metrics are calculated with the same methodology and are similar in many ways. What differentiates the two metrics lies in the elements used in their measurement.
Domain authority is measured with regard to a URL’s strength or ranking on a collective basis–the entirety of domains or subdomains. While a website’s authority–more so a webpage authority is the ranking of a singular page over another.
This is why, between the two, domain authority is used more by online marketers than a webpage’s authority in assessing the quality of backlinks.
52. Almost half of the companies (46%) into search engine optimization for their websites implement link building and actually spend around $10,000 for it.
Link building can be rather costly as payment is per link, which starts at $150, as mentioned below. There is a way to do this free of course, especially when you do it yourself. But to get better results, spending for backlinks has a higher impact on a company’s website.
This is on top of the cost of hiring agencies for the job. Thus, companies spend roughly a minimum of $10,000. Some even exceed that amount as mentioned previously in this list.
53. This is mainly due to authority backlinks having a minimum fee of $1,000 each. While roughly $150 to $300 each is the fee for low authority backlinks.
Backlinks are often bought from SEO tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush, and MOZ PRO who often provide the service for free.
These top-ranking websites provide backlinks along with other helpful services, especially for startups, such as keyword rankings, domain and keyword analytics, and site audits, among others.
Other SEO tools, however, the charge from a minimal fee of $5 per 10,000 permanent backlinks, as per The Pricer, to $225 per backlink for a website with a domain authority ranking of 58, as per SEO agency Root And Branch, in 2023.
This pricing is way higher than what once was charged for backlinks from 2016 to 2018, which averages $391.55 when compared by industry or niche and $291.55 per link on average from 204 websites charge for it in 2020 based on a study conducted by SociallyInfused Media of 3,900 blogs.
Sadly, the costs for backlinks have skyrocketed to a range of $150 to $300 per low authority backlinks to as much as $1,000 per moderate to high authority backlinks.
Many companies purchase backlinks despite search engines discouraging the practice that they often refer to as schemes to achieve higher rankings in search engine results. That’s on top of the risk of being blacklisted by Google once a website gets caught for doing so.
Many SEO companies such as Root And Branch, The Pricer, and GOTCH SEO warn about this penalty imposed by Google yet admit that purchasing backlinks is still effective to achieve higher traffic and SEO rankings for a website.
54. With the volume of data online, experts have discovered that a great majority of content available or 94% are not or will ever be backlinked.
A 2019 study of Backlinko showed that most or 94% of the content online, especially among blogs, receive zero external links. This data is 25.33% higher than what it was four years earlier, based on a study conducted by Moz. A clear evidence of how difficult it has become to get one’s blog or website backlinked. As such, only 2.2% of content online get backlinked organically. The rest are paid backlinks.
55. Brand authority is seen unaffected by backlinks by a minority of companies (15.6%). This is why it is not regarded as important by 5% of companies.
Unlike a domain’s or webpage’s authority, the brand authority has been regarded as unimportant by 5% when it comes to backlinks. Brand authority pertains to how the public views a company as an expert for a particular source of information according to its industry or niche. Thus, 15.6% of companies doing backlinking find it has no effect on domain or webpage authority.
56. Almost half of the top-ranking websites (43.7%) have reciprocal backlinks, which makes it one of the important link-building strategies in use.
There are 43.7% of top companies, such as Coca-Cola, use reciprocal links in their top-ranking websites.
In the case of Coca-Cola, a study conducted by Marketing Vibes in 2020 found that 27% of Coca-Cola UK’s website has external links to authority websites.
The majority of the said website’s links are internal or On-Page. While none of it are paid ones or broken. Marketing Vibes found assessed that, overall, the Coca-Cola UK website is SEO optimized.
My website also implements reciprocal backlinks, as you can see from the screencap below. This is definitely an important link-building strategy to use based on my experience from it over the years which has helped my website gain a high ranking in search engine results.
57. A majority or 77.2% of blog posts or online articles with a range of 3,000 to 7,000 words receive more backlinks than shorter content.
Long-form content or articles and blog posts having more than 3,000 words have been found to be ideal for a company to acquire backlinks.
This has been a trend in link building since 2019 where 77.2% on average of long-form content get more links than websites with shorter content.
58. The type of content that ranks the highest for link building–by 6.19 times–are articles with lists in them also known as list-style articles.
List-style articles have been renowned for not only improving search engine optimization but also achieving the highest ranking for link building. The reason being list-style articles are easy to read, such that important information in the content can easily be absorbed by readers and crawled by search engines.
59. The quantity of links added to a webpage is not as important as its quality, according to 93.8% of link experts.
Quality always outnumbers quantity from the content of a website to the links added to it, this is according to most or 93.8% of link experts.
This is despite the fact that there is a direct correlation between the number of backlinks a webpage has to the amount of organic traffic it receives.
60. Many experts or 79.7% of them admit that link building forms an important part of the strategies they use for search engine optimization.
Link building has gained acceptance as one of the most-used search engine optimization strategies of 79.7% of online marketing experts.
This is affirmed by Google’s page ranking algorithm, which considers link building as its second most important criterion.
61. Studies show that successful SEO is highly contributed by the number of domains referring to a URL that is mainly due to backlinks.
Despite its effective and wide usage, 52.3% of online marketers admit that link building is the most difficult search engine optimization strategy.
This is because link-building outreach takes time and effort before it becomes effective or, at least, its impact felt by a company’s website using it.
62. Studies show that there are a few websites (2.2%) that get more than one backlink.
Domain authority computes how many times a website’s URL appears in Google’s search engine results. The higher it is in the Google search engine result, the higher will be the website’s domain authority score.
