Google is constantly changing its algorithm to deliver better results to searchers. But, year after year, backlinks continue to be an important ranking signal. 

Links from other sites pass authority to your site. They remain the clearest indicator that you’re a good source of information and worth ranking on the first page.

However, thanks to updates like Google Penguin (which focuses on link quality), you can’t just blast your site with low-quality links and expect to rank number one overnight.

Quantity is not the end-goal now. Quality is. White hat earned links. But don’t take our word for it. Take Google’s John Mueller: 

Quality, digital PR backlinks (links in content your ideal customers actually read, on sites you actually recognize) move the needle and improve your EAT.

So what does work when it comes to link building? What tools and strategies are professionals in the industry using to get results?

To find out, we surveyed 800 folks in the SEO industry to get their thoughts on the importance, strategies, and impact of link building.

This State of Link Building report is broken down into the following chapters:

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s get into it.

Our Participants

Before diving into the link building results, here’s some background information about our participants.

What kind of company do you work for and/or own?

We were interested in knowing what kind of company our respondents worked for.

• Personal website: 25%
• Freelancer / contractor: 20%
• Agency: 16%
• In-house SEO / SEO for a brand: 15%
• Consulting / strategy: 12%
• Other: 12%

A quarter of the participants we surveyed (25) indicated that they do SEO for their own personal websites, followed by 20% who either freelance or work as a contractor. 

Only 16% of participants responded that they work in marketing agencies and 15% do in-house SEO.

How many years have you worked in digital marketing? 

Next, we were interested to know how long our participants have been in the industry to gauge their experience.

• 1-3 years: 58%
• 3-5 years: 25%
• 5 or more years: 17%

58% of respondents indicated they’ve been in the industry for 1 to 3 years. This was followed by 25% who have worked in digital marketing for 3 to 5 years and 17% who have been in the industry for 5 or more years (SEO specific).

A healthy mix of respondents to hear both old and new opinions. Nice!

Now let’s dive straight into the link building data.

The Impact of Link Building

In this section, we asked participants to share their views on the impact of link building on organic rankings, its importance in their SEO strategy, and more. 

How much of an impact do you think backlinks have on search engine rankings?

We asked participants to select how much of an impact they think that backlinks have on rankings.

How much of an impact do you think backlinks have on search engine rankings?

• Big impact: 67.5%
• Moderate impact: 30%
• Low impact: 2.5%

More than half of our participants (67.5%) indicated that backlinks have a big impact on search engine rankings, while 30% said that links have a moderate impact. 

Just 2.5% said that links have a low impact on rankings.

Takeaway

Over half of the professionals we surveyed see a strong correlation between backlinks and search engine rankings.

Unless you’re targeting an extremely obscure keyword in a non-competitive niche, trying to rank without any links is next to impossible. Sites that rank number one have 3.8x more backlinks than sites that rank in positions 2 to 10. 

Here are some of our favorite outreach link building strategies to build high quality backlinks:

• Guest columns: Guest columns, or guest blogging, involves publishing content on relevant websites. In exchange, you get a high quality link to your site and build E-A-T signals. Win win! 
• Requesting a link: This approach is more straightforward. It involves finding blogs in your industry and simply requesting that they add a link to your site. Warning: this is heavily saturated. You should have a clear-cut outreach strategy in place. Just blindly firing off emails will net zero links. 
• Broken link building: Broken link building involves finding broken backlinks on other websites and recommending they fix it with a link to a similar resource on your site. 
• Blogger outreach: This link building strategy involves collaborating with bloggers in your industry and getting them to link back to your site.

Using these strategies will help you build quality backlinks. 

---

---

When building links, do you believe in quality or quantity to make the biggest impact on rankings and authority?

We wanted to find out what our participants believe have the most impact on rankings and authority — quality or quantity.

Google has made it clear for a long time: quantity of links doesn’t matter.

But the real answer is more nuanced. More, high-quality links surely makes an impact.

