Link Building Statistics (2024)

Link building can make or break a website’s success, measured through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as ranking, traffic, and domain authority. Although the weight of its importance in SEO is often overlooked, the recent link building statistics we discovered attest to its withstanding significance.

When it comes to backlinks, the harder it was for the webmaster to acquire them, the more valuable the backlinks are in the eyes of Google. That’s why 52.3% of expert marketers say link building is the most challenging part of SEO.

Although backlinks are challenging, webmasters still race from left to right just to acquire them. On average, the top-ranking page on Google has 3.8 times more backlinks than those in positions two to 10. That means the more backlinks a page has, the higher its chances of being in the number one spot of the world’s most popular search engine.

Then again, success in link building does not come very easily. Authority Hacker (2024) stated that it takes around three months to observe the impact of links on the page’s search rankings. Regardless, the results are worth the wait.

There are many ways to do link building. One of the leading tactics is link exchange, practiced by 51.6% of link builders. The second best choice for link building is creating content specifically for backlinks. Those two strategies work best together and are proven to increase a website’s organic traffic.In this report, Linkbuilding.pro will break down the recent statistics about link building and learn what it tells us in the industry.

Link Building Statistics Key Findings

1. Link building is one of the hardest parts of SEO, driving 36% of businesses to hire a link building specialist or a freelancer to help with their link building efforts.
2. Page rankings are the number one key performance indicator (KPI) to measure the success of link building campaigns, used by 53% of marketers.
3. Almost 50% of marketers attest that it takes one to three months to see improvements in organic traffic and rankings from link building, while 30% believe link building results will show after three to six months.
4. Link exchange remains one of the most utilized methods of acquiring backlinks as a study found 43.7% of 112,440 top-ranking pages have reciprocal links.
5. Creating linkable content is a core link building strategy for 90% of marketers.

What is Link Building in SEO: The Toughest SEO Strategy to Achieve

Link Building in SEO Statistics

• 52.3% of marketers agree that link building is the most challenging part of SEO.
• 42% of SEO experts equally spend time on internal and external link building.
• Only 5% of all websites have backlinks directed to them

Link building is the most important SEO strategy for 13% of SEO specialists. At the same time, over 50% of digital marketers consider link building as the hardest part of SEO. 

The manual and extensive process of link building is time-consuming and could be expensive. Some even find the process impossible to succeed in. As a result, getting outside help has become a normal practice in SEO given the challenging nature of link building.

Linkbuilding feels impossible?
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The Redditor on the post talked about how they struggled with acquiring “dofollow” links, which are the main links that people want in SEO. 48% of SEO marketers still consider “nofollow” links part of their link building process.

Nofollow links were deemed unimportant before, but Google updated its policies in link attributes in 2019, giving nofollow links some importance. 

According to Google, nofollow links are now “hints” for the search engines to consider or exclude the website within Search. Meanwhile, dofollow links remain superior as they work as a direct signal that a website endorses another page.

Analyzing all the factors involved in link building requires some technical expertise and a creative eye. Since link building is not a one-man job, 60% of businesses hire SEO experts just to oversee their link building plan. Some employ a team of specialists rather than just one person.

SEO experts analyze various factors and other website elements to create tactics to increase your website’s brand visibility, organic traffic, sales, and profit.

Link Building Pricing in 2024: The Real Cost

Link Building Cost Statistics

• Low-quality backlinks cost around $300 to $500 when you buy them.
• High-authority and high-quality backlinks can cost $1,000 to $2,000.
• Site owners spend between $1,000 to $15,000 annually on link building.

The number one expense in link building is hiring professionals to maximize link building efforts.

Webmasters allocate around 10% to 31% of their SEO budget to link building. Furthermore, 42% of SEO professionals equally spend time on internal and external link building.

The lowest hourly rate for SEO experts is around $75 to $100. Meanwhile, 90% of them charge $150 per hour, while only 4.1% of SEO experts charge more than $200. 

Even though hiring experts will cost some money upfront, experienced webmasters recommend it. You’ll receive a significant return on your investment if you hire the right SEO expert for your link building efforts.

