Note: This article was updated in February, 2013 and I’ve added a screenshot of the traffic from Jan-Feb, 2013. Traffic stats are below. Also see the updated article here.
I couldn’t wait to write this post because the results I’m about to show you probably go against many of your opinions about search engine optimization today.
If you’ve been following me closely, you already know I’m not a fan of aggressive backlink building.
I’ve always found it to be a tedious task that leads to short term results for the most part.
Having said that, I’m not against SEO and focusing on the right kind of backlink building.
For example, growing your brand and building relationships by writing guest posts on high quality, relevant blogs or any kind of natural link building that abides by Google’s guidelines is fine.
I just personally don’t believe in spending loads of time chasing backlinks.
As a result, a lot of people have criticized my stance on this, stating that I never had to focus on it much because some of my sites are mature and have an advantage.
While having an early start played a tremendous role in my success, I am still finding that today, quality content in the right niche still works for SEO.
I can’t write a post like this without mentioning how risky it is to rely completely on search engine optimization — especially today. So as you read through this, please understand that SEO should only be one part of your traffic plan.
My Little Experiment
In July, 2011 I created a new WordPress authority niche website as an experiment to see how far a website could get today by just writing content and doing absolutely no backlink building whatsoever.
To be honest, I didn’t expect the site to do well and I will reveal the traffic results below.
Some of you are not going to like this part, but I made the decision not to reveal the site to anyone (at least not yet) and my name or any other identifying details (Adsense ID, company name, etc.) are not associated with the website or domain records.
Although, I am using my picture because I just don’t like faceless websites. 😉
Why So Anonymous?
First of all, I don’t want any mentions/links on my sites to skew the results. Second, I am getting tired of seeing my content scraped, copied and plastered all over the place.
Of course this is not going to completely prevent that from happening, but it will cut down a lot of it.
Being transparent has its advantages and I have no regrets because it builds credibility and a loyal following. However, there are obvious disadvantages, and for this experiment I have chosen to keep it hush-hush. 😉
Pat Flynn recently wrote about this same issue on his blog where he decided not to reveal one of his newer websites after so many people tried to duplicate one of his experimental websites. I completely understand where he’s coming from. So I decided to take a leaf out of his book and keep this one quiet — especially while I experiment to keep the results from being skewed.
Traffic Reports
Even though I won’t reveal the site, I will at least share some statistics you may find interesting. Here is what the traffic looked like for the past month…
Here’s an update from February, 2013. Traffic is still increasing gradually. I’ve added roughly 20 pages since this post was originally published (6 months ago).
This is not a huge increase by any means, but it’s not bad considering how little time I spend on this site.
For the record, this screenshot was taken from the WordPress.com Stats plugin. That’s what I use to easily access my traffic stats right from the WordPress admin panel.
More Things to Note
– Even though I am not actively/manually building backlinks, the site is earning them naturally through other blogs who link to various articles. So I’m not saying you don’t need backlinks. I’m just saying you don’t have to chase them. Slow, natural and steady is what Google loves.
– The site has about 120 pages and posts combined, and I have no real publishing schedule/pattern. I spend about 2-3 hours on the site per month. Seriously.
– Most of the traffic is from Google, but it also receives quite a few visits from Facebook. Of course, I cannot see the actual referring page on Facebook in my reports (I hate that!), but it’s probably from people sharing the content on their walls. I do not have a Facebook business page for the site.
– I didn’t do much number crunching with keyword research. Most of the search engine traffic is from a variety of longtail phrases instead of competitive keywords.
– The site is not overly optimized. In other words, I don’t go overboard with keyword repetition and I made sure to vary my anchor text (text inside hyperlinks) when linking internally.
– Bing and Yahoo are also drawing more traffic than usual, which I found quite interesting. Perhaps it has to do with the niche and the audience demographic preferring Bing over Google? I have no way of knowing for sure.
– Once again, I’ve taken the tutorial route with my approach to this website. As you know, this has worked so well in the past, and I love teaching. So I continue to use that style as opposed to just posting generic information and re-reporting facts.
– I’ve chosen another niche where I can use my own personal life experience with the subject to educate and inform.
– So far the site has escaped all Panda and Penguin updates.