Personally, we think it’s both (if quality is met). However, if we HAD to pick one, quality would win. But, who cares what we think. Here’s what 800+ SEOs think:

• Quality: 35.9%
• Quantity: 7.8%
• Both: 56.2%

More than half of the respondents (56.2%) answered that both backlink quality and quantity had the biggest impact on rankings and authority. 

This was followed by 35.9% of participants who believe that the quality of backlinks has a higher impact and 7.8% who indicated that quantity matters more.

Takeaway

---

---

---

Over half of respondents indicated that both quality and quantity have the most impact on rankings.

Not all backlinks are equal. Google considers the context and relevance of a link when determining how much “juice” it passes.

A single link from an authoritative site in your industry will outweigh hundreds of links from spammy and irrelevant sites. 

Of course, depending on how competitive your target keywords are, just building one link (no matter where it comes from) is unlikely to move the needle considerably.

---

---

Do you think that nofollow links improve your authority and/or rankings?

We were interested to know whether professionals in the industry believed that nofollow links impact authority and/or rankings.

Nofollow links have been the source of controversy for years. Some SEOs think they’re worthless. Others think they’re better. The results are now in:

• Yes: 54% 
• Maybe: 34%
• No: 12%

More than half of participants in our survey (54%) indicated that nofollow links improve authority and/or rankings, while 34% said these links might have an impact, but weren’t fully confident in comparison to followed backlinks.

---

---

We agree Jeremy, wholeheartedly. 

Takeaway

Over half of respondents have indicated that nofollow links have an impact on authority and rankings, while a third said it depends. 

Nofollow links have largely been regarded as worthless. The rel=“nofollow” HTML tag tells Google to ignore those links.

But Google made some major changes to how it treats nofollow links:

“When nofollow was introduced, Google would not count any link marked this way as a signal to use within our search algorithms. This has now changed. All the link attributes — sponsored, UGC and nofollow — are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. We’ll use these hints — along with other signals — as a way to better understand how to appropriately analyze and use links within our systems.”

In other words, Google’s algorithm doesn’t entirely discredit nofollow links. Instead they’ll use these as “hints” to determine their impact accordingly.

---

---

The takeaway here is to not completely ignore nofollow links. Nofollow links from trusted sites carry value (according to half of our participants) and can generate a ton of referral traffic.

How much of an impact do you think link building has on your brand authority?

We were also keen to find out whether our participants believed that link building impacts brand authority.

Brand authority is vague, but becoming increasingly important. Rand Fishkin of SparkToro believes they are just as important as actual backlinks, calling these mentions inferred links. 

• Big impact: 85%
• Low impact: 15%

An overwhelming majority of respondents (85%) indicated that link building has a big impact on brand authority. 15% said that links have a low impact on brand authority.

Takeaway

---

---

A majority of SEO professionals we surveyed believe that backlinks impact brand authority.

To build your brand authority, link building needs to be a priority. Backlinks signal to Google that others find your site valuable enough to link to it.

Check out this resource, “How to Increase Domain Authority” for tips to build your authority and make your site more trustworthy.

How important are backlinks in your SEO or content strategy? 

Next, we asked our participants to answer how important backlinks are for their SEO and content strategy. 

• Equal priority to content: 47.5%
• They are my main priority: 40%
• If I get them, I get them: 12.5%

47.5% of our participants indicated that backlinks are equally important to content. This was followed by 40% who said that backlinks are their main priority.

Takeaway

The results indicate that half of professionals in the industry spend equal amounts of time on link building and content creation.

It’s interesting to note that 12.5% of respondents selected “If I get them, I get them.” This suggests that some professionals take a more passive approach to link building, likely in less competitive niches.

However, a majority place them as either equally or more important. 

---

---

In the next few years, do you believe that backlinks will have more or less of an impact on search engine rankings?

We were interested to know how our participants felt about the future of backlinks on search engine rankings.