On the other hand, manually conducting your website’s link building process could cost you significant money and manpower. The average cost of manual link building is around $600 to $1,000. 

You can also buy backlinks. However, it’s against the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Still, many site owners buy backlinks to acquire them as quickly as possible. 

A low-quality backlink costs around $300 to $500 each, while high-quality ones are sold for $1,000 to $2,000. Although buying links has its risks, if you opt for this option, we suggest acquiring high-quality backlinks to ensure a return on your investment.

Ultimately, one out of four marketers spend $10,000 per year on link building, while 13% spend only $1,000 to $2,500. Some also pay over $15,000 to ensure a successful link building effort. 

As link building remains a relevant practice in SEO, 46% of marketers believe its costs will grow more.

Quality Link Building Examples: The Key Strategy to Rank in SEO

Link Building Strategies Statistics

• 93.8% of link builders prioritize backlink quality over quantity. 
• To measure the success of their link building efforts, 42.6% of link builders use domain authority (DA) and domain rating (DR).
• 91% of pages that have no backlinks get zero organic traffic.

The product of link building is backlinks, which are one-way links from another website to yours. SEO experts strategize their link building process to generate as many quality backlinks as possible. The success of backlinks and link building is commonly gauged by page rankings, which 53% of marketers consider the main KPI.

According to a study, the top-ranking page on Google has 3.8 times more backlinks than those ranked second to tenth. 

Based on further statistics, however, putting as many backlinks as you can to your page or website is not the objective of link building. According to 93.8% of link builders, link quality is always prioritized over quantity.

These statistics show numerous elements to consider when determining high-quality backlinks. However, the top three qualities to consider are the website’s reputation, context relevance, and how natural the link placement is.

Let’s dive further into what the statistics say about the qualities determining high-quality links.

Reputation Plays a Role in Link Building

The first aspect that SEO experts consider for link building is a website’s DA or DR. It’s a metric that indicates how likely a website appear in search engine results pages (SERPs).

DA and DR scores range from 1 to 100. One determines the lowest probability of ranking, while 100 is the highest.

Acquiring backlinks from websites with high DR and DA signals to Google that your website has the vote of confidence of reputable platforms. This interaction allows the referring site to pass on its high authority score to your page.

When choosing a page to put a backlink of your website, follow the 42.6% of link builders who highly consider DA and DR as a metric. Meanwhile, for 65.4% of SEO experts, domain ranking is more significant than the number of links on a page when it comes to ranking on SERPs.

Backlink Relevance is Crucial in Link Building

Apart from ensuring backlinks are placed on a website with a high domain rating or authority, the right amount of relevant backlinks is also crucial to guarantee quality.

Note

Based on our extensive research, the “relevance” of backlinks is a bit of a gray area in link building. 

The general understanding of backlink relevance involves collaborating with websites related to your industry. For example, your website publishes technology-related news, and one of your articles was cited by TechRadar, one of the biggest tech blogs. Receiving a backlink from TechRadar, which has a domain rating of (XX), shows Google that your news-tech website is as reputable as TechRadar. Therefore, your website’s domain rating and organic traffic increases. 

Another way we understand relevance in the link building industry is through topic-specific relevance. Your website could be backlinked to a specific page, even from a website in a different industry, but as long as the page’s content or topic is relevant to your page, that could work as well.

Taking the relevance of backlinks into consideration, 36% of SEO experts say 3 to 5 internal links will suffice in one post, ensuring all links are consistent and relevant.

Good Backlinks Must Sound Natural, For the Readers and the Search Engines

The next factor in link building is putting them in natural anchor texts. Your backlinks must be linked in contextual words or phrases that already give readers an idea about the link’s destination. 

Placing backlinks in natural anchor texts also prevents you from putting them in exact keywords. Otherwise, search engines will think you’re trying to manipulate your page’s rankings. It will also show that you wrote your page’s content more for ranking than for the reader’s gain.

Note

Link builders used to generate as many backlinks as possible and still rank higher However, that ceased when Google released the Penguin update in 2012. It was enforced to avoid web spamming, leading to the biggest alteration of the backlinking game.

The Penguin update is still part of Google’s core algorithm and has helped create a solid definition of what is a good backlink. Now, quality backlinks are the goal instead of quantity for impact rankings, which 56.2% of webmasters believe and practice.

