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Dofollow Digest #22: The data behind successful link building in 2025

Dofollow Digest #22: The data behind successful link building in 2025

Eric Carrell
April 18, 2025

Hey, it's Eric 👋

Huge news from the link building world this week. BuzzStream and Citation Labs just dropped their 2025 Link Building Trends Report, and I've got the inside scoop (they even asked me to contribute as an expert!).

More below.

📣 Lite Link Building Package:
We’ve received a lot of requests for a lower price point than our $4k/month package, so we listened. We dropped our Lite Link Building Package for only $2,500/month a few months ago.

It should be noted that this package's DR cap is 69, so you won’t get our usual DR70, 80, and 90+ links that we build for clients. However, it might be a good fit for you if you’re more budget-conscious or in the early stages of building your SEO strategy.

We’re opening up slot in April for this package, so if you want to learn more, get in touch here.

🔍 DEEP DIVE: Quality Over Quantity - The Data Behind Successful Link Building in 2025

The new BuzzStream/Citation Labs report just dropped, and it's packed with fascinating data on link building in 2025. Garrett French and the team compiled insights from hundreds of SEO professionals and industry experts (including yours truly - honored to contribute to this one!).

There's tons of great data in this report (seriously, go read the whole thing), but I want to focus on what I think matters most: while most organizations are continuing to invest in link building, there's a striking disconnect between effort and results. Only 29% of respondents consider their link building efforts successful, despite 56% planning to increase their budgets this year.

Why the gap? The data points to three key factors:

Misaligned priorities: 68% of brands build links to blog posts, but only 41% focus on product pages. Moreover, just 48% explicitly connect link building to revenue goals. This creates a fundamental misalignment between SEO efforts and business outcomes.
Short-sighted measurement: 75