Have you ever wondered, what’s the one thing that separates good SEOs from exceptional SEOs?
In my opinion, it comes down to 2 things:
- The ability to perform actions with a future mindset and predict Google Updates
- The ability to make every action look natural in Google’s eyes.
Let’s talk about the second one.
When it comes to link building, the most important thing you should always keep natural is the pace with which you acquire links.
There are two timeframes when most SEOs make mistakes when building links.
- When you start a new website
- When you finally get the rankings, and you decide to take it slow from now on.
Link Velocity on a new website
The most common mistake when you start a new website is that you build too many links too fast. This usually happens because people tend to bond with some successful SEO case studies thinking it also applies to them. If you found a website with 10s or 100s of links built in a week, that’s not the rule but the exception. Now, you should wonder, what’s the ideal number?
Well, thank god we have some great tools like Ahrefs, and we can analyze our niche competitors.
Always keep in mind, we compete against other SEOs, not against the algorithm. Google’s algorithm should be our ally in this battle.
All you have to do is to take a look and your competitor’s link growth graph.
Look at this nice and smooth chart from Gear Hungry
Link Velocity after ranking
When they finally get the rankings, many people stop any effort of building links to save budget and maximize profits. This can’t be more wrong.
Let’s take a step back and think about what’s natural when a website ranks for many keywords.
Usually, the link acquiring process is:
Traffic -> Social Signals -> Links -> Traffic (Organic) -> More links (Natural)
That means it’s more natural for a ranking page to acquire more links. Also, keep in mind that competitors are trying to outrank you 24/7.
So let’s say we analyze the first page of Google for a specific keyword.
- Position 1 – Builts 0 links/month
- Position 2 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 3 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 4 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 5 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 6 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 7 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 8 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 9 – Builts 1 links/month
- Position 10 – Builts 1 links/month
If we assume that every SEO factor besides links doesn’t change over a 2-3 month period and the websites are currently ranking from position 2 to position ten are building one link per month. That means they will have three more links after three months.
Also, keep in mind that there is a higher chance for the 1st position to acquire links than any other position.
What do you think will happen after the 3rd month?
⬇️ Let me know in the comments ⤵️