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Update: 150,000 Monthly Page Views – STILL No Backlink Building

Filed Under: Build Traffic, SEO 185 Comments

build trafficYou may remember my post from last August titled 100,000 Monthly Page Views & No Backlink Building.

So I wanted to update you on the traffic to my hidden WordPress website I created in 2011 that I have been using to test how much organic traffic I can build without chasing backlinks.

It’s been six months since that post and the traffic has increased by roughly 50,000 page views per month and you can see the comparison screenshots below…

August 2012

traffic reports

February 2013

Since the last post in August, I’ve added roughly 20 pages.

traffic stats

For the record, a few people were suspicious/curious about the tool I’m using to track the traffic because they didn’t recognize the above graph.

It’s the WordPress.com Stats Plugin.  I also use Google Analytics, but the WP plugin is just more convenient to check.  So just in case you’re interested, the Google Analytics report looks about the same…

traffic

What?!?! No Backlinks???

The last post generated a bit of confusion.  People didn’t understand how I could build so much organic traffic without backlinks.

For the record, I never said this site doesn’t have backlinks.  Of course it does.  However, they were earned naturally.  The point is, I haven’t been chasing or manually building backlinks through guest posting, linking schemes, etc.

I have simply been writing content and targeting longtail (less competitive) keywords.

I’m Not Alone

So I updated my traffic story on my forum, Website Babble, and it was good to see that other members are experiencing similar results.  Here are two replies from the thread…

From Seanguy75

Lisa this is a very cool post. Thanks for sharing your experience with this! Other than making a squidoo page early on that links to our site and literally only having our website address in one signature on one forum related to our niche, we have done no backlink building at all.

We are ranking #1 for our original keyword that I targeted at the beginning and #3 right now for another larger keyword in the niche. We are getting around 40,000-50,000 page views a month right now and hope to keep increasing this!

I have never done a guest post and have focused mainly on content and SEO. The SEO mainly being on page SEO. I tell my girlfriend who is actually my partner on the website now all the time about the things you recommend and how you do things. Cool post here and very encouraging for us!

It is funny, I was not expecting us to hit the top of our keyword as soon as we did so I have focused most of my efforts and research into content and basically how to get where we are now.

I told my girlfriend, wow I guess it is time for me to start researching and learning all about monetization now! We went from getting 10-40 visitors a day to 500-800 a day within a few weeks and have stayed in the upper amounts ever since. It has just been hitting me that we have enough traffic to really start doing something here now. LOL

Anyhow, most of this was done without any backlink chasing at all. I just never really got around to that. Once it became about content, it just has been about that ever since. Thank you for your ethics, your inspiration, your attentiveness to questions even though you must have a thousand or more a day and for this post!  Can’t wait to hit 100k!

From emvy548

I do have a similar experience as seanguy75.

I have a website in a hard-fought photography related niche. I posted a lot of good content based on my experience as a freelance photographer (one of my hobbies), and also some research done on the web. I did not build any backlinks for this site and let it sit – pretty much forgot about it while I got tied into various other assignments.

A few months later I noticed that my website was ranking in the top 5 results for several two-word keyword phrases with two of them being in the top three. It is a simple site with pure content and no monetization – not even Adsense on this one.

I am planning to add more content and monetize it though, hoping at the same time that its stays afloat at the top!

You can join this conversation on Website Babble here.

The Take-Home

Let me make one thing clear.  Building a business that relies solely on SEO is a dangerous game.  That is not the point of this post.

If you’ve been following me long enough, you know that my business is not SEO dependent.  This is just an experiment.  I just want to show that yes, in 2013 it is still possible to build decent traffic without chasing backlinks.

Of course, a lot of variables have to come into play (niche choice, competition, the quality of the earned backlinks, etc.) however it is still possible.  Too many people today are still targeting competitive/broad keywords and their sites are not focused enough around a central theme.

And I actually think this site would have even more traffic had I done this experiment before Google started favoring brands in late 2010.  With this experiment specifically, it is quite evident how much brands get a lift in the SERPS.

So ranking for longtail (less competitive) keywords is where the traffic is coming from (just like Carl’s Disney site).

Having said that, I’m not complaining. Getting 150,000 monthly page views (2300 daily uniques) is certainly nothing to sneeze at.

Thanks for the Feedback

I really enjoyed reading all your comments on the last post.  Many of you confirmed that you’ve experienced positive traffic results without chasing backlinks as well.

Keep the encouraging results and comments coming!

Comments

  1. Really, I don’t like the SEO game, Good news is that within 3 months I’m getting 60,000 page views per month. So don’t do backlinking if you want to save your online business.