This greatly contributes to the successful SEO campaign of a website rooted in the quality of its backlinks.
63. Link building takes 1 to 6 months before its impact could be seen in search engine rankings, according to 89.2% of online marketers. This averages 3.1 months for the impact to be seen.
Link building is not only costly but also time-consuming and its impact takes months—depending on content and link quality—before its impact could be seen in search engine rankings.
89.2% of online marketers admit this reality, stating that an average of 3.1 months or a minimum of 6 months occurs before link-building impact can be seen on a website.
Take the case of REPRESENT CLO, which is mentioned earlier in this post. Their link-building ran for a year before their organic traffic became 132K from a mere 66K at the start of the campaign.
Outreach Monks similarly experienced a growth of ten times in organic website traffic after six months of using SaaS backlinks.
64. Link exchanges are used by 51.6% of online marketers in their SEO tactics.
Link exchange or reciprocal links, like the ones I have on my website, are also called “exchanged links” or “traded links.” It is often used as an SEO tactic where one website links with another out of being beneficial to both companies in terms of search engine ranking.
65. Digital PR is found to be more favored by 433% since link builders take several years to gain experience. Yet a minority (6%) of businesses rely on digital PR link-building for their websites.
Digital PR link-building employs public relations techniques to get backlinks mostly for editorial purposes.
By public relations techniques, this means using media pitching and posting press releases on one’s website. Digital PR link building is said to be a key component in building search engine optimization backlinks.
66. 77.2% more links on average come from long-form content than from short-form content.
SociallyInfused Media conducted a study in 2020 to find out the cost of links in the market. They found out that a small number of the 3,000 blogs they interviewed sold links for the last three years since 2016. Data showed that 18.4% of blogs sold links in 2016, 12.6% in 2018, and 5.3% in 2019.
67. Articles or blog posts that answer “Why” or “What” questions–including infographics–get a quarter more links or 25.8% than “How-to” articles or blog posts and videos.
Infographics are a proven way to increase backlinks for a website by 25.8% along with “Why” and “What” type of blog posts or articles. This is when compared to videos and blog posts or articles that show the “How” of things.
68. Backlinks from outreach emails take an average of 8 days prior to conversion.
Email outreach is sending an email to certain individuals or companies with the goal of promoting a recent blog post or article published on the website or requesting a backlink, as well as, offering collaboration or tie-ups with a company or person with a top-ranking website or blog.
69. The possibility of getting higher backlink acquisition of at least 50% from initial outreach emails happens when the first name of the recipient is used.
Personalization is an effective way of increasing backlink acquisition by a minimum of 50% from the time one sends a first outreach email to the same person.
Emails addressing the recipient by first name have a more human touch to them, connoting valuation for the identity of the recipient and taking painstaking efforts of sending it.
70. The acquisition of links is done by 19.9% of online marketers through actively buying and redirecting domains.
Among the popular link building tactics, buying domains ranks 5th as only 19.9% of online marketers continue to do so. The top technique is Guest Posting, which is used my most online marketers or 64.9% due to its efficacy. This is followed by the use of link exchanges (51.6%), creating quality content (50%), HARO (46.3%), buying domains, and PR campaigns (17.7%).
71. Link building is the primary goal of online marketers (86%) when producing content in the form of articles for websites or blog posts.
Aira, an England-based Digital Marketing Agency, conducted a survey asking respondents if they produce content with the aim of generating links. Most of the respondents (86%) answered “Yes” and the rest (14%) answered “No.” Wix SEO Communications Head Crystal Carter said this data shows that online marketers are missing the point and are going against the basics of producing content, which is to create “geniune value to users.”
72. 36% of online marketers run an outreach campaign of of 3 weeks to a month after uploading new content to their website
Aira revealed that the usual length of time online marketers conduct an outreach campaign for new content is three to 4 weeks after it is published in their website. This practice is primarily done by 36% of online marketers. While 25% continuously conduct campaigns (no end time / ongoing) for new content. The rest of those surveyed by Aira said they conduct it within one to two weeks (17%), 5 to 6 weeks (12%), 7 to 8 weeks (6%), and one week (4%) after publishing the new content in the website.
73. More links per month can be gained by an average of 22% when online marketers use social media for outreach campaigns.
According to Respona, there are five types of outreach campaigns for link building. There’s the Anchor Text Strategy, Competitor Backlinks Strategy, Email Outreach, Domain Authentication, and Social Media leveraging.
Online marketers, out of these strategies mentioned, reveal that they get more links (22%) on a monthly basis when using social media for their outreach campaign.
74. More than half or 61.7% of online marketers do their outreach campaigns with the use of social mediat platforms
Authority Hacker highlighted that, 61.7% of online marketers use social media channels for link building campaigns. The reason being 22% of extra links are gained monthly when social media channels are used. Facebook and LinkedIn are two of the most common social media platforms used, garnering 23.5% and 17.5%, respectively.
75. Websites or blogs get 2x to 5x more backlink and organic traffic when a content is widely-shared
Authority Hacker pointed out that organic traffic and social media shares are highly correlated. An observation based on their study involving Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter. They highlighted that the top 20% links get 34,6% of total traffic as against the top 1% links that get a mere 3,57% of total traffic. While the top 10% links get 21,07% of total traffic. This backsup the fact revealed by Hootsuite in a 2018 based from a social media experiment. The experiment highlighted the positive correlation between a website’s search engine ranking and its social media engagements.
My name is Ralph de Groot. I'm the founder and author at My Codeless Website. Wake me up for a great web design. I love writing about website examples, too!