Balance between Content vs Links

[liwern]

Hi, I have just acquired an expired domain and thinking of blasting initial content of 50 posts.
Will this be enough to start off?
After these 50 articles are posted and interlinked, I plan to stop and focus my resources on link building.
I only have a set amount of budget per month so dont advice me to splurge on both articles and link building

Also I try to avoid automated tools like RankerX (creating tons of web2.0s). Although it's working for one of my current site, I dont want to risk it on this next project. So the only way is to buy white hat links like guest posts, etc.

Thanks!

 

[JamaicanMoose]

I'm guessing your set budget isn't that large. If that's the case, pump out 200+ articles before even thinking about link building.

 

[Ryuzaki]

I agree with @JamaicanMoose. You're not wrong in realizing you need links. You need them early so they can age along with the site. But if it's truly a matter of "one or the other" you're better off doubling down on content for now.

But it's not "one or the other." You can get plenty of links without spending a dime by doing marketing, doing outreach, contributing on forums and whatever. The links are out there for the building, if you're willing to put on your thinking cap and put in the time.

Definitely don't ignore the need for links. I'd say you could delay starting that process for another couple of months but I wouldn't wait too long to at least get some of those initial links. You don't have to go all out but having some amount of page rank flowing through the site is going to get you to the data and revenue you need faster, especially once the sandbox starts to release the throttle.

 

[larcha]

I always find myself debating whether I should spend my next $x towards more content or more links. It's a delicate balance but at the end of the day the content is the base of your site. Without content, links don't matter. But if you want your content to dominate the SERPs long-term, you need links.

If your budget forces you to pick one or allocate most towards one end, see where your skills can assist with the process. Maybe you can write one article a week and use that saved money to purchase a couple niche edits or a guest post. In that case you still produce content and still snag a link.

Or maybe think about it the other way, perhaps you don't want to be bothered with writing content and prefer to spend some time doing personal outreach for links or negotiating guest post prices on marketing forums, fiverr or directly with the webmaster.

For me personally, I started my recent site in December of 2020 and have pumped out 525+ articles at $0.02-0.025 per word. While I spent a majority of my budget on articles, I am allocating a % towards links on a monthly basis. As I hit my content goal of 1000 articles, my budget will increase more towards links.

 

[liwern]

I agree with @JamaicanMoose. You're not wrong in realizing you need links. You need them early so they can age along with the site. But if it's truly a matter of "one or the other" you're better off doubling down on content for now.

But it's not "one or the other." You can get plenty of links without spending a dime by doing marketing, doing outreach, contributing on forums and whatever. The links are out there for the building, if you're willing to put on your thinking cap and put in the time.

Definitely don't ignore the need for links. I'd say you could delay starting that process for another couple of months but I wouldn't wait too long to at least get some of those initial links. You don't have to go all out but having some amount of page rank flowing through the site is going to get you to the data and revenue you need faster, especially once the sandbox starts to release the throttle.

Thanks @Ryuzaki but as I mentioned I have an expired domain with great links from news websites pointing mostly to the homepage. Will this at least let me skip the sandbox phase?

Also @Ryuzaki would you have any good recommendations on which provider to use if I were to outsource my entire SEO on monthly basis? Maybe on a budget of say $250 per month for starters? And no PBNs please. I prefer as whitehat as possible for this new project of mine.

 

[Stones]

@liwern you can't ask for link service recommendation from a link provider and an OG forum member. And it's a bit like asking for financial advice too.

Read the sales threads and use your best judgement. There are a lot of solid link providers here aiming for different price points. Figure out your budget and choose accordingly.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Thanks @Ryuzaki but as I mentioned I have an expired domain with great links from news websites pointing mostly to the homepage. Will this at least let me skip the sandbox phase?

My bad, I missed this detail when reading your opening post.

My experience is... hell, let me just be detailed. My newest project started on an expiring (not expired), indexed, and linked domain that was about DR25 at the time. Ahref's tweaked their algorithm and it become DR35. 90% of the links were to the homepage with about 10% to various inner pages. I created one new page to receive all the 301's from those inner pages.

From there, I said "Okay, link-building is out of the way for now, I'll focus only on content." I got up to about 150 posts and realized that it was time to start building links again.

Why? Because there's a dampening factor with every leap from one page to another through links, meaning you lose 15% to 20% (guesstimate) of your page rank with every leap. And with 150 posts, that was a lot of leaps and a dilution of the total page rank.

To state it simply, including dilution... if you have 100 units of page rank going to 10 pages, each page has about 9 units of page rank after it flows around multiple times. If you have 100 units going to 100 pages, each page has about 0.9 units of page rank at the end of the day.

Without new links, you start to dilute your "page rank per page". Of course page rank isn't the whole story, but it's a gigantic part of the story.

After starting building links again, this time directly to inner pages, I've doubled my traffic and revenue. Having direct links to inner pages super powers them but also drops page rank deep into the site and when it flows through inner pages, it can result in more page rank landing on those inner pages than if it had to flow down from the homepage. It's less leaps.

Will it help you skip the sandbox? Yes, if the domain remained indexed, for sure. It'll just be a steady linear growth rate instead of a waiting with barely any growth and then experiencing an exponential burst once the sandbox throttle is released. But realize that every single post has it's own aging process too, on top of the general domain's aging process.

 

[secretagentdad]

Spend your entire budget on brand and content.

 

[liwern]

My bad, I missed this detail when reading your opening post.

My experience is... hell, let me just be detailed. My newest project started on an expiring (not expired), indexed, and linked domain that was about DR25 at the time. Ahref's tweaked their algorithm and it become DR35. 90% of the links were to the homepage with about 10% to various inner pages. I created one new page to receive all the 301's from those inner pages.

From there, I said "Okay, link-building is out of the way for now, I'll focus only on content." I got up to about 150 posts and realized that it was time to start building links again.

Why? Because there's a dampening factor with every leap from one page to another through links, meaning you lose 15% to 20% (guesstimate) of your page rank with every leap. And with 150 posts, that was a lot of leaps and a dilution of the total page rank.

To state it simply, including dilution... if you have 100 units of page rank going to 10 pages, each page has about 9 units of page rank after it flows around multiple times. If you have 100 units going to 100 pages, each page has about 0.9 units of page rank at the end of the day.

Without new links, you start to dilute your "page rank per page". Of course page rank isn't the whole story, but it's a gigantic part of the story.

After starting building links again, this time directly to inner pages, I've doubled my traffic and revenue. Having direct links to inner pages super powers them but also drops page rank deep into the site and when it flows through inner pages, it can result in more page rank landing on those inner pages than if it had to flow down from the homepage. It's less leaps.

Will it help you skip the sandbox? Yes, if the domain remained indexed, for sure. It'll just be a steady linear growth rate instead of a waiting with barely any growth and then experiencing an exponential burst once the sandbox throttle is released. But realize that every single post has it's own aging process too, on top of the general domain's aging process.

Well said @Ryuzaki thanks for the laymen explanation. So what you're saying is, if I want to eventually build out a site with 1000 pages, I sure as hell will need to topup my links because the total power will he diluted among those 1000 posts.
Which brings the question of, what is the recommended amount of posts for a website in its entire lifetime? Or once you reach a certain amount of pages like 1000, you tone it down like 30 articles per month coupled with a few link building every month.