    Reply

    • Wow! Those are definitely some impressive numbers. Would you be able to share some pointers on how you managed to do that? I could definitely use all the help I can get 🙂

      Also, are those page views for your scratchinginfo.com site? Nice site by the way.

      Reply

  3. The advantages of doing this are associated with speeding up your content writing activities and generating a lot of backlinks and increased traffic rates much faster than you would by writing only one or two articles each day.

    Reply

  4. I have read your article couple months ago. I do understand what you mean, but I feel it’s so hard for me to follow your success steps. I hope that you can help me, even just a little bit. My blog is about English Lesson, can I follow your steps with that blog? Thanks, if you want to help me…

    Reply

  5. I have a website that I started a while ago targeting a physical product niche, monetized via AdSense and Amazon. I am focusing only on adding content and improving the site as much as possible, always asking this question to myself: “Would I stay on this site or visit it again if I was looking for information about these products?” I didn’t build any backlinks or such, the site’s traffic is increasing each month as I keep adding content. The income is negligible but as long as the traffic keeps increasing, the income will also increase eventually. This is a long term process and I definitely prefer adding content and improving the site over wasting all my precious time on backlinks which will sooner or later lose their effect. Create good websites and good content and let your visitors build your backlinks naturally.

    Reply

    • That’s awesome Sarah! These kinds of posts definitely give me the motivation to keep at it. I also really like your trick of stepping back and asking yourself if you’d stay on your site or visit it again.

      Reply

  6. That is incredible traffic! I’m a firm believer that good keyword research, on-page SEO and solid content are key. It’s just nice to see someone actual succeed that way. Your posts have inspired me enough to actually give this approach a try – I’ll be starting a little sub-project in my blog.

    Reply

  10. Spying in on the competition with tools like SpyFu or SEOQuake can give you an inside glimpse at who you’re up against. Alex recently wrote a post about these two tools called: What Linkbuilders Aren’t Telling You . The idea is the same: You use both to dig through content and competition to see where you can find an edge and since you know Adsense will be paying well, you know you’re onto a profitable niche.

    Reply

  12. I’m seeing traffic come without building backlinks too. For one site in particular, all I had to do was build it about a funny/interesting topic and it started receiving traffic. I’ve chased backlinks in the past, and I hated doing it. It’s so boring! I would rather write and create excellent content then mindlessly build backlinks. My brother chose to rely on SEO for his business, and he has to start over now after penguin was released.

    Reply

  13. Wow, super. I know it is true. Even I too have single digit number of backlinks and getting 200 views per day only from google. What is the page rank and alexa rank of that website ? I hape PR 0 and alexa – 900000.

    Reply

  16. Amazing. Mine is only 25,000. The only deliberate back linking I’ve done is commenting on other blogs and two guest posts, and that only in the last month (site is 5 years old). Do you have your Google Authorship linked on this blog you’re testing? I wonder if your popularity on Google+ could influence the traffic Google sends your way. My main way of getting readers has been writing articles in print media — not the best way, but I always figured it was better to be paid decent money for a print media article than to write a guest blog post for nothing…

    Reply

  20. Lisa, you never cease to amaze me with the results you are able to produce!

    I remember when I started back in 2009, you were the first marketer that really got me excited about the passive income lifestyle.

    I watched your videos back to back on Youtube and digested everything you had to throw out.

    Website Babble was one of the first forums I joined under the username RatRaceWatch, and it was a library of great information and great support! :0

    I don’t know how much forum marketing you’ve done outside of website babble, but I would love for you to stop by FirePoleMarketing.com and give your input on how website babble has helped you forge relationships plus anything else you want to add outside of it for traffic generation and leads.

    My partner Matt Ludwig did a guest post called Game Of Forums on Firepole here: http://www.firepolemarketing.com/2013/05/03/forums-firestarter/

    We’ve been lucky to get some legendary figures such as Ana from TrafficGenerationCafe.com & the sweet-hearted Ms. Ileane from MsIleaneSpeaks.com to join the conversation.

    Keep up the great case studies Lisa, we’ll be in touch!

    Reply

  24. Achieving huge traffic without building backlinks is a tremendous win over Google rules of SEO. If you started building backlinks, you can probably get three times more traffic.

    That way the no of links will exponentially grow with your traffic fetching more quality to the site. However your concept is very inspirational and stands out from the rest of the SEO worshipers who believe backlinks are everything.

    Reply

  25. I think there are factors that can get you to the point of 1000’s of views with no link building but it does take longer than if you did some seo for the same site. The benefit is that it’s much more stable because it’s all “natural” traffic. It is great to see a real world example though and not a theoretical article.

    Reply

  26. hmmm, i think impossible to get natural traffic without link building, especially if you running on affiliate or other online business, because they also competing in micro niche market.

