Why I Stopped Doing Link Building (And Should You Too?)

I completely stopped doing link building and it's been almost three years since I did that. Funny thing is my traffic has only grown during this time period and if you ask me, I think I'm never going to build links again. Do you want to learn why? Today I'm going to break down why I stopped doing link building, and why you should potentially, too.

RESOURCES & LINKS:
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Ubersuggest –
CodeCanyon –
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The main reason why I stopped doing link building is that I no longer need to. My website gets Backlinks every day and I don't even have to lift a finger, literally I don't! It hasn't always been that way though, for approximately the first two or three years when I first started the website, I was hitting the pavement hard.

I would hit up every single person who linked out to competitor articles, beg them for links. So you're probably wondering, "Neil used to do this, what's changed? "Is it Google's algorithm?" Well it isn't Google's algorithm.

Here are the main reasons why I stopped link building.

The first reason is, I built a brand.

So with brand building you want to go out there and be on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, all the social channels. As well as SEO, Content marketing, E-mail marketing, Push Notifications, Chatbots, like the ManyChats, or MobileMonkeys, text messaging. By having all these channels it's going to get your brand out there, which then makes it easier for you to gain links in the long run. And when you're building up your brand whether it's a corporate or personal brand, the first few years you won't really see the results you're looking for, but if you keep pushing hard for two, three, four, five years, in the long run it will work out.

The second reason I don't build links is, I have valuable content that people want to link back to because it helps them grow their traffic, right? Now, your content doesn't have to help people grow their traffic, but it has to help them in whatever way.

If you provide a lot of value, and when you're providing value it's not just one or two content pieces, but you build up hundreds and hundreds of articles if not thousands over time, and then you do it in a way where it's Evergreen.

The third reason I stopped is, I built an invaluable free tool in my mind, Ubersuggest.

Ubersuggest gets more than 25000 backlinks from over 3400 referring dominions. That's a lot. In essence it's become a household name in the SEO community because I offer what people charge for, for free. You can either pay $1,200 a year, or $100 a month, or save the money.

What I want you to do is go to CodeCanyon. For $10 or $20 you can get a tool in almost any industry, pop it on your website, it's really easy, and over time you'll notice that the links will kick in.

The fourth reason, I've done studies and research that people want to reference.

Last year alone I launched two industry studies. One of them, I gathered 183 companies who are all leveraging content marketing, and I produced 17 charts to show people like you where content marketing is heading. And the other one, it was about social media, and its ability to generate traffic organically right? Without paying for social ads. I polled 483 companies who were all leveraging Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and I showed in that study, what's happening to social traffic over time. At least from an organic perspective. Those two studies alone have generated me 97000 backlinks, from 119 referring domains.

So now the real question is this, should you stop building links too? Well it depends what stage you are.

Now let me first break down if you should stop building backlinks. You should stop if, you have a lot of followers on social media that you can use to promote your content continually. Also you're already ranking for a decent amount of queuers. Your brand is well known and people look up to you in your space, or your company brand is well known and they look up to your company. You're already getting some press, public speaking opportunities, interviews on podcasts, TV interviews, radio interviews, and even mentions on blogs. Your content tends to get backlinks naturally, and you have tools or quizzes or other resources that people love to keep linking back to.

These big established companies don't need to build links and it's obvious, but in your niche you may be one of those brands as well.

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28 Responses to Why I Stopped Doing Link Building (And Should You Too?)

  1. nogesjohannes March 16, 2020 at 2:01 pm #

    It’s me, Mario!

    • Neil Patel March 16, 2020 at 5:57 pm #

      Luigi!!

  2. COLOMBIAFRANK March 16, 2020 at 2:01 pm #

    I absolutely agree, I wrote quality content without backlinks and almost all of it starts ranking great!

    • Neil Patel March 16, 2020 at 5:58 pm #

      That’s great to hear, friend 🙂

    • COLOMBIAFRANK March 16, 2020 at 6:07 pm #

      @shweta kumari yes, 3-10 months

    • Devendra Singh March 16, 2020 at 6:19 pm #

      @COLOMBIAFRANK Thinking same way, previous year I started a website, because the websites that were ranked in Google were not providing good content but they had thousands of baklinks so they succeed and I was failed.. I learnt one thing if content is king then SEO is Queen without Queen king is nothing…

    • Devendra Singh March 16, 2020 at 6:23 pm #

      @Neil Patel love you bade Bhai….

