How Many Backlinks do You Need to Rank?

If you’ve spent time trying to improve your rankings, you’ve probably heard the same advice again and again: “You need backlinks.”

But how many backlinks do you actually need to become visible in search? 10? 100? 1,000? A million?

The truth is, there’s no universal magic number. It depends entirely on your competition, your niche, and the specific keyword you’re targeting.

So... How Many Backlinks Should You Build?

If you’re targeting a low-competition keyword, or a keyword in a narrow niche (like ‘free afrikaans courses for English speakers’), you might only need a handful of quality backlinks (or even none at all) to rank well.

On the flip side, for high-competition keywords in competitive niches like SaaS or Finance (e.g. 'best content management system'), you could need hundreds of strong backlinks just to crack page one.

Backlink quantity is only part of the picture. Quality matters more — a few links from authoritative, relevant sites will beat 100 spammy ones.

How to Define Your Link-Building Objectives

Here’s a way to set your backlink target in 3 steps:

1. Analyze your target keyword

SEO tools like Ahrefs show you how many referring domains you need to rank in the top 10 for a specific keyword — this is gold when planning your link-building strategy.

2. Spy on your competitors

See how many backlinks the top-ranking pages have and use that as your benchmark.

However, don't fixate too much on the numbers. You'll see that the some competitors in Top 10 SERP results have 20+ backlinks and others have just 2 or 3. It all depends on the quality of content and the power of the websites that link to them.

3. Break the big objective into steps

Don’t aim straight for the top 3. First, focus on getting to page 3. Then page 2. Then break into the top 10 — and only then aim for the top 3. Smaller wins make SEO way less overwhelming.

How to Build Backlinks with Ease?

Backlink building doesn’t have to be slow, expensive, or confusing.

With a link-building networking platform like Ranking Raccoon, you can discover and secure quality backlinks in days instead of weeks — without the endless prospecting or cold emails.

On Ranking Raccoon, you get AI-driven recommendations of best potential backlink partners. You can then find pages for your target keywords in seconds and send your request to the site admin.

And on top of that, there are no link placement fees - Ranking Raccoon only allows free backlink exchange.

Try Ranking Raccoon for free and see how easy link building can be!