How much do you need to spend on backlinks?

Considering everything in the world is now dominated by money, I have no idea why I was surprised that site building and SEO was as well, but I guess I was.

I've become curious though, what do you think an average spending requirement is to get started on a brand new site? Foot in the door of a niche, so to speak.

Almost every niche I've looked at seems to be heavily dominated by huge companies vs the little guy. Not surprising, of course. In my niche in particular, for almost any keyword I see the same 15 sites in the top 10 constantly. A few outliers of course but otherwise the appearance of these bigger domains is fairly standard.

Every niche will of course be different as the competition changes, but what is an average necessary spending amount to start getting seen in serps? Maybe if you can break it down into low comp, medium comp, high comp that would be awesome, don't have to provide specific niches. I'm just looking for rough ideas considering this really wasn't what I expected when thinking about how building and ranking a site was going to work. Should have expected it but I suppose I was naive haha.

dragonboas said:

Considering everything in the world is now dominated by money, I have no idea why I was surprised that site building and SEO was as well, but I guess I was.

I've become curious though, what do you think an average spending requirement is to get started on a brand new site? Foot in the door of a niche, so to speak.

Almost every niche I've looked at seems to be heavily dominated by huge companies vs the little guy. Not surprising, of course. In my niche in particular, for almost any keyword I see the same 15 sites in the top 10 constantly. A few outliers of course but otherwise the appearance of these bigger domains is fairly standard.

Every niche will of course be different as the competition changes, but what is an average necessary spending amount to start getting seen in serps? Maybe if you can break it down into low comp, medium comp, high comp that would be awesome, don't have to provide specific niches. I'm just looking for rough ideas considering this really wasn't what I expected when thinking about how building and ranking a site was going to work. Should have expected it but I suppose I was naive haha.

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It costs moderately not too high nor to low with keyword choosing

It would be hard to answer that question, since certain SEO services/backlinks out there will not get you much for the money. While some may get you a lot for the money.
So it all comes down to how you spend your money than how much you spend.
Either way for my sites i generally put a budget of about 100$-200$ a month, but note that this is usually more on the slower growth aspect. Which means you would probably have to continue this for some time like a year or so to start being in the higher ranks.
But this may depend a lot on the type of backlinks you buy and your content quality and how competitive it is.

CharlesX0 said:

It would be hard to answer that question, since certain SEO services/backlinks out there will not get you much for the money. While some may get you a lot for the money.
So it all comes down to how you spend your money than how much you spend.
Either way for my sites i generally put a budget of about 100$-200$ a month, but note that this is usually more on the slower growth aspect. Which means you would probably have to continue this for some time like a year or so to start being in the higher ranks.
But this may depend a lot on the type of backlinks you buy and your content quality and how competitive it is.

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That would really get into my next question, which would be, what is actually worth it?

I realized my original post was probably too broad. So put this way, I suppose. There is a site I was looking at on semrush. For 2 months, they were gaining ranked keywords slowly. Like 100 the first month, 200 more the second month. And then, in month 3, they jumped to 80 thousand, month 4 went up to 140 thousand. A vast majority of their keywords are difficulty 40 and under (according to semrush metrics) some that are higher up to 60ish, few that are above that.

What would something like that take? Is it even possible without spending an absurd amount on backlinks? (is that paying a few hundred a month for backlinks, a few thousand, 6 figures?) Essentially I'm trying to gauge what is normal/expected and what is funded to an extreme beyond what most people would be able to afford.

In your case, how many backlinks does $1-200 a month get you? Where do you even find backlinks to buy if that's what you want to do? I have tried contacting other sites in the same niche and never get a response. Feels like there is something major I'm missing.

dragonboas said:

That would really get into my next question, which would be, what is actually worth it?

I realized my original post was probably too broad. So put this way, I suppose. There is a site I was looking at on semrush. For 2 months, they were gaining ranked keywords slowly. Like 100 the first month, 200 more the second month. And then, in month 3, they jumped to 80 thousand, month 4 went up to 140 thousand. A vast majority of their keywords are difficulty 40 and under (according to semrush metrics) some that are higher up to 60ish, few that are above that.

What would something like that take? Is it even possible without spending an absurd amount on backlinks? (is that paying a few hundred a month for backlinks, a few thousand, 6 figures?) Essentially I'm trying to gauge what is normal/expected and what is funded to an extreme beyond what most people would be able to afford.

In your case, how many backlinks does $1-200 a month get you? Where do you even find backlinks to buy if that's what you want to do? I have tried contacting other sites in the same niche and never get a response. Feels like there is something major I'm missing.

