It has not been stressed enough on the internet already: backlinks are important.
Even more so, superior quality backlinks are the
It has not been stressed enough on the internet already: backlinks are important.
Even more so, superior quality backlinks are the backbone of a good SEO strategy. Google’s Andrey Lippatsev emphasizes that high-quality content and backlinks together help a website in getting a better rank. In fact, they may be the two most important aspects of good rankings. According to data published on SEO Tribunal, 75% of the SEO for a website comprises offsite activities, like link-building and guest posting.
The good news is that professional guest post services help you get both down pat – relevant content and high-quality backlinks. With that concern out of the way, one question still needs answering: how many backlinks are ideal to kickstart a good SERP ranking career for your website? Let us explore the nuance of that through this blog.
The Correlation Between Backlinks and Search Results
It has been established that backlinks are important for SEO of your website. However, where the conundrum of quality vs. quantity emerges, there are two sects of marketers: one sect says quantity is always good, while the other argues for quality. Let us break that apart.
Backlinks are simply links placed in a blog or similar piece of content anywhere on the internet that redirect a reader to your website when they click on them. If you are a business, these links come from bloggers of the same niche. Saying that stresses on the fact that your content is good enough for other bloggers of the same niche to refer to when addressing their own readers. Search engines see it as a validation of the information you publish; the more people they see linking back to your content, the higher they would rank your website.
Now, if a high percentage of these bloggers refer to your website from their high DA (Domain Authority) pages, your website is said to be receiving that many “high-quality” backlinks. Search engines trust the webpages that have high DA, and if a lot of such web pages are backlinking to your website, it would inevitably lead the search engine to trust your webpage as well.
High quality backlinks are inherently safe in that they prevent the risk of your website accidentally associating with a spam URL for link-building. In other words, high-quality backlinks are for the long-haul: they are reliable, they can be explicitly trusted, and search engines respect such links.
Talking about generating a high quantity of backlinks, it is not necessarily all about the ill practices of purchasing links in bulk (this could get you penalized) or building links with spammy websites out of desperation. “Quantity” here simply refers to getting more links from websites that do not necessarily sport an impressive DA / PA score.
While this could mean that the links you receive are moderate-to-low quality, you would still have a lot of them to begin with. Since backlinking is important for ranking, getting more links that are not quite as high in quality can accelerate your position quickly in SERPs. This establishes that aiming for quantity is not futile when navigated within the algorithmic and ethical boundaries of backlinking.
However, for sustenance and longevity of good rankings on the search results page, a good mix of high-quality and high-quantity rankings is recommended.
How Many Backlinks Do You Need?
A study by Backlinko has established that the top result on Google has almost 4 times greater number of backlinks as compared to other results further down. This does give you an estimate of competitive linking; however, there unfortunately isn’t an absolute, magic number of backlinks that can boost your ranking.
Certain factors exist that determine an average number of backlinks to get started with SEO – and these depend mostly on your niche industry (whether it is a high-competition industry or not). You can follow the steps below to get an idea of what your immediate competitors are doing and make that a starting point:
- Run a search for the keywords you have selected, and pick the top five websites from the results
- Click on each result and record the number of backlinks that appear on each website for that keyword
- Create content on your own website and apply for backlinks higher than the numbers you discovered
This is a long-winded way to go about discovering the right number of backlinks to attach to your content. The second method is more direct, albeit a little vague. Online tools like SEMRush Keyword Overview help you find the average number of backlinks appearing on the top search results for a particular keyword. The results are not exact, but they do give you an idea of the average numbers. With that said, you would notice a random mix of good and lower quality backlinks which isn’t really consistent for the top-listers – this brings it back to the various factors that impact ranking and backlinking (like competition and quality). Some top-rankers may have a lot of good quality backlinks, others may have only a few but still rank.
Wrapping Up
In the end, as important as backlinking is for SEO, it is absolutely necessary to do it right. Black-hat, quick-paced SEO would only get a website into trouble. Taking the more reliable, slow route of building an online network of trustworthy backlinks that are of decent or good quality pays off better. Quantity can be worked upon in the next steps.
of a good SEO strategy. Google’s Andrey Lippatsev emphasizes that high-quality content and backlinks together help a website in getting a better rank. In fact, they may be the two most important aspects of good rankings. According to data published on SEO Tribunal, 75% of the SEO for a website comprises offsite activities, like link-building and guest posting.