– I did manually submit to Google and Bing/Yahoo and also created sitemaps for each engine.
– I’m not using AdSense (it’s not a good niche for CPC ads at all) but I am selling sponsor ads and monetizing with affiliate programs.
Backlinks?
As I’ve already mentioned, I have just focused on writing content instead of searching for backlinks — which is what I normally do. But what is most surprising to me is the Google traffic I’ve received compared to the minimal number of backlinks I’ve earned.
Right now, there are only a handful of sites linking in according to Google Webmaster Tools, and a couple of sites that are just scraping my RSS feed and displaying my posts.
Why Does Google Love The Site?
Could the mild success and traffic gains be a result of the penalties other sites have incurred from unnatural linking, etc?
I’m not sure.
I haven’t spent too much time observing what my competitors are doing. The traffic growth has been very gradual but steady, and I didn’t see any major jumps in traffic with any algorithm updates.
My main goal was to see how a website would perform in Google today without doing any manual link building.
Google seems to be less concerned about the quantity of your backlinks and more interested in the quality, diversification and how natural your backlink patterns are.
After all, the Penguin update really decreased the SEO influence of many types of backlinks.
To Sum it Up…
Don’t get me wrong. The moral of they story here is not to just focus on SEO to build a business. I was just trying to make a point that you can still receive good traffic from Google without obsessing over backlinks and just focusing on quality content.
There’s nothing wrong with targeting the engines for traffic. I mean… you have to start somewhere, right? As I mentioned, you just need a plan to diversify beyond SEO if you want longevity.
As I continue to emphasize, my overall business is not SEO dependent thanks to my forum, multiple YouTube channels, residual income, social media (especially Facebook), my email list, offline consulting (occasionally) etc. I’ve diversified my income and traffic sources to give myself a great deal of stability.
I hope you are planning to do the same.
Also, finding the right niche and angle is key too. Yes, the Net is incredibly saturated with websites, but a lot of the content out here is poor quality and created with minimal effort.
I don’t exactly buy the “net-is-too-saturated” claim as a reason for failure. This experiment definitely proves that.
So the door is still wide open for high quality, useful websites. The angle you take is what will set you apart and get you going in the right direction.
Never underestimate the power of establishing your unique position in a well-defined niche!
Check out the update on this site’s traffic here.
Lisa, this is an awesome post. I’ve been away for awhile but so glad that I saw this in my FB feed. I have a lot of blog posts to catch up on because I see some topics that I’ve missed.
I agree that backlinking is arduous and can be tiresome and glad to know that good content is key. I recently read an article in Website Magazine that specifically addresses the topic of content marketing. Thanks for sharing your experiment and promise not to stay away so long next time! LOL
Great to see you back!
Another great post, Lisa. I started a new website re-branding my businesses just 4 months ago that went from PR0 to PR2 in the last update. No backlinks. Not monetized like my blogs. However, my traffic is only appr 1950 pageviews monthly at the end of month 3. I guess it is still an infant, but I am really trying to get it right this time. Having 100k pageviews is my goal monthly. I know that is lofty! Thanks for giving us so many tips.
Hmm I don’t quite get it!
So you built a brand new website with high quality articles and the traffic just started coming from Google without you building links or doing anything else?
How long it took for the site to get indexed and rank higher in SERPs? Was your nich competitive enough? From what I know you can rank pretty fast in a niche with no competition, but it takes time to rank in a more competitive one (even with quality articles)
Very awesome Lisa! thanks for your sharing. I will build my new site next week:)
Thanks Lisa for a wonderful Post. As you mentioned you gained amazing results just by way of quality content. This may probably work only if I have a niche website where my primary focus is affiliates, sponsor ads, adsense etc. What if I have a business website where I sell service with a landing page. Do you think this may work even then?
Hi Pauline,
I’m not sure this strategy would work as well for service or product-oriented sites UNLESS you can find relevant content to write about that is related to what you sell.
For example, say you were promoting your fitness coaching services. You could have a separate section on your site called “Blog” or “News”. That is where you would post all your info-content related to fitness that could help draw in business to your service. Make sense?
Something is working. I am sure you do not know all the facts but you are doing a good experiment.
I had a question about the traffic stats…where did you get them from Lisa? It doesn’t look like Google Analytics.
