How Many Backlinks Do I Need In order to Rank? Explained for Beginners in 2022.
In this article, we’ll answer the question, “how many backlinks do I need to rank?”
But before we answer this question, let's take a look at what backlinks are, how they're earned and whether or not they are essential in ranking your blog.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks are also called inbound links, they are links from one website to a page on another website. It lets Google know that your website and its content are relevant and credible. Backlinks also improve your Domain Authority which makes your site rank better on Google. When it comes to backlinks, quality matters.
You need to focus on quality backlinks as not all backlinks are useful
- Backlinks must come from trusted websites
- Site linking to your page must be topically related to yours.
- Link must be from a domain that hasn't linked to you before
- Link must be a "dofollow" link etc.
There are two basic types of links namely, nofollow and do follow links. Let’s take a quick look at each one and how they affect your site.
Nofollow vs Dofollow links - what's the difference?
A nofollow link, or backlink, is a link which does not pass authority on to the website it is linking to. These links do not help in terms of SEO.
While,
A dofollow link is a link that helps in terms of SEO by passing the authority of the origin site to the destination site. This passing of authority is called, “link juice.” Acquiring dofollow backlinks will help improve a website’s domain authority, or domain rating, which in turn, helps to improve keyword ranking.
Why Are Backlinks Important?
Backlinks are important for SEO because they signal to Google that another resource finds your content valuable enough to link to it within their own content. As a website earns additional backlinks, search engines infer that the website possesses valuable content worth ranking well on the SERPs.
How Are Backlinks Earned?
Backlinks are earned in three primary ways.
Natural links; These are links which are directed towards a webmasters domain without any action on the part of the webmaster. One of the best ways to organically obtain natural links is by consistently creating high-quality content.
Manual links; These are links acquired through link earning activities, such as Guest blogging for a relevant website inorder to gain manual links. Be sure to link to your website within the content.
Self-created; These are links that are created, when a site manager manually adds a backlink into a forum, blog comment, or online directory. Alot of these tactics tend to lean towards “black hat SEO” strategies, that negatively impact search engine reputation.
How many backlinks do I need to rank?
The exact number of backlinks you'll need in order to rank a web page depends on one major thing which is
The competition of your focus keyword.
There isn't a said amount of backlinks a website should have because all keywords aren't the same. The higher the competition of a keyword the more backlinks you'll need in order to rank your website.
Although, there are estimated variables of how many backlinks you'll need in order to rank.
One good thing to note is that these numbers are just estimates that can help webmasters get an idea of what it takes to rank on search engines.
If you want to know how many backlinks you'll need in order to rank you can simply use the ahrefs keyword difficulty checker.
- Go to ahrefs, scroll down to the footer menu.
- Look for the ‘keyword difficulty checker’ click on it.
- Input the keyword word you want to rank for.
ahrefs will then show you the keyword difficulty of your search term as well as an estimated amount of backlinks you'll need in order to rank.
You're welcome. 😊
FAQs
Can I rank without backlinks?
Absolutely, you can rank your website without backlinks. It might be difficult, but it's totally possible. Backlinks are just one of the factors affecting the SERPs. A well optimized blog post with little or no backlinks can outrank big websites that are poorly optimized for Search engines. This is because Google takes two things seriously when ranking a page on the SERPs which are
Quality of content and Level of optimization.
Can I get backlinks organically?
Yes, you can get backlinks organically. All you have to do is to publish quality content that other blogs would want to link to.
Should I get backlinks to my homepage or to my blog post?
If you build backlinks to your blog post it will boost your websites overall Domain Authority, Similarly if you build backlinks to your homepage it will also boost your DA but linking to individual posts might increase the page's chances of ranking on the SERPs.
Should I build backlinks to my website?
Well, Yes but it should be done in the right way. Backlinks aren't something to be bought or acquired backlinks in an unatural manner.
According to google;
Strategies like blog networks, paid links and spamming just won’t work and will definitely get your site banned.
Conclusion.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post, and I was able to answer your question;
“how many backlinks do I need to rank?”
if you have any comments or suggestions leave them in the comments.