Balancing Quality with Quantity is Just As Crucial

Reports on link building recommend prioritizing the quality of backlinks. However, those who have mastered acquiring high-quality backlinks can then focus on the quantity. After all, the quantity of backlinks still contributes to your link building strategy’s overall success. 

At least 56% of marketers believe the quantity and quality of links highly impact page rankings. According to Authority Hacker, experienced link builders generate 3.57 times more links than beginners, while the average webmaster builds at least 10 links monthly.

In the long run, you’ll have to balance maintaining backlink quality and acquiring its recommended quantity.

How Quality Backlinks are Measured

To achieve quality backlinks, you must learn how they’re measured. Otherwise, you couldn’t work towards a clear goal.

According to 65% of marketers, domain rating and domain authority are the most important metrics to measure a good backlink. When you have high-quality backlinks from reputable websites, your site will also grow its DR and DA. Ahrefs is the primary tool used in SEO to measure DA and DR, utilized by 64.9% of link builders.

Another telling measure of successful link building is whether it helps generate higher organic traffic. Numerous studies show a clear connection between the number of backlinks on a website and the traffic it generates.

What is Link Building and Why is it Important: The Real Benefits of Successful Link Building

Link Building Benefits Statistics

• Link building is the most important part of the SEO strategy of 79.7% of SEOs.
• While the average link building result appears after 3.1 months, 30% of marketers see its effects after three to six months.
• Three of four SEOs report a satisfactory return on investment from their link building campaigns.

A successful link building effort reaps numerous positive outcomes for your website. However, it takes an average of 3.1 months to see any beneficial impacts of backlinks on your website’s ranking, as experienced by 49% of SEO marketers. Meanwhile, 30% of marketers see the effects of their backlinking efforts after three to six months.

That said, a huge part of your link building effort is a waiting game. Once that time has passed, you can notice positive results such as:

• Better crawl rate
• Improved trust score
• Reduced bounce rates
• Increased passive income 
• Increased domain authority
• Enhanced web page visibility
• Increased sales and revenue
• Improved website and page rankings
• Increased brand and website credibility

With all these benefits of successful link-building, 78.1% of SEOs report a satisfying return on investment from their link building efforts. As long as you do it right and ensure your backlinks check the three important qualities—relevance, reputable, and natural—then your link building efforts won’t go to waste.

The State of Link Building: Is Link Exchange Dead in 2024?

Link Exchange Statistics

• 43.7% of top-ranked pages on Google have reciprocal links. 
• 73.6% of high-authority domains use the link exchange strategy for link building.
• Only 10.9% of SEOs use link exchange as a link building tactic.

One aspect of link building that seemingly divides the industry is link exchange. It’s also called reciprocal linking, where websites agree to link to each other’s content.

Based on Authority Hacker’s recent survey, 51.6% of link builders utilize link exchange to acquire backlinks. Meanwhile, we can assume, that the other half does not see link exchange 

as a valuable practice. 

There’s even a myth that link exchange is dead. 

That’s because Google’s Webmaster Guidelines state that the excessive exchange of links is considered a “link scheme,” making it against SEO policies. 

For Google, a link scheme is an unfair manipulation of website ranking using links. Any website caught link scheming will be penalized, rendering all your links worthless and would even lead to your website’s suspension.

Due to Google’s linking rules and its business-altering penalties,  some webmasters don’t want to take the chance and avoid link exchange altogether.

Regardless of doubts involving this strategy, link exchange is not a dead link building practice. Some link builders still practice link exchange. 

According to a study of over 112,440 top-ranking websites, 43.7% have reciprocal links. That means your website still has a chance to succeed despite having reciprocal links.

Websites with reciprocal links get away with it because they do it subtly and with vigilance. As long as you check the three boxes of a quality backlink and do not overdo it, even a reciprocal link could look right in Google’s eyes.

After looking at all the statistics we can about link exchange, our verdict is that the practice is right for some, while wrong for others. They will serve your website well if you do it appropriately, while others’ rankings could take a hit, so proceed with caution.