    • YO TECH HINDI March 16, 2020 at 7:50 pm #

      Backlink trend has gone in 2020

  3. c w March 16, 2020 at 2:06 pm #

    Neil thank you so much for your help. We now have about 6 featured snippets and just rebuilt the website this weekend to make it AMP friendly. Just waiting on google. Will be finishing out the rest over the next few weeks and taking over the industry. Thank you so much for sharing your SEO knowledge. Hope to be able to give back like you. It is so cool hearing Google so our company name on a voice device.

    • Neil Patel March 16, 2020 at 5:58 pm #

      Wow, that is great to hear, my friend 🙂 Keep up the great work!

  4. Junaid Alam March 16, 2020 at 2:08 pm #

    First view

  5. Rao Rihan March 16, 2020 at 2:15 pm #

    Your content is unique and valuable..great sir

    • Neil Patel March 16, 2020 at 5:58 pm #

      Thank you 🙂

  6. SEO Tools TV March 16, 2020 at 2:17 pm #

    Webmasters still misunderstand the primary purpose of link building.
    Link building is not for getting links that increase ranking; link building is more getting real results: sales, brand awareness, etc.
    There are no two the same projects.
    Neil has a lot of backlinks.
    I’m not sure that more links will help him.
    It depends on your project and benchmark.
    For example, I pay more attention to social media promotion for my new website because I can gather more relevant connections there and more followers that one day might be my customers, as well.
    When I launch my new tool, then I’ll spend more time with outreach.
    Each project is unique that demands its own methods of promotion.
    Please, share your thoughts in the comments.
    I’m talking about this on my channel.

    • Neil Patel March 16, 2020 at 5:59 pm #

      Every site is different! the key is testing things out to see what works best for you 🙂

  7. Darrell Lischka March 16, 2020 at 2:25 pm #

    Makes total sense to build a brand and thus negating the need for you actually building links yourself. Thanks for the great video today Neil…

  8. Surguja Videos March 16, 2020 at 2:37 pm #

    Quality Content anyhow get recognition.

  9. Mastech knowledge March 16, 2020 at 2:48 pm #

    How you made tools with coding or what
    I am 13 years old and I am going to learn coding but I made tool like you ( free) which language or what process

    • Shubham Butola March 16, 2020 at 3:51 pm #

      These type of tool used api. . You can also implement api to your app or website … Buy from anywhere cz it will take more time and money to buit from ourself….

  10. Devendra Singh March 16, 2020 at 2:50 pm #

    And what about a new website? If there are keyword difficulty maximum 10?
    How much time it will take for ranking..?

  11. S_Roobel March 16, 2020 at 4:08 pm #

    Trust me, I don’t even.
    They’re time killing, and it’s kinda something like poking others meaning thoroughly disgusting.

    Thanks for supporting me Boss and expressing my views and thoughts to your audience.

  12. My everyday marketing March 16, 2020 at 4:43 pm #

    Very informative video as always.. thanks!

  13. Janet Denison March 16, 2020 at 5:40 pm #

    This video was so helpful from a planning perspective! I’m confident about what I need to prioritise now. Thank you so much Neil!

  14. Nayeem Ahmed March 16, 2020 at 7:37 pm #

    I have a quote site where I share motivational, inspirational quotes. What type of tool I can add on my site? Can please you suggest any?

  15. YO TECH HINDI March 16, 2020 at 7:47 pm #

    Hi sir, you have nice research about backlink. At the last
    You told about long tell keyword
    Can you please tell me what stage of a website after that they can fight for short tell keyword

  16. Dr. Julia-Heya Karcic March 16, 2020 at 8:42 pm #

    Neil, is Ubersuggest free or now a pay for fee service? I read a few weeks ago that you made it a pay service now.

  17. Mayank Shukla March 16, 2020 at 8:42 pm #

    I have applied for your help on your website, i have never recieved any reply from you! Why is that so?

  18. Siraj Khan March 16, 2020 at 10:10 pm #

    Hey neil
    Improve keyword filter in ubbersuggest .
    like include exclude phrase match

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