The good news is that professional guest post services help you get both down pat – relevant content and high-quality backlinks. With that concern out of the way, one question still needs answering: how many backlinks are ideal to kickstart a good SERP ranking career for your website? Let us explore the nuance of that through this blog.
The Correlation Between Backlinks and Search Results
It has been established that backlinks are important for SEO of your website. However, where the conundrum of quality vs. quantity emerges, there are two sects of marketers: one sect says quantity is always good, while the other argues for quality. Let us break that apart.
Backlinks are simply links placed in a blog or similar piece of content anywhere on the internet that redirect a reader to your website when they click on them. If you are a business, these links come from bloggers of the same niche. Saying that stresses on the fact that your content is good enough for other bloggers of the same niche to refer to when addressing their own readers. Search engines see it as a validation of the information you publish; the more people they see linking back to your content, the higher they would rank your website.
Now, if a high percentage of these bloggers refer to your website from their high DA (Domain Authority) pages, your website is said to be receiving that many “high-quality” backlinks. Search engines trust the webpages that have high DA, and if a lot of such web pages are backlinking to your website, it would inevitably lead the search engine to trust your webpage as well.
High quality backlinks are inherently safe in that they prevent the risk of your website accidentally associating with a spam URL for link-building. In other words, high-quality backlinks are for the long-haul: they are reliable, they can be explicitly trusted, and search engines respect such links.
Talking about generating a high quantity of backlinks, it is not necessarily all about the ill practices of purchasing links in bulk (this could get you penalized) or building links with spammy websites out of desperation. “Quantity” here simply refers to getting more links from websites that do not necessarily sport an impressive DA / PA score.
While this could mean that the links you receive are moderate-to-low quality, you would still have a lot of them to begin with. Since backlinking is important for ranking, getting more links that are not quite as high in quality can accelerate your position quickly in SERPs. This establishes that aiming for quantity is not futile when navigated within the algorithmic and ethical boundaries of backlinking.
However, for sustenance and longevity of good rankings on the search results page, a good mix of high-quality and high-quantity rankings is recommended.
How Many Backlinks Do You Need?
A study by Backlinko has established that the top result on Google has almost 4 times greater number of backlinks as compared to other results further down. This does give you an estimate of competitive linking; however, there unfortunately isn’t an absolute, magic number of backlinks that can boost your ranking.
Certain factors exist that determine an average number of backlinks to get started with SEO – and these depend mostly on your niche industry (whether it is a high-competition industry or not). You can follow the steps below to get an idea of what your immediate competitors are doing and make that a starting point:
- Run a search for the keywords you have selected, and pick the top five websites from the results
- Click on each result and record the number of backlinks that appear on each website for that keyword
- Create content on your own website and apply for backlinks higher than the numbers you discovered
This is a long-winded way to go about discovering the right number of backlinks to attach to your content. The second method is more direct, albeit a little vague. Online tools like SEMRush Keyword Overview help you find the average number of backlinks appearing on the top search results for a particular keyword. The results are not exact, but they do give you an idea of the average numbers. With that said, you would notice a random mix of good and lower quality backlinks which isn’t really consistent for the top-listers – this brings it back to the various factors that impact ranking and backlinking (like competition and quality). Some top-rankers may have a lot of good quality backlinks, others may have only a few but still rank.
Wrapping Up
In the end, as important as backlinking is for SEO, it is absolutely necessary to do it right. Black-hat, quick-paced SEO would only get a website into trouble. Taking the more reliable, slow route of building an online network of trustworthy backlinks that are of decent or good quality pays off better. Quantity can be worked upon in the next steps.
If you’re looking for a way to get more exposure for your blog, then Paid Guest Posting sites are the place to go. Here are some of the best Paid Guest Post Sites that pay for guest posts. These sites allow an experienced writer to add new content to blogs. However, the blog’s content has to be valuable and useful to readers. This is also a good way to market your blog by encouraging readers to go to your blog via the hyperlink to it.
Best Paid Guest Post Sites websites are awash with visitors and have a high authority on the domain. If you post your content on these sites and you are successful, then you will receive lots of visitors to your site. These websites provide you with do-follow backlinks, which helps increase the rank of your site’s keywords on Google.