Hi Tony
I use the WP Stats plugin and chose that screenshot for no other reason than it’s accessible and I check it regularly when I login to WordPress. The Analytics page views report looks about the same.
the majority of visitors of my blog comes from search engine, send blackklinks to my blog is an excellent means to optimize for google.
Woow! That’s amazing.
All the time i’m lookin for backlinks so i can rank in the search engines.
Now i know, I can rank in Google without a Backlink:D
I thank you very much. Nice post!
Hi.Lisa,
I have read a fantastic article to day presented by you. It is really a nice article I can say.I am using the commenting on blog for blog linking only.You Know why?
To increase the traffic to my web site so that my web site can be ranked on Google’s page ranker.But now I throw total attention towards my site’s quality product and not that much towards back linking the site.Thanks again for so beautifully written article by you.
Hello Lisa, Fact that we no longer need to be too careful about seo is simply a great thing to know. Seems like we are going back to the days when Google started up, when content was the major factor that ranked websites high.
Especially liked your mention about Pat Flynn, his first website about on leed exam preparation was simply focussed on content, he never knew seo or any internet marketing, he was simply writing his posts to help him with his exam preparation. And the traffic started building in.
Now I think I can put all my focus on writing and making the cntent excellent. And forget about seo as it’ll happen naturally – which is what Google is expecting on websites.
Dr.Spencer Jones
This post couldn’t have come at a better time Lisa! I’ve been worried about how to get quality backlinks and how imperative or not it is to getting traffic to your site. Thanks so much!!!
Hehe what a mystery 🙂
It makes me curious to know about your secret blog
Anyway awesome results!
What about monetization results?
I have done very little monetization as of yet. It’s definitely paying for itself but not earning a lot yet. With the amount of traffic I have, I can do better. That will be my focus going forward. I really wasn’t expecting this traffic.
Very awesome ! Absolutely something we should all aim to do.
interesting experiment. but where do u even find the time to write 100 pages of content simply for an experiment? I can barely manage my own blog! haha. but anyway, I think its the instructional content that really gets the most natural inbound links. People just love to share stuff if they feel like they are the *first person to discover it*
LOL! 100 posts in a year is really not a lot when you know and like your subject matter. If you think about it, that’s about 8 posts a month and some are really short. Now had I chosen a topic I wasn’t as interested in or was just doing for the money it would have been a lot harder. And definitely agree about the instructional content.
It’s rare when someone backlinks to me but because I write exceptional content, I rank on the first page of google for many key words and phrases.
What exactly is an authority niche website? I have never heard of this before.
An authority niche is where you build up a bunch of content on one topic. You also have experience with the topic so your audience looks at you as an “expert” or someone who is very knowledgeable and not just someone putting up generic info that can be found anywhere.
Sorry for the double post. But I just want to say that your experiment didn’t work for me. personally, I find that backlinking is just as important as writing great content. It all has to do with time management.
congratulations on your new site’s success Lisa. it’s very refreshing to hear.
a few folks I know, and myself are doing the same thing. in fact an authority site challenge duel is brewing and I am happy to participate in it.
I am seeing similar results, with organic traffic picking up steadily as more content is published. interestingly like you, I only see enough back links that I can count with one hand.
it is one positive sign that Google has its priorities right 🙂 but time will tell.
QUESTION: is the site’s subject matter one that you know inside out? or is it one that you are having to research and write about?
would love to hear more as it progresses.
all the best
Hi Sunil
I was hoping to hear from you and your experience since you also do similar work. Good to know you are seeing the same kind of results.
I wouldn’t say I know the subject matter inside out but it’s something I am actively involved in where I am constantly posting my experiences and helping those trying to do the same. I am actually learning as I go and I post the results.
Well I believe that if you find a good niche with a little luck you don’t need backlinks to get a huge traffic. It is a great post Lisa, it prove to many “seo” Expert that backlinks are not everything to get traffic.
