Welcome to the lesson #7. How to create link-worthy content (and stop worrying about link building).
Here's what we're about to cover.
Do you always need backlinks to rank?
How to create content that attracts backlinks.
And finally, the rarely-mentioned "secret" to acquiring backlinks.
So let's go!
Part #1. Do you always need backlinks to rank?
This is a tricky question to answer.
So let's just start off with a few facts.
Fact #1: Google's Andrey Lipattsev has revealed
that backlinks are one of Google's top 3 ranking signals;
Fact #2: The majority of SEO professionals agree that it's not possible to rank in Google
without any backlinks.
And Fact #3: There were quite a few SEO research studies that showed a rather notable correlation
between the number of backlinks pointing to a page and the position of that page in Google search results.
A while ago we even performed our own correlation study here at Ahrefs.
We analyzed the search results for nearly 2 million random search queries and discovered
that backlink factors correlate with Google position a lot better than any other factor.
Even the usage of an exact match keyword in title, headline or even actual content of that
page had a weaker correlation.
So, it seems that everything is in favor of backlinks, right?
Well, in that case, why did ⅓ of SEOs in my poll voted that you can rank in Google
without any backlinks?
That's because the question itself is tricky.
Can you rank in Google without backlinks?
This is not a "Yes or No" question.
The only correct answer here is "it depends."
So let me explain what caused such contrasting opinions with a nice example.
I'm a big fan of a video game called Fallout, and I also have a unhealthy habit to research
anything and everything in Ahrefs.
So when I discovered that there was a Wikipedia for everything Fallout, I naturally dropped it into
Ahrefs to see what was going on there.
Turns out this website is generating over 20 million visits from Google every single month!
Which is quite an impressive number.
So the next two things that I wanted to find out were:
How many pages are responsible for this huge search traffic?
And how many backlinks do they have in total?
I can see the number of linking websites right on the Overview report of Site Explorer tool.
It says 7,500.
And in order to see the number of pages that are bringing them traffic from search I need
the Top Pages report, which can be found under Organic search section.
It defaults to US, so I switch to All countries and get over 65,000 pages that are generating
search traffic to this website.
So what do we have here?
Over 65,000 pages with search traffic;
And only 7,500 linking websites.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
By looking at these two numbers you realize that there's absolutely no way that every page
with search traffic has backlinks, right?
Let's see if that is the case.
I'm going to search for pages about Fallout bobblehead figures (because I actually have
a few of them on my work desk).
As you can see from the RDs column, many of these pages have 0 websites linking to them,
and yet they get thousands of visitors per month from search.
So did we just get a proof that you can get search traffic without backlinks?
Well... Yes and no.
There are three things in place which allow these pages to get a ton of search traffic
without any backlinks pointing at them.
First of all, there's simply a lack of competition.
The amount of content that can be found in Google on the topic of Fallout bobblehead
figures is super small.
If I put "fallout 4 intelligence bobblehead" into Google, it will return 1,500 results only.
That is nothing!
It means that only a few pages on the entire internet mention this thing.
Try other topic, like "keyword research" for example, and you'll get 450,000 results.
Secondly, the top ranking pages don't have any backlinks pointing at them.
Let's put "fallout 4 intelligence bobblehead" into Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer and see how
many backlinks the top 10 ranking results have.
The "SERP overview" report shows me that 8 of the top 10 ranking pages have 0 backlinks.
Which means that a quality relevant page has a good chance at ranking for this keyword
even without any backlinks pointing at it.
And finally, third point.
All top 10 ranking results have high Domain Rating.
See that DR column? It stands for Domain Rating and reflects the strength of the overall backlink
profile of each website.
So the top ranking pages don't have any backlinks pointing directly at them.
But the websites that they belong to do have a lot of backlinks.
And in this particular case, the weakest DR is 68.
Which means that these top ranking pages all belong to very strong websites.
And if the Domain Rating of your own website is a lot weaker than that, it is very unlikely that
you will be able to outrank them.
Unless, of course, your page has a few good backlinks pointing directly at it.
Like that outlier that I'm sure you've noticed.
The Domain Rating of this website is just 59, which is much weaker than 68, especially
considering that Ahrefs DR scale is logarithmic.
But that page has 9 backlinks coming from 4 different websites, which allows it to rank
among the sites with a much higher Domain Rating.
And besides, that page is not even perfectly- relevant to our search query.
I mean, the search query is asking specifically about the "intelligence bobblehead" while that
particular page talks about "bobblehead locations".
So how come a page that is not perfectly relevant to the search query ranks so well?
Well, that's because it has more backlinks than other pages which sends a signal to
Google that this page must be very important.
And I think this is a pretty good illustration of how backlinks help you rank in Google
and get search traffic.
So let's wrap up the whole thing real quick.
For your page to rank in Google without backlinks, three requirements should be met:
First, there should be a lack of pages on that topic in Google.
Second, the top 10 ranking pages for that keyword should have 0 backlinks pointing at them.
Third, the Domain Rating of your website should be higher or at least comparable to the Domain Rating
of the top ranking websites.
Obviously, I'm oversimplifying things quite a bit, but you get the general idea, right?
And in fact, it almost never happens that a popular search query with good business
potential would meet all three of these requirements.
So in the absolute majority of cases you will need backlinks pointing directly at your page,
in order for it to rank high in Google.
And in case you decide to target some "unpopular" topic where the top-ranking pages don't have any
backlinks pointing at them, you still need a decent Domain Rating.
This indicates that your website has accumulated enough of the so-called
"link juice" that can be transferred to other pages via internal links.
And the natural question that comes up at this point is:
How do I grow the Domain Rating or Domain Authority of my website, so that the pages
that don't have backlinks would still rank well in Google and generate search traffic?
Well, all you need to do is create content that will attract a lot of backlinks so that
you could then funnel the "link juice" from these pages to the pages that you struggle
to get links to via internal links.
In SEO we call this kind of content "linkable content," or "linkbait," or "link-worthy pages," or "linkable assets."
All these terms mean more or less the same.
And the next section of this lesson is just about that.