How many backlinks needed for a keyword?
- Thread starter XahX
- Start date
- Oct 28, 2020
- 11,663
- 14,635
Ahreds and Semrush are probably what you're looking for, but please note that their data should be used as guidance mostly.
Last year I have spent over an hour analyzing a keyword by all rules of SEO and - according to Ahrefs - I should have ranked for that keyword with 300-500 words of decent quality content and no backlinks because everyone ranking on the 1st page were not even targeting this keyword.
My competitors were all having no / little content (and the 2 sites that were having content they weren't even on topic, but they were universities so this might have mattered), they were having ZERO backlinks (8 out of 10 of my competitors were having no backlinks to their pages, which is understandable because my competitors were mostly forums, pdfs, and universities, and these sources don't build links to obscure pages), and so on.
Like I said, I have taken my time to follow each rule of SEO and after finding this "amazing" long tail keyword with 30 monthly searches that no one was targeting (there wasn't a single URL ranking in top 10 that had this keyword in the title, and most of my competitors were not having it in content either) I thought that I'd put a few words together, add an image and then BAM, I'd rank instantly and without backlinks!
Well, several month later and that keyword is still nowhere to be found (not even in top 30)... So yeah, don't blindly believe what these tools say, just take it as a guidance and then apply common sense and your experience so you can get a feel of the keyword's difficulty rather than doing math on it because that's what the SEO tools say.
Also, not many people say this, but the niche play a big role in whether or not you will rank, and if you're a newbie to SEO / making money online do not get into these niches or you'll struggle. For example, niches like travel, SEO, banking, web hosting, internet marketing (well, anything that has anything to do with money, directly), legal / lawyers / insurance, medical, education, etc. These are tough as fuck niches and you won't break into them without a hefty monthly budget and extensive SEO knowledge (although, you might be able to let the SEO agencies handle the expertise part of it)
Last year I have spent over an hour analyzing a keyword by all rules of SEO and - according to Ahrefs - I should have ranked for that keyword with 300-500 words of decent quality content and no backlinks because everyone ranking on the 1st page were not even targeting this keyword.
My competitors were all having no / little content (and the 2 sites that were having content they weren't even on topic, but they were universities so this might have mattered), they were having ZERO backlinks (8 out of 10 of my competitors were having no backlinks to their pages, which is understandable because my competitors were mostly forums, pdfs, and universities, and these sources don't build links to obscure pages), and so on.
Like I said, I have taken my time to follow each rule of SEO and after finding this "amazing" long tail keyword with 30 monthly searches that no one was targeting (there wasn't a single URL ranking in top 10 that had this keyword in the title, and most of my competitors were not having it in content either) I thought that I'd put a few words together, add an image and then BAM, I'd rank instantly and without backlinks!
Well, several month later and that keyword is still nowhere to be found (not even in top 30)... So yeah, don't blindly believe what these tools say, just take it as a guidance and then apply common sense and your experience so you can get a feel of the keyword's difficulty rather than doing math on it because that's what the SEO tools say.
Also, not many people say this, but the niche play a big role in whether or not you will rank, and if you're a newbie to SEO / making money online do not get into these niches or you'll struggle. For example, niches like travel, SEO, banking, web hosting, internet marketing (well, anything that has anything to do with money, directly), legal / lawyers / insurance, medical, education, etc. These are tough as fuck niches and you won't break into them without a hefty monthly budget and extensive SEO knowledge (although, you might be able to let the SEO agencies handle the expertise part of it)
Thanks @tazarbm I'm still new to SEO and your reply has given me insight. What I've read is to not fully trust SEO tools but as you said to use them as guidance and see the bigger picture. Yeah, I definitely won't be getting into any of the niches you mentioned. I'll be taking a slow and steady approach and trying out some theories I have and learning along the way.
seomaster5
Elite Member
- Oct 31, 2021
- 5,162
- 1,485
There are may tools but you need to learn how to use them properly.
ahmedtarek8572
Regular Member
- Aug 8, 2021
- 262
- 109
Generally, analyzing your competition is the best way to determine it.
- Apr 9, 2021
- 296
- 125
If you want to know as per the difficulty of the backlink for example if a keyword has a difficulty of 10 you probably need about 10 backlinks to rank. But if it has a difficulty of 50 you may need 100 backlinks to rank.
But I guess the quality of backlinks has to do something about it to, right?
HustleTong
Elite Member
- May 30, 2019
- 13,466
- 10,661
They're not always accurate
You can use Ahrefs as a screener
You can use Ahrefs as a screener
- Dec 19, 2007
- 3,282
- 407
Ranking for a keyword with a difficulty of 10 will likely require about ten backlinks. I would recommend Ahrefs!
- Aug 4, 2015
- 6,007
- 801
The number of backlinks your website needs to rank keyword first cannot be determined by a magic formula. Rather, there are a number of adjustable variables that businesses can use to determine if they should invest in backlink building. Recommend backlink checker tool Ahrefs, Semrush