Is link building that critical to your overall page ranking? According to some recent statements by senior analysts at Google, the two most important ranking factors are content and link building. The reality of it is that link building is similar in nature to your social proof in that it provides authority and builds trust for your brand. Without those links leading back to you, your chances of dominating in your chosen keywords is almost zero.
In some recently published data by Userp, it shows the true importance of building those links. The following is taken directly from that published data:
- Content pieces and backlinks are the top two most important factors for ranking on Google. (Google)
- The first ranking page on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions 2-10.
- Websites with more unique root domains on average outrank websites with less unique root domains. (Backlinko). 95% of all pages online have zero backlinks pointing to their website.
- 65% of digital marketers state that link building is the hardest part of SEO (SEO Tribunal)
- Links from higher domain rating websites are more impactful than links from lower domain rating websites.
- Listicle content generates the highest amount of unique backlinks in comparison to all other blog post content types (Moz)
- Exact match anchor text backlinks are no more effective at increasing content rankings than non-exact match anchor text (Ahrefs)
- 58.1% of SEOs believe that backlinks have a big impact on search engine rankings (uSERP State of Link Building).
- 65% of marketers believe domain rating / domain authority is the most important metric for overall backlink quality.
- The most important factors to determine the quality of backlinks are; unique root domain, domain rating / domain authority, content quality, website traffic, relevance to your niche.
- 90% of marketers utilize content pieces as their main way to generate more backlinks. (Moz)
- 91% of all pages on the internet get zero organic traffic, mostly because they have zero backlinks pointing to their content. (Impact)
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
