This is a fairly standard question. SEO clients want to know how quickly they can see results from their link building efforts.
They want positive change as soon as possible, and it makes sense. A lot of time, effort and money goes into building quality links.
However, realistically, it may take 3-12 months before you see a change in your site’s visibility.
It is also helpful to consider some key factors that affect link building impact speed.
Let’s take a look at these factors and some examples of how speed of link building pays off in different niches.
6 Aspects That Affect Link Building Effectiveness
Our experience in building links with various companies has made us aware of these factors, but results will vary on a case-by-case basis.
Let’s take a closer look at these factors that affect the effectiveness of link building.
1. Site permissions
Domain Ranking (DR) is a metric that includes the number of backlinks a website receives from trusted resources. Generally, the higher the DR, the higher the website’s trust score.
You can use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, MOZ, Majestic to check your site’s DR.
Sites that do a good DR first see results sooner.
The lower the website’s DR, the longer it will take to wait for the links it builds to make a positive difference. But it also depends on the niche.
Typically, DR should be 60+ for B2B brands and 30+ for B2C companies. If your domain has a low ranking, it will take longer to get results.
Inherently, websites with good online authority are more likely to rank higher.
2. Positive and Negative Traffic Trends
Simply put, positive trends speed up the effectiveness of your link building campaigns, while negative trends can hinder results in the short term.
Google tracks dynamics and prioritizes resources that show steady growth trends.
If your website traffic is trending negatively, it can be difficult to get back to your initial growth point for the reasons that affected your website’s relevance and trust scores.
3. Brand popularity
One of the key factors in link building is whether the website you are linking from is a trustworthy brand.
A useful metric for this is the percentage of brand traffic that a particular website receives.
You can check this with tools like: sem rush.
4. Page type
Links created on content pages usually yield positive results more quickly than commercial pages.
Commercial pages generally target only a handful of keywords, greatly reducing your chances of success.
Also, keep in mind that Google Search gives priority to content pages.
5. Level of competition in the niche
For example, link building is common in B2B, so choosing this strategy alone to grow your website may not be enough. You need to combine that with creating quality content and developing your brand.
But if you come from B2C, link building can be a competitive advantage.
6. Monthly and overall budget for link building
The average cost per link across industries varies.For example, Ahrefs says that about $350 under siege Estimated around $500.
However, the price per link depends on how trustworthy a particular site is. For example, a link from a site with a Domain Rating of 50 by Ahrefs and 2,000 organic traffic per month is not the same as a link from a website with a DR of 80 and more than 100,000 organic traffic.
That’s why link building agencies often set different prices based on a site’s domain reputation and organic traffic.
Based on this, a good starting point might include $3,000 per month and an overall budget of $30,000.
However, you may need to invest at least $10,000 a month in some niches to see results.
And it’s always good to stay realistic about your individual situation and focus on targeting the right keywords instead of trying your luck and failing.
Which factor is the most important?
They all play an important role to some extent.
However, it is important to build links to branded websites that sell actual products and services.
These websites have the greatest potential for growth and the impact of creating links to these sites will grow over time.
5 Examples of How Link Building Works in Different Niches
Well, we’ve covered the factors that can speed up or delay the results of your link building campaign.
But to avoid making empty claims, let’s take a look at some link building campaigns and how quickly they showed positive change.
The first example is a real challenge that many might consider a lost cause.
The site had no organic, no authority, no branded traffic and came from a highly competitive niche, digital marketing.
So it’s not surprising that the website showed no change in organic traffic in the first 8 months, but the number of keywords for which the website ranked in the SERPs increased slightly.
Then, after nearly 12 months of work, more tangible results emerged. The website earned him over 250 links with a total budget of $100,000.
Here’s what the site is currently trending at: The number of referring domains gradually increased from January 2021 to January 2022.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022The chart below shows when organic traffic to this website started to increase compared to when I started building links. Almost ten months later.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022Currently, Ahrefs reports 3,000 organic traffic to the brand’s website.
However, Google Search Console shows it to be even higher.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022The website took just over a year to show the results of its link building efforts.
The following example is a home improvement niche B2C brand.
The company built 58 links to their website with an overall budget of less than $20,000.
The link building effort started in December 2021.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022Less than five months after the brand launched its link building campaign, we began to see significant changes in organic traffic.
You can see how the traffic increased in the graph below.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022Here are a few more cases to illustrate how the link building results look in B2B and B2C.
This is a new B2B branded website with no traffic at all. The website received 40 links with an overall budget of $15,000 and was ranked by search terms that brought in $1,600 worth of traffic.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022The first impact of our link building efforts was seen after three months, roughly from November 2021 to December 2021.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022It goes without saying that it is a completely new brand.
But if the brand is already well-known, will link-building results come sooner?
yes. This company has been getting a lot of traffic and links to their website for some time now. It also comes from the competitive niche of SEO tools.
In this case, the site went up slightly, with just 27 links to pages that already had some links. That’s 27 links for the 40 I had to create on my old website.
As a result, organic traffic doubled after 5 months.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022This website didn’t require me to create a link, but the effect was much faster. The link building campaign will start in August 2021 and you can see the first results in October 2021.
Another example is a new B2C brand selling supplements in the self-care niche.
We built over 50 links to our site with an overall budget of $12,000.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022As a result, link building campaigns were launched near the end of 2021, and the first change in organic traffic appeared after 2-3 months.
Ahrefs screenshot, May 2022Link building campaign reachability can be faster for B2C brands, and link building in this niche has proven to be much less competitive than B2B.
Still, all the examples show that the timing at which companies start seeing the first tangible results varies in each case.
over to you
In most cases, you’ll start seeing results from your link building efforts within 3-12 months.
However, it still depends on some important factors.
- Site Permissions.
- Positive and negative traffic trends.
- Brand popularity.
- The type of page that provides the link.
- The level of competition in your niche.
- Your link building budget.
We also create links to sites that represent trusted brands. In this way, a positive change follows in the performance of the site.
Other resources:
Featured Image: alexdndz/Shutterstock