Link Building Trends 2024: Creating Linkable Content Is the Rising Link Building Strategy

Link Building Trends Statistics

• Long-form quality content gets 77.2% more backlinks than shorter pages.
• 89% of marketers create content solely for link building.
• Infographics, “Why” and “What” posts generate 25.8% more links than “How-to” pages.

The most important factor in SEO is creating quality content. High-quality content refers to content that is informative and relevant.

Combining high-quality content with high-quality backlinks brings more SEO power to each other. According to most SEOs, high-quality content and backlinks work best to drive your website’s organic traffic. That’s why 90% of marketers consider quality content part of their link building core strategy.

Creating quality content for backlinks is part of content marketing, a rising link building tactic utilized by 12.5% of SEOs.

Some popular forms of linkable content are:

• Statistics pages
• Studies and data
• Non-commercial pages like product pages

Statistics prove that long-form content gets 77.2% more links than shorter ones. That means quality content with over 3,000 words receives more backlinks than content with less than 3,000 words.

The Skyscraper Technique in Creating Linkable Content for Link Building

Another prevalent tactic in link building is the Skyscraper Technique, coined by link building expert and Backlinko founder Brian Dean in 2013. It’s a strategy where you improve existing content and replicate its backlinks.

First, you must find a popular topic and content about it. Then, create a better article than the existing one. Finally, ask those who linked to similar content to replace their links with your superior article.

Brian Dean swore his website’s organic traffic has increased by 110% in just two weeks using the Skyscraper Technique. Dean sent out 160 emails, following his technique’s last step, and secured 17 high-quality backlinks. Overall, that’s an 11% success rate. 

A decade after its emergence, the Skyscraper Technique has become an oversaturated practice in the link building industry. In an online survey by Ahrefs, 61% of SEO marketers believe the Skyscraper Technique still works. This statistic reflects the competitive nature of link building and content creation in SEO, that even lucrative strategies can slowly fail over time.

Consider Doing Outreach Link Building If You Haven’t Yet

Link Building Outreach Statistics

• Personalizing your backlink outreach email will give you a 33% higher response rate.
• It takes at least 8 days before an outreach email gets converted to a backlink.
• For most, only 8.5% of backlink outreach emails become a link. 

There’s a lot of manual effort involved in link building, and a chunk of that is spent on outreach. Link building outreach involves asking other sites or influencers to create backlinks to your website.

You’ll have to find a linkable page and contact its creator or editor through cold outreach emails. Your email must be concise and personal. According to the latest data, personalized emails for backlink outreach have a 33% higher response rate.

Statistics also show that addressing your recipient by first name could increase your backlink acquisition rate by 50%!

We also discovered that Wednesday is the best time to do a cold outreach for backlinks. It has the highest response rates recorded among all days in the week. 

If your recipient does not respond within five to seven days, don’t hesitate to follow up at least twice. Following up could generate 40% more links.

Backlink outreach is tedious, with only 8.5% of backlink outreach emails receiving a response. You must consistently send cold emails to high-authority websites and follow up accordingly when they do not respond.

The best time to do a backlink outreach is up to four weeks following the release of the content you want to link to. Outreach initiatives are conducted by 31% of marketers to increase the links to fresh content.

In the end, when your backlink outreach is successful, not only do you gain high-quality backlinks, but you could also develop a relationship with other site owners and re-collaborate for more.

Link Building Is Still a Relevant SEO Practice and Will Continue to Be

Link building has always been a crucial practice in SEO. Data dictates link building will remain relevant in five years, with 94% of marketers anticipating its continued influence on Google rankings. That forecast goes well, with 65.2% of SEO professionals believing links will remain or even develop a stronger influence on search engine rankings until 2028.

Although link building sounds like a lot of work, it’s one of the most important strategies for succeeding in SEO. The statistics show how link building is crucial in the industry, revealing how quality backlinks positively influence your site’s overall success. 

Learning about the best link building practices from a statistical point of view will help you determine the best method of backlink acquisition for you. Regardless, we recommend maximizing the many ways of backlink acquisition available to you.

If you have limited time and resources to commit to extensive link building practices, you can use trusted services like Linkbuilding.pro to acquire the highest quality links.