Can I rank without links
-
Let's say I have great content. I have a great website design (easy to navigate for user) that answers their questions but I have no links. Can I still rank on on a keyword that has a difficulty score of 24.
I imagine that I can that google can't penalise me for not having links.
Does it mean that without links it will take longer to rank than with links but that google with rank me at some point ?
Thank you,
-
Good idea but how do I check what content is successful for my competitor ?
Thank you,
-
The key is competitor analysis I would say in your case to work out what content the others are doing successfully. In reality, I have worked in similar (managed apartments that could be rented for work or holiday in well-known cities) and done posts around attractions that have earned links ultimately increasing the site's authority and rankings. I did an outreach campaign asking the places for some input and images that we could use then I wrote the post and sent it to them. These were posts such as top attractions in x.
-
Thank for sending the information about Brian Deans Skyscraper technique. I checked his article and video and this is great but very difficult to do in certain industries like mine (the travel industry). In the travel industry, you don't answer questions or solve problems, like you do in seo. In the travel industry everyone wants the best deal but nobody is going to link to you other than journalists that work for travel publications when the decide to write an article about traveling to Tuscany and you do tours in Tuscany and you are famous (because if you are not they won't talk about you) and becoming famous requires lots of money !
Creating blog article is a good idea but nobody is going to link to me (at least I think) if I write about the best restaurants in Florence. First it isn't related to my industry (travel industry) and does anyone link to that ?
Just trying to find out what do write about to get the interest of people.
Thank you,
-
Have a look at Brian Deans Skyscraper technique - backlinko.com. in general if you put relevant content (such as decent long form blog posts) out in front of a relevant audience such as on social media you will find you automatically start to pick links up. Engage with influencers and interact with their stuff - you will find they often reciprlocate. Another technique that can be quite successful is asking others to guest post on your site or include their tips in an expert round up - that way you are often getting links without directly asking for a link. Great thing is if they don’t link other fans often will and either way you are adding more quality content to your site.
-
That makes sense. My question now is what is the best way to earn links without asking ? Create blog pages ?
Thank you,
-
Hmm, I am a big advocate of quality content and a good user experience with decent on-page SEO having a positive impact on rankings. However the majority of high ranking sites all have links - after all, they are a vote of confidence in the eyes of Google (obviously a very broad statement and not all links are equal or help). If your site is that good and lots of people visit it you would expect to earn links whether you actively go after them or not. In order to help yourself why would you not try to earn links, I would say, even if a low competition term.
In relation to your original post will it take longer to rank? There are lots of factors that can impact this but I would say it will definitely take you longer to rank and your rank would likely be lower. At a very basic level if you take two local business sites and one site does nothing other than have a great site and no links, yet the other has an equally good site but it has set up it's Google My Business and made sure it has links from relevant local directories plus maybe some local media/interest sites - Which do you think Google would trust more and rank higher? I have had some great sites that have come to me as clients - well optimised with nothing major needing changing to optimise the site but their rankings have all improved significantly in a short period of a few months through a structured outreach campaign earning links and ultimately increasing the DA. One final thought - even zero backlink experiments that have been successful have ended up naturally earning links and increasing their DA - to an extent worthy content in front of the right audience, such as social media, earns exposure/links.
Hope this makes sense...
-
On competitive keywords ? are you sure ?
is the delay to rank longer in that case ?
-
Yes you can rank without links. The key to SEO is being better than your competition. If your competition (for that keyword) is not using links and your overall optimization for that keyword is better, then you are more likely to rank. Be aware that any day your competitors might decide to improve optimization for that keyword and surpass you.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Does redirecting a duplicate page NOT in Google‘s index pass link juice? (External links not showing in search console)
Hello! We have a powerful page that has been selected by Google as a duplicate page of another page on the site. The duplicate is not indexed by Google, and the referring domains pointing towards that page aren’t recognized by Google in the search console (when looking at the links report). My question is - if we 301 redirect the duplicate page towards the one that Google has selected as canonical, will the link juice be passed to the new page? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lewald10 -
Reasonable to Ask URL of Link from SEO Providing New Links before Link Activation?
My firm has hired an SEO to create links to our site. We asked the SEO to provide a list of domains that they are targeting for potential links. The SEO did not agree to this request on the grounds that the list is their unique intellectual property. Alternatively I asked the SEO to provide the URL that will be linking to our site before the link is activated. The SEO did not agree to this. However, they did say we could provide comments afterwards so they could tweak their efforts when the next 4-5 links are obtained next month. The SEO is adamant that the links will not be spam. For whatever it is worth the SEO was highly recommended. I am an end user; the owner and operator of a commercial real estate site, not an SEO or marketing professional. Is this protectiveness over process and data typical of link building providers? I want to be fair with the provider and hope I will be working with them a long time, however I want to ensure I receive high quality links. Should I be concerned? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan0 -
How Can I Rank My Website Quickly and get traffic 20k per months
Hello moz webmasters, PLZ tell me How Can I Rank My Website Quickly and get traffic 20k per months. if you have backlinks lists of edu and gov sites plz donate me. check my site https://www.steemseo.com [Link removed by a forum moderator.]
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tushartosi0 -
ECommerce website with link to manufactures site for ordering - Should these links be follow or no follow?
Dear Mozzers, I have a couple of questions regarding link juice and whether I should have do follow or no follow links ? We have an affiliate eCommerce website and on our product pages we have a "Order online " button which will go our subdomain on the manufactures site in order for the user to complete the online ordering process So it's - www.ourcompany.co.uk - "Order Online Button" - www.manufactuer.ourcompany.co.uk Should this " Order online Button" be a Follow or No Follow link ? I ask this as currently from looking at Majestic seo , these "order online " buttons on my product pages seems to be Follow links so am I losing potential link juice by sending it externally ? Am I correct in assuming by changing it to be no follows, I would increase the link juice going elsewhere internally? thanks Pete
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Links with Parameters
The links from the home page to some internal pages on my site have been coded in the following format by my tech guys: www.abc.com/tools/page.html?hpint_id=xyz If I specify within my Google Webmaster tools that the parameter ?hpint_id should be ignored and content for the user does not change, Will Google credit me for a link from the home page or am I losing something here. Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | harmit360 -
Do nofollow links affect link profile?
I've read that it's good to keep a natural link profile. Some naked links, some links going to our company name, some with anchor text, etc. Do nofollow links affect this link profile, or is it only followed links that are taken into account?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lighttable0 -
Too many links?
I've recently taken over a site from another agency, which has hundreds of linking root domains. These domains are of very low quality and, in my opinion, are being ignored by Google. Is it best to 'clean up' some of these links, or leave them and start building quality links? I just don't want to waste time cleaning link profiles if there's no need.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A_Q0 -
Too many links!
Hi, I'm running a wordpress blog (modhop.com) and am getting the "too many links" on almost all of my pages. It appears that in addition to basic site navigation I have plug-ins that create invisible links that are counted in the crawl...at least that's my guess. Is there a good way to control this in wordpress? A nofollow in the .htaccess? A plug-in that does this? (I'm sort of at novice-plus level here so the simplest solution is ideal.) Thanks! Jake modhop.com
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | modhop0