• More impact: 59%
• The same impact: 35.5%
• Less impact: 5.5%

Over half of respondents (59%) indicated that backlinks would have more of an impact in the next few years, while 35.5% said they would have the same impact. 

This was followed by 5.5% of respondents who indicated that links would have less of an impact in the coming years.

Takeaway

Backlinks are alive and well. A significant majority of respondents indicated that backlinks would have more or the same impact on rankings in the coming years.

There’s strong reason to believe that backlinks will continue to have a measurable impact on rankings. And the data that we got confirms that assumption.

While we can’t know for sure, it’s becoming increasingly more saturated. Content is better than ever, making distinguishing quality harder. Links are a great indication that your content is good enough for great websites to refer to it as a valuable resource. 

Link Building Process and Strategies

In this section, we asked our participants about the strategies they use to build backlinks, which ones deliver the best results, how much they spend, and more.

Do you use agencies, freelancers or contractors for link building?

We wanted to find out how many of our participants outsource their link building to agencies or freelancers.

• Yes: 60%
• No, it’s all in-house: 29%
• Both: 11%

More than half of respondents (60%) indicated that they work with link building service providers, freelancers, or contractors for link building while over a quarter (29%) said they manage their link building efforts in-house.

---

---

Takeaway

Link building is a time-consuming effort. It’s not surprising that more than half outsource their link building. 

In addition, outsourcing allows for almost instant results compared to establishing workflows, testing pitching, and refining a process over months and years. 

What we did find interesting though is that 11% indicated they do both, doubling up their efforts.

How much do you spend on link building every month?

We were interested to find out how much professionals in the industry spend each month on link building, directly.

• $1,000 – $5,000: 35.5%
• $5,000 – $10,000: 46.5%
• $10,000+: 18%

Takeaway

To remain competitive and increase rankings, many in the industry are allocating some of their marketing budget towards link building.

Link building costs depend on tons of different factors. But the average cost for low authority links is $300 per link.

Digital PR style, high authority contextual backlinks (links that appear naturally within the body of an article) cost anywhere from $500 to $2,000.

It’s important to note that there are different factors that affect link costs. These include domain rating, site traffic, relevance, link placement, anchor text, and many more.

What link building tactics do you use?

This question focuses on the tactics that respondents used to build links and asked them to select all that apply.

• Digital PR: 16%
• Content marketing: 13%
• Guest posting: 12%
• Link insertions: 10%
• Link exchanges: 10%
• Directory link building: 9.5%
• Redirecting domains: 8.5%
• Press releases: 4%
• Broken link building: 5%
• Unclaimed brand mentions: 10%

The responses were fairly close as you can see. 

However, digital PR and content marketing were the clear winners. This was followed by 12% who selected guest posting to build links. 

Takeaway

---

---

Content marketing remains a popular link building strategy. Engaging content that delivers value is more likely to earn links than content that was haphazardly put together.

It’s interesting to see other link building tactics evenly split. This seems to suggest that respondents are aiming for a more varied backlink profile.

Which of these link building tactics provides the strongest results for you?

Of course, we also wanted to know which strategies provided the strongest results and asked respondents to select those that apply.

• Content marketing: 18%
• Guest posting: 12%
• Link exchange: 10%
• Link insertions: 10%
• Directory link building: 5%
• Unclaimed mentions: 12%
• Press release: 2%
• Redirecting domains: 5%
• Broken link building: 5%
• Digital PR: 20%

Takeaway

The most popular link building strategies — digital PR and content marketing — also delivered the strongest results. Publishing quality content and pitching it remains an effective way to earn links.

These types of links boost domain authority and result in a ton of referral traffic when done right.

Link Building Tools and Reporting

What tools do respondents use for link building? What metrics do they use to measure the quality of a backlink? That’s what this section is all about.

Reporting and tools can be controversial in SEO and link building in particular. 