Lisa,
I’ve noticed many times when doing competitive research that websites with zero backlinks are in the #1 position in Google. I assumed (apparently correctly thanks to your post) that it had to be the result of quality content. So my conclusion is that if you aim to please real, live humans and include some SEO for good measure, you can’t help but rise to the top.
http://goarticles.com/article/6816650
Hey Lisa, I admit it, I do work in the backlink business (Marketplace for Backlinks) and we promote link buying and selling. However, there is one point that we both agree on…quality content is the foundation for effective SEO and apparently (thanks to the intersting findings) we have learned that Google likes that – so much that with only few backlinks you still get such a high traffic rolling in. I’d really be interested to look at things a little more detailed – i understand that you are not disclosing all this additional data…however I would want to find out what keywords you are ranking with and what position you are at…also, is there just traffic with a high bounce rate… INTERESTING experiment though. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Lisa,
I’m glad your site is doing well without back links and based only on the content. I was wondering if the search engines themselves know that you own the site. For example, do you have the site listed in your Google webmaster tools account? Or it is hosted on the same server as one or more of your other sites?
Sometimes it seems to me that Google takes into account the importance of the person that owns the site and not the site itself.
If there is not way that any of the search engines can identify the site with you, then I’ll take it as absolute proof that anyone can make it on merit alone – even at this late stage of Internet marketing.
Hi Angela
It is hosted on the same hosting account, but I have other sites on different topics on that same account that aren’t doing anything in the SERPS and trafficwise. So I don’t think that has anything to do with it. I think it’s more about the niche and the lack of competition (especially the angle I took).
Interesting experimental results, Lisa. This is going to make a lot us feel uncomfortable and sad, as we realize that we have waisted so much time with all sorts of link building.
Time wasted never regains! However, as the web evolve, we learn great lessons.
I am very proud of you because you abandoned link building ages ago (if you ever started with it), and now as havoc wreck across the net post Penguin, your advice or strategies are beginning to sink in the brains of many, who ignored them way back.
Great experiment! That makes your content uniquely yours-original.
Will you ever retire? Lol. Looking forward to enjoy your content ’till I reach an age when I can’t read anymore.
Well, that’s good to know! The endless battle for back links could be over:)
On my last blog, I spent a lot of time and money on backlinks and was getting a decent amount of traffic. I was well into profit, but I noticed that if I stopped building those backlinks, my Google rank would fall rapidly.
Granted, most of my traffic was from my list but if I were to do the same thing now, I would be banned from the search engines almost immediately. This site is brand new though versus the last one which was well established.
I don’t really plan on searching for links on this site and these results are really interesting to see!
Thanks,
-Gabe
Same experience, Gabe. The idea that you have to keep building streets to your store forever and ever — it’s Promethean. Lisa’s top secret experiment is in line with what I once thought site building was about: write content, and audience builds over time. Lisa, does your new site use CommentLuv?
Hi Astro, no it doesn’t.
Great experiment Lisa. I have tried something similar, with a little less successful results. That could just be the difference in competition, I suppose.
I have never bothered with building back links to any of my website’s it has always been creating content and I tend to create articles on things I can’t find. Great post Thank you.
Hey, it really works. Thanks for writing for us 2createawebsite 🙂
Love from PK
Beautiful Lisa. I promote you every chance I get and something like this proves why. I’m said that people need to stop relying on search engines so much and that SEO is only a small piece of it all, at least after the initial parts, and that content will drive traffic because it’s hard to stop. I also don’t chase backlinks because I just don’t have the time or inclination to do it.
I’m glad you’ve succeeded because it makes me feel like I’ve been right all along as well. You go on with your bad self! 😉
Hey Mitch!
Great to see you here and I can’t say thank you enough for the support and referrals. Means a lot.
Do have a blog attached to the new site? or when you add new content you just send to the subscriber list?
Thanks, You rock, chica
Hi Kim,
It is a WordPress site so it has the blogging functionality already built in. I mostly add static pages though. Feedburner automatically emails the subscribers any new posts. But I don’t have a separate list — at least not yet.
Excellent experiment. Quite right not to share the link for a whole host of reasons. Great to see that purely great content is enough to get excellent traffic figures. Just a year and a half and 100 pages get thousands of visitors a day. It must be a great niche and the site must fulfil a need that not many others do.
