Intro
Link building is an effective way for you to build a good rank on Google. Getting other sites to link to you not just builds referral traffic; it helps improve your domain authority. Better domain authority will help you rank higher and get higher traffic levels on Google and other search engines.
To help you with your link-building campaigns, here are statistics you can use.
General Link Building Stats
- Most pages (95%) have no backlinks pointing to them, limiting their ranking on Google.
- Websites with a higher domain rating on Ahrefs/Moz/SEMrush will have a higher rank on Google.
- The first ranking page on any given search term has 380% more backlinks than other positions 2-10.
- Nearly two-thirds of digital marketers believe link building is the hardest part of SEO.
- Content pieces and backlinks are rated as two of the most important factors for ranking on search engines for keywords.
- More than half (58.1%) of experts believe backlinks have a massive impact on search engine rankings.
- 91% of content online gets no organic traffic, mostly because they don’t get a single backlink.
- 13% of SEO experts say link building is the most valuable SEO tactic.
- 53% of SEO experts believe that back linking will be just as important as search.
Content Writing for Backlinks
- When blog posts have more than 3000 words, they will receive more backlinks compared to those blog posts under 3000 words.
- Listicle articles can generate the most backlinks compared to other blog post content types.
- The highest Alexa rating websites all have natural anchor text profiles that include a mixture of exact match, branded anchors, and general/random anchor text.
- It doesn’t matter whether the anchor text is an exact match or non-exact match to be effective.
- Only 2.2% of content produces more than one backlink.
- 90% of marketers write and publish blog posts as their main way to generate backlinks.
- 54.48% of SEO managers believe that nofollow links still contribute to the success of a website’s rank on Google.
- Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to build backlinks, followed by guest posting and then link exchanges.
- ‘Why’ and ‘What’ posts will generate 25.8% more backlinks than ‘how-to’ posts.
- Long-form content gets 77.2% more backlinks than short-form content.
- 60% of bloggers say they publish between one and five guest blogs per month to generate backlinks.
Domain Authority
- When a backlink comes from a higher domain rating, the domain will provide a bigger impact than those with lower domain authority.
- 59% of surveyed experts stated that they believed backlinks will become more essential in the future.
- 65% of marketing experts believe domain authority is the most vital metric for backlink quality.
- Websites that have more unique websites linking to them (unique root domains) will rank higher than those with fewer unique root domains.
- If SEO experts could only rank a link value by one metric, 34% would choose domain authority.
- Only 22% of SEO experts would look at the domain rating if they could use only one metric to determine the value of a link.
SEO Software and Services Statistics
- 51.3% of SEO and marketing experts prefer to use Semrush over Ahrefs.
- 60% of brands will contract their backlink campaigns to third parties.
- Most brands spend somewhere between $1000 and $15000+ on link-building campaigns.
- Brands who buy backlinks from a third-party app will spend an average 25% of their marketing budget on a backlink service.
- Google has been developing a new ‘nofollow’ attribute for backlinks, allowing them to become more important in backlinking strategies.
- Google Search Console, Moz, Semrush, Buzzstream, Ahrefs, Mail Shake, Screaming Frog, Majestic, and Pitchbox are the most popular link-building and tracking tools.
- Low-quality and authority links from third-party websites are priced (on average) from $150 to $300.
- High-authority websites offering contextual backlinks cost on average $700 to $1000.
- Just under 50% of SEO experts spend over $10,000 on link-building campaigns.
- 41% of SEO experts expect the cost of backlinks to increase as competition becomes tougher.
- 22% of brands spend between $1,000 and $2,5000 on their backlinking campaigns.
- Most quality backlinks can now cost brands over $1,000.
Backlink Strategy Statistics
- Only 8.5% of cold emails for backlinks will generate any interest.
- Sending a follow-up email can double the chances of success.
- The best day to send outreach emails for backlinks is Wednesday, as it has the highest response rate.
- Personalizing the body content of any email will generate 33% higher response rates.
- 51% of marketers say it can take between one and three months to see the benefit of any link-building campaign.
- Research has shown there is zero correlation between backlinks and social shares.
- 42% of businesses spend the same amount of time on internal and external linking.
- 24% of businesses spend more time building internal links than they do external links.
- 51% of SEO experts say brands need to include two to three internal links within the content.
- 36% of SEO experts say brands should include four or five internal links within any one blog post.
- 43.7% of the highest ranking pages on Google searches have links that also refer back to themselves. This is known as reciprocal back linking.
- 69% of marketers believe buying backlinks is highly effective at improving backlinks.
- 31% of digital marketers run an outreach backlink campaign for four weeks after a new piece of content is launched.
- 27% of digital marketers will never end a campaign about building links to a piece of content.
Final Word
Backlinks are a vital part of any SEO campaign. However, for successful campaigns, you must be proactive in building content that will attract links. Writing the best quality content online about a specific niche is more likely to generate the most links.
Brands should also not forget their internal linking. Then you can start looking for external sites to link back to your website.