    Reply

    • Impossible? I disagree. When your content is good, people will give you links in other articles and on their sites. That’s where these links are coming from. Remember I never said I don’t have links. I just said I didn’t build them myself. If you read the comments others have said the same thing.

      I think people need to focus less on link building and find ways to be unique, useful, etc. so people will naturally share your content.

      Reply

  27. i agree with above points and i would like to state that now a days infographs and guest blogging has emeged as a new and authentic way to build backlinks.lots of most popular website like quicksprout,Kissmetrics social media examiner are taking help of infographs which has helped them in creating quality backlinks for their business.

    Reply

  28. Nice post, this definitely works as I have had several of my sites in top position for long tail keywords or less competitive keywords and I hadn’t done any backlinking or s.e.o work on it at all. It was actually my friend who told me my site was ranking well. That’s how little I did on it. This was an old skateboarding website a couple of years ago.

    I believe content is king, and if you write for your readers and not the search engines then you will have an overall better website. Never make a post just to rank, let’s make the web a better place 🙂

    Reply

  29. I have also experienced similar thing with my website but not that much page view as I don’t have that much article on my website.I have quality content written by experienced writers.I have started getting good ranking in google search result pages for some specific keywords

    Reply

  32. That is fantastic Lisa. I too have been enjoying more traffic without doing any backlinking. But not at the scale that you have managed. Is is possible that some of your followers from websitebabble migrated over to your blog? What other types of traffic building process have you done?

    Reply

  33. Just like you I have also created a website where I don’t do any backlinking and I am getting 200 to 500 views per day not bad for a small blogger like me.

    Reply

      • Hi Anthony, how did I create a backlink? I am not linking to the site from this article? And I never said the site doesn’t have backlinks. I only said I haven’t manually created them. Sure the site has backlinks. They were all earned naturally.

        Reply

  35. SEO AND SEM works togheter. I really love what you do when it comes about traffic. Growing natural – Slowly and sure, I got the point 🙂 I agree with all you say here. Well done!

    Reply

  36. wonderful share and nice post Lisa thanx a lot….
    but i have a question, how to increase traffic my e-commerce website? Can you give me some advice to do this?

    Reply

  37. I must say this is a very inspirational post! I don’t focus on backlinks and I am focusing mainly on the unique content of my website. I have not seen MAJOR results yet but this post reminds me it is possible. Awesome information here Lisa!!

    Reply

  39. This is amazing and unheard of in my neck of the woods. I’m glad things are working out for you. Having that amount of traffic, you have the flexibility to make it work for you. You can influence a lot of things and drive traffic to your product or service. All the best to you Lisa. -Doug

    Reply

  41. I have to agree with the other comments posted here. This is certainly impressive at the least. For our business, I don’t chase backlinks either, instead I work on what I do best, which is my business. Along the way, I have built a good following through hard work and connecting with my readers. So to some extent, I have to concur that back linking is not something you must do, but I wouldn’t spend 100% of my time doing it. Great post. -Brian.

    Reply

  43. Great post, Lisa! Building serious traffic by writing content and targeting long-tail (less competitive) keywords. this made my day!And i wonder what “magic” you use in driving such a gigantic traffic!!

    Regards
    Athul

    Reply

  44. I must say I am pretty amazed what can be done with “natural” SEO, Lisa – i.e. let your content speak for itself.

    I haven’t done any link building for Traffic Generation Cafe either for about a year now, but my organic traffic keeps climbing.

    Reply

  45. Really amazing fact,I am also trying hard to build traffic and your post will be the Mile Stone for the blogger like me. I think the idea of long tail keyword is great to fetch organic traffic.

    Reply

  46. Traffic is important. I work to get page rank, but the key to every activity that I do is to get traffic. Because, traffic will pay my bills but good page rank may not. Targeted keywords may bring the traffic that one needs.

    Reply

  48. I have also seen such traffic for one of my blog with no backlinks. But the traffic was short lifed. It lasted merely a month.
    The conclusion i drew from my experience is that backlinks are only required for a good page rank and a good page rank doesn’t promises you good traffic.

    Reply

  49. Lisa,

    This is extremely interesting! Good work on your part, super impressive. I’m guessing you’re using really high quality content in order to build this site up. Do you mid explaining how you go about creating your content, use of freelancers or VA’s? If you’ve already explained that somewhere (it’s my first time on your site) I apologize! Once again, great work!

    Reply

  50. Your online success is amazing and inspiring to newbies like us… Its a common misconception among people that paying thousands of grands is necessary for the success of a website.. but you have proved that without techniques such as backlinking also we can generate huge traffic if the content is unique and fresh. many people have an idea that could turn into something big but the fear of employing a money sucking SEO company haunts… Once again you continue to provide us with inspiration 🙂

    Reply

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