Hi Lisa
Interesting experiment you have been doing here. I think it is kind of an eye opener for many bloggers too. I have been working hard on my SEO and back linking skills for more than 1½ and I am not getting anywhere close to the numbers you have on this your little “hidden secret”. Maybe it is a nice think or maybe you are simply just a better writer than me? No, that can’t be the reason 😉
Hi Thomas,
LOL, I think a little luck was involved here and I found a good niche and just happened to have the experience to provide a nice angle that isn’t overdone.
It is amzing what is possible with skills and experiences. Two things that you can’t buy for money. I guess I should just keep up the work and keep on my self improvement. By the way my blog was just increased from a Google PageRank 3 to a PageRank 4 blog in the latest update Google made last week. I guess I am doing okay after all 🙂
Yaaaaay!! Congrats, Thomas!
As always Lisa, great job, interesting, fun. I have a brand new site (couple of months old) haven’t back-linked much, couple here and there naturally, and it is doing great with traffic (and sales) from now on, when I create a site, I am just going t keep doing what I did with this site.
Hi Lisa, as always I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for this good information. I was informed by my mentor about doing other avenues for more exposure and to have a niche being different from the other sites. Thanks again for your knowledge.
That is a nice little experiment you did. In fact, I inadvertently did the same experiment when I started my blog.
When I first started I didn’t know a thing about SEO – backlinks, titles, keywords, etc. – but I just created my posts the way I wanted.
Much like you, I started to get traffic with very minimal SEO and no backlinking – albeit with not as much traffic.
Some of those old posts that I didn’t do much with are still my top traffic generators from search engines, and they have been for over two years.
I recently tried to do some backlinking for some posts, and those posts didn’t generate any traffic. Since then I have stopped trying to get backlinks and focused more on just publishing content.
I guess the old method of “getting what you don’t go and look for” still holds true in the online world.
That is so true, Paul. I think backlinks are overrated — especially after Penguin. When you build a genuine site that helps people and solves problem you will be amazed at how it will blossom.
Hi Shannon,
Thanks for coming by. Yes there are some niches I wouldn’t touch but I was commenting on the “net is too saturated” claim. There is still a lot of room for the right angle in certain niches.
Awesome post Lisa!!! I still think some niches can be to saturated to get to the top. Well, at least you know you can do it all over again from the start 🙂 You Go Girl!!!
Great experiment Lisa! Natural SEO beats SEO on steroids big time. What you are implementing in that site is a backlinking strategy without backlinking 😀 Create content that people will want to link to and share and the best links will come! What we need is patience and perseverance but unfortunately, those are in short supply these days.
As for the Adsense CPC for this niche being dismal, maybe you need to add another experiment to this site to debunk that one too LOL It may not compare to the high CPC niches but with good traffic, there is decent money to be made in all niches especially as you’ve taken a unique approach to this niche. Throw in informative YT videos and you’ll be wowing lol
Let the experiment begin! 😀
Hey Flo,
Oh I haven’t even spent much time on monetization and I’m sure I could do an ebook or some other kind of digital good. Once I sit down and really focus on the site more, I will spend more time on monetization.
I literally have spent only a few hours per month on the site, if that, and just threw up some ads and links.
As you said, this is a great time to experiment and I’ll be doing that more later when I get some time. 🙂
Wow, thanks!
I Love it. I am only a 3 month old blogger, but from the beginning of my education I have been turned off by the concept of “spinning” and creating stuff for the purpose of back-links.
Perhaps the reason why I like reading you is because you say the things that I wish that some one would say.
Thank you for your research.
I meant gozada, sibi must have jumped in front of me!
Yikes! Thankfully CommentLuv lets you remove links. I didn’t see that. Thank you.
No problem, but you’re not done yet 😉
If that was his/her last blog…
Hey Lisa,
Interesting! I’m not a massive believer in chasing links. Links that build themselves are the ones you want. How to do that? Like you say, quality content. And now with social media to lend a helping hand we have all the tools at our disposal to create success online.
Can I give you one pointer though? You might not want to link to nastiness like the person above has done. It might damage your reputation 😉
This is more inspiration for blogger like me ,Because till now my blog have no back links.
Keep Posting lisa….
wow lisa I just saw your post on your facebook page, It is nice that you did all that without backlinks, good job!
Ha ha! Thanks Ileane! I have a Sharebar on the site for Twitter, Google and Facebook. I get a few shares of Facebook but nothing big. The Google Plus button hardly gets used.