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Interesting, when you say "ranked keywords" do you mean in first page?
It's hard to estimate what something like this would cost, there is so many factors going on that no one can really say.
For me my strategy is just starting something and slowly investing into it, and watching the growth. At times it might be a waste but other times it might be a hit.
I usually pay around 1$ per backlink. I usually buy backlinks from different people to get a better variety of links. I've probably bought backlinks from over 50 different people. And i stick with those that seem to provide results or good quality. Best is to read reviews of others who have purchased.

It depends on the links you are looking for

CharlesX0 said:

Interesting, when you say "ranked keywords" do you mean in first page?
It's hard to estimate what something like this would cost, there is so many factors going on that no one can really say.
For me my strategy is just starting something and slowly investing into it, and watching the growth. At times it might be a waste but other times it might be a hit.
I usually pay around 1$ per backlink. I usually buy backlinks from different people to get a better variety of links. I've probably bought backlinks from over 50 different people. And i stick with those that seem to provide results or good quality. Best is to read reviews of others who have purchased.

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By ranked keywords I mean in the top 100; I'm using semrush so it's easy just to see the overall number. The month they jumped to 80k keywords, 1k of them were top 3. The next month it went up to 5k in the top 3.

I recently got my first-ever response about guest posting, if you can call it that. Guy wanted $100 and I could put one backlink in it. I didn't go through with it.

Are you finding the backlinks on here or elsewhere? Totally get it if you don't want to give away your secrets or tactics. I need to find a way to network with people, haha; I wish I had friends that were interested in this stuff, unfortunately, I seem to be the only one.

SEO is getting very expensive. Everyone that's on page 1 typically has pagespeed insights at 100 score, uses edge server caching, unique content, etc. (Basically, 100% well done on-page SEO). So the war isn't about having the "basic" stuff (which is a must), but the powerful links. That being said, links aren't cheap. $100 doesn't get you anywhere. I'd say at least $800/month for 2-3 quality backlinks from non-spammed sites. Multiply that by 10 and then you might see some results (if you've picked the right keywords, pages to target, etc.)

I totally get where you're coming from. In terms of average spending requirements to get started on a new site, it can vary depending on the niche and competition level.

For low-competition niches, you can potentially make progress with a modest budget of a few hundred dollars for things like domain registration, hosting, and some basic SEO tools.
Medium competition niches might require a bit more investment, ranging from a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars for content creation, link building, and additional SEO strategies.
High-competition niches can be more demanding, and you might need a budget of several thousand dollars or more to effectively compete with established players and gain visibility in search engine results.

these are just rough estimates and every niche is different. It's important to assess your specific market, competition, and goals.

If your content is good enough, 0

I think this question assumes too much.

You don't have to spend money on backlinks.

If you want to get traffic very quickly and you have a budget to work with, there's a lot of backlink options to choose from.

Of course, some are more effective than others.

That's why they command a higher dollar value.

But with that said, if you're looking to build an online brand that you would like to stick around for a long time, focus on your content.

Focus on how you interlink your pages.

Focus on the kind of experience your online presence brings to the table.

You also should focus on how to make sure that your social media presence are consistent with the experience that your website delivers.

Once you have taken care of all these moving parts, as far as your online strategy goes, then maybe you can start thinking about backlinks, but in the form of guest posts, link on podcast interviews, and other strategic forms of sharing your brand and content with people who either are interested directly or who have an audience who may be interested in what you have to offer.

This is completely white hat, and yes it takes a little bit more work and time, but the endgame is definitely much more hopeful and positive than if you just threw money at your problems and bought as many backlinks as you can only to see your empire go up in smoke because you ended up buying from an unscrupulous or faulty link seller, or you got caught up in some fake drama.

Emme said:

SEO is getting very expensive. Everyone that's on page 1 typically has pagespeed insights at 100 score, uses edge server caching, unique content, etc. (Basically, 100% well done on-page SEO). So the war isn't about having the "basic" stuff (which is a must), but the powerful links. That being said, links aren't cheap. $100 doesn't get you anywhere. I'd say at least $800/month for 2-3 quality backlinks from non-spammed sites. Multiply that by 10 and then you might see some results (if you've picked the right keywords, pages to target, etc.)

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Google doesn't care about speed, at least not much. However speed does affect other stats like how fast the user leaves the site or if they actually stay in the site longer. Which does affect google.
I've seen tons of websites with shit speeds rank higher than websites with amazing speeds. Off-page SEO is dominant. Sure content matters too, but not as much as off-page SEO.
And i've never really tried those expensive backlinks that cost insane prices per link.

its depend on you. when you spend more earn much.

You need to identify your own budget. There are no standard rules for that.
Every website has different needs. So this question is very subjective too.
No backlinks are free. If you are buying them, you need money. If you are building them yourself you are investing time and efforts, so it has a cost too.
So identify your own budget and start working accordingly.

It depends on your website's content and category.

It depends on sites either premium sites or General