[case study] - is it possible to rank with only content (no backlinks)

[AOT]

Not impossible but not that fast. Backlinks act as catalyst.

 

[lotsofmoney]

Inspired by a post from @k2h2 here - https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/is-a-good-writer-enough-to-make-blog-succesful.1436926/

I am going to do a case study to determine if content alone is enough to rank on page 1.

Here is the scenario - I have a brand new website (not quite live yet, just finishing the build, pending content). The site is in the technology niche.

My plan is to write an informative and well researched peice of content which covers a particular topic in my niche.

I will be researching all of the top ranking articles on this topic and I won't be looking at any particular keyword but rather on the broad topic and all of the keywords related to it.

I am also looking to add some real value to the topic, with a sort of case study that nobody else has done - the idea behind this being new content and ideas that Google has not seen before.

I won't build any backlinks to this site either, so we can see if it ranks (and how well) with just content alone.

What if someone does not have so much idea about the topic? Can these kind of projects be run with help of purchased content?

 

[achiever2011]

I had forgotten about this case study but just got an email from ahrefs today about this domain so I thought I would post an update. This is now just over 6 months since I published the article.

It does now have a few keywords ranking in the top 100, as follows -

View attachment 281867
View attachment 281868

Not the best obviously, but still I guess the content is doing OK seeing as its only 1 post on a new domain with no backlinks. Now that its been sitting for a long enough time (6 months) I would assume its not going to get much better than this. I will build a couple of backlinks now just to get a feel for how much improvement a few backlinks will make (Homepage only and brand/generic anchor).

How many total articles on the site now ? Is everything indexed ? How fast a new article gets indexed ?

 

[hk dogar]

only content is not sufficient, off page seo by guest posting is also necessary ,

 

[Patrick111]

any advice for us as new comer?

Sorry, missed this before somehow.

If I had to give real world advice of what I see most often and it may not apply to you directly (I don't know you, so how could I say).

1. Don't start projects that you don't finish. Be prepared that 100 articles is just under the half way point or less.

2. Your content has to rock. If you read it and it doesn't impress you, why would you think it will impress them?

It must provide insane value. I'll say that again - INSANE VALUE!

3. This is not a sprint, this is a marathon. Adjust your mindset accordingly.

4. You MUST do something every single day that moves you forward.

 

[demoviip6699]

Sorry, missed this before somehow.

If I had to give real world advice of what I see most often and it may not apply to you directly (I don't know you, so how could I say).

1. Don't start projects that you don't finish. Be prepared that 100 articles is just under the half way point or less.

2. Your content has to rock. If you read it and it doesn't impress you, why would you think it will impress them?

It must provide insane value. I'll say that again - INSANE VALUE!

3. This is not a sprint, this is a marathon. Adjust your mindset accordingly.

4. You MUST do something every single day that moves you forward.

Appreciate !!!

 

[Linkbuilding999]

I think you can rank a good quality fast loading website with unique content.

sir you are nice think and increase your business .

nice away for work on forums

 

[dlyhai]

Sorry, missed this before somehow.

If I had to give real world advice of what I see most often and it may not apply to you directly (I don't know you, so how could I say).

1. Don't start projects that you don't finish. Be prepared that 100 articles is just under the half way point or less.

2. Your content has to rock. If you read it and it doesn't impress you, why would you think it will impress them?

It must provide insane value. I'll say that again - INSANE VALUE!

3. This is not a sprint, this is a marathon. Adjust your mindset accordingly.

4. You MUST do something every single day that moves you forward.

How much do you make, do your income mainly from amazon affiliate?

 

[Patrick111]

How much do you make, do your income mainly from amazon affiliate?

I'm not going to speak about how much I make. But let's just say that I do incredibly well. The kind of income that even people who have a decent income dream about.

The way I make money is that I own my own companies, make my own products and then build sites, use paid traffic, videos, social media, influencers and joint ventures to drive people to my free offers that get them on my lists.

I then have funnels set up for all companies. My information company, my shoe company, my green/minimalist company and travel company. Some physical products some informational courses etc. They range from $97 to $4,995 depending on what they are.

Amazon pays pennies. Not interested in that.

Once people have gone through the funnels which are quite long with many products each, they go into my bulk send/broadcast groups where I pitch them affiliate products. But where I make good money on sales, not pennies.

That's basically it.

I hope that helps.

 

[georgetoons]

I believe it is definitely doable depending on the amount of competition on the targeted keyword. Its actually quite crazy seeing this thread now as a few days ago I was researching some competitors and they have ranks many pages N.1 with 0 backlinks on the page (blog posts)

 

[dlyhai]

I'm not going to speak about how much I make. But let's just say that I do incredibly well. The kind of income that even people who have a decent income dream about.

The way I make money is that I own my own companies, make my own products and then build sites, use paid traffic, videos, social media, influencers and joint ventures to drive people to my free offers that get them on my lists.

I then have funnels set up for all companies. My information company, my shoe company, my green/minimalist company and travel company. Some physical products some informational courses etc. They range from $97 to $4,995 depending on what they are.

Amazon pays pennies. Not interested in that.

Once people have gone through the funnels which are quite long with many products each, they go into my bulk send/broadcast groups where I pitch them affiliate products. But where I make good money on sales, not pennies.

That's basically it.

I hope that helps.

Nice, thanks for sharing, I make several sites and all of them failed on SEO. My articles are not good at all and I don't know how to write engouh good article and offer unique value. Your words offer very great value, thank you

 

[Patrick111]

Nice, thanks for sharing, I make several sites and all of them failed on SEO. My articles are not good at all and I don't know how to write engouh good article and offer unique value. Your words offer very great value, thank you

Hi, thank you.
If you don't mind my asking, what country are you from?
Maybe your English is not up to par, but I'm sure you likely speak your native tongue very well.
So, start sites and market in your country. Make some money and then hire writers for America.

That's what I would do.

 

[samran khokhar]

Anecdotal story:

I have a website in the technology niche.
I started with about 50 articles. The top rankings were the end of page 2. Medium quality articles on low competition keywords.

On the same website, after 4 months, I added around 600 A.I. / paraphrased / rewrite /something-in-between articles.
It pushed about 20 of those first articles on page 1, without any internal links.

I assume it was because of some small topical authority.
Two months later, to this day, I have about 400 keywords on the first page, with about 30 ranking in Top 3.

No backlinks built. A few automated websites picked it up but those are trash anyway.

My observations

As time increases, so will the ranking.
As I have no PERSONAL proof of this, I will point out to a perfect example in the tech niche, techwalla website.

They rank #1 for a lot of GREAT keywords, with articles FROM 2010.
Yes, they have a lot of backlinks, but I do personally feel it's the age in the index that matters a great deal as well.

Good luck with your case study.
You've done a similar one before with that one article getting 800 hits/month which was a great read.

From the way you're presenting this, I assume you'll invest days worth of research.
It's great, but how would you manage this at scale? Assuming you're just starting with blogging and want to make a living.

Won't the speed affect your (potential) earnings?

Great brother, I appreciate you

unique content and SEO + keyword research