But I don’t do any direct social media where I’m building relationships, re-sharing, etc. I have mainly just been writing content.
Hi Lisa, this sounds like a fun experiment and I bet it was hard to keep it under wraps since you are using your picture. You said that you didn’t have a Facebook page but are you doing any social networking at all on the site? Are others sharing the content on Twitter or is the site getting any Google+1 love?
Could it be that you are just amazing??? I bet that’s it. 🙂
I am guessing that the largest amount of traffic comes from your email lists or rss feed subscribers?
The thing is in order to build lists and people interested in opting in for Feed Burner… I think there has to be a website that has received SEO attention that was the foundation for filtering traffic to the new site.
Where did all of the followers come from on Youtube?
I think you have to be a well know authority in order to achieve the results that you did on this new site.
Hi Jordy,
I’m not doing any YouTube and my RSS email subscribers are at about 500. Most of the traffic is coming from Google and Facebook.
I found a niche that has a lot of single blog posts on the topics, but not many complete sites so I took advantage of that.
I don’t think you have to be well known. I think sometimes a little luck is involved with the niche you choose. I met someone at a conference who makes a living creating sites the way I do. He is completely anonymous. Not normally the route I’d take but it was a fun experiment.
Sounds like you have discovered GOLD Lisa. I’d like to know how someone goes about finding such a precious thing in this overcrowded Internet world.
Thanks for responding. I value our friendship and have great respect for all the wisdom that you share.
Hey Lisa!
This is a great post. I too have another website and I don’t post on a schedule and it’s doing quite well, considering. Quite a few of my posts from the site, are on the first page of Google. I’m not focusing on building backlinks or anything like that, just on writing and putting out quality information and it does pay off.
Good for you Evelyn!
hi lisa gret getat post it will very use full for new blogger because new blogger first goal is how to get traffic for new website and also use full for me thanks for sharing..
hi lisa
nice article i learn many things high pr and quality backlinks are very important for any website. very informative post it will very helpful with me thanks for sharing.
Yes this an excellent case study Lisa. I actually ran across a site of yours a long time ago about adsense and it intrigued me but I took no action. I kick myself for that all the time. I am in the game now however and I see the strange stuff Google algo does. I guess they have got it so that content really is king now. Great article and thanks for all the great tips over the years.
Interesting post. I’ve never liked building backlinks. It’s something I struggled with when I first started my sites. Not too long ago I gave up on it completely. I’d much rather focus on content.
Quality matters and not quantity! Never thought you will be experimenting like this 🙂
Your first 2 words said it all. I had a Lens that was ZERO SEO optimized, no back links built, NOTHING.
And, just like Lisa, over time people see it, share it, Like it, etc. and traffic steadily rose.
It shared a personal experience of mine that was helpful. Linked to an Amazon product and not it’s converting at about 12%!
My mentors are saying this exact same thing. Hmmmmmmm. There must be something to it:)
This is a GREAT post!
-Charlie
Great post.I should definitely try this on my upcoming new blog.Thanx for the tips
Whew! It’s good to see this. I’ve always felt like it should be about the content, but so many people go crazy telling you how to “trick” Google. Even after writing up a report about focusing on content strategies I’ve found myself questioning my assumptions from time to time. It’s really nice to see some hard numbers on this!
May I ask why you responded to the first comment, rather than start your own thread? 😉
I’m with Carmen; my face looks a lot cuter at the beginning of the thread… 😉
hi, my site is new suggest me to get links and social media from your side godfocoupons.com
I have a new website, its 5 months old and its very poor in traffic…..
what you outline above is that you should have readers and not merely traffic sounds good….but then how many ‘serious’ or ‘not so serious’ readers are you going to attract when most people ,say 75% ,are looking for a quick fix for themselves….
Thank you, Lisa for you very informative post. Expect that I will be your constant visitor. God bless!
it’s nice to see this article, somehow we should stop overanalyzing how to do SEO things in our site, after all great content is the KING. =) cheers!
Thanks Lisa! I just wonder how I can generate UNSIMULATED Traffic! I found a site that pays $100 for 1000 unique visitors! http://top-ppc-site.blogspot.com/
I would stay far, far away from these sites.