---

---

Which tools do you use for link building, measuring, and reporting?

This question asked respondents about the tools they use to build, measure, and report backlinks. 

• Google Search Console: 25%
• Buzzstream: 10%
• Pitchbox: 5%
• Mailshake: 5%
• Majestic: 5%
• Screaming Frog: 10%
• Ahrefs: 15%
• SEMrush: 21%
• Moz: 4%

25% of respondents indicated they use Google Search Console for link building. This was followed by 21% who use Semrush and 15% who use Ahrefs, amongst things like Pitchbox, Buzzstream, and other popular tools that are used for blogger outreach and link promotion.

Takeaway

Google Search Console was by far the link building tool of choice for nearly a quarter of our participants (25%) for link building, measuring, and reporting. 

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that lets webmasters measure their search traffic and troubleshoot issues. Based on our data, it’s clear that many professionals are getting tons of value from this tool with their link building efforts.

Takeaway

Here we see that Google Search Console is a preferred link building tool.

Google Search Console is a widely used link building tool — you can use it to monitor external links, track rankings for certain keywords, and more.

But Google Search Console falls short in many aspects of link building. 

For example, while you can see external backlinks, you can’t see who is linking to your competitors. The tool also doesn’t show who is outranking you and why.

We’ve seen strategies like guest posting providing strong results for our participants. But you can’t use Google Search Console to find publishers in your niche and send outreach emails. 

To do all of this, you’d have to purchase additional tools and hire an in-house team to manage your link building efforts. Another option is to outsource your link building.

Here’s a quick look at in-house vs. outsourcing for backlinks:

In-house:

• Tools like Ahrefs, Buzzstream, and email finders are expensive
• Need a VA (virtual assistant) to build lists for outreach
• Need to hire content writers and managers for the project

Taking your link building efforts in-house is expensive, time-consuming, and extremely difficult to scale unless you have sizable resources.

Outsourcing:

• Flat fee for guaranteed performance
• Near instant results
• Completely hands off

Outsourcing your link building offers a ton of benefits. It’s also highly scalable, so you can start with an initial budget and gradually ramp up as your traffic starts growing.

What metric(s) do you use to measure the quality of a backlink?

This question asks participants to select the metric they use to measure the quality of a backlink.

• Site traffic: 30%
• Domain Scores (DR, DA, AS, etc): 33.5%
• Niche / website relevance: 13.5%
• Unique vs. recurring root domain: 3%
• Anchor text: 10%
• Referral Traffic: 10%

---

---

Takeaway 

It’s clear that professionals in the industry have different methods for valuing a link. Some look at referral traffic, while others look at metrics like Domain Authority.

Why the discrepancy? 

Because measuring the “quality” of a backlink isn’t easy. Google doesn’t outright tell us what factors it weighs more than others. At the same time, metrics like Domain Rating can still be a useful way to measure backlink quality. 

Moreover, your focus should be holistic and not on any single metric. As Brian Dean alluded to, metrics can be gamed. So take a detailed approach to all the factors above to assess true quality.

---

---

What is your main KPI when measuring the effectiveness of building links?

Finally, we wanted to ask participants about the main KPI (Key Performance Indicator) they use when measuring the effectiveness of building links. 

• Traffic increase: 22.5%
• Ranking increase: 19%
• Total links: 10.5%
• Number of unique root domains: 12%
• Referral traffic from links: 13%
• Conversions from referral traffic: 13%
• DR/DA increase: 10%

22.5% of respondents look at overall traffic increase as a main KPI when measuring the effectiveness of a link. This was followed by 19% who look at organic rankings.

Takeaway

Professionals look at increases in overall traffic and rankings as key indicators when determining the effectiveness of their link building efforts.

Final thoughts

The key takeaway from our survey is that a majority of SEO professionals still believe that backlinks have a big impact on rankings and brand authority.

We hope that you found this State of Link Building Report useful. And we want to thank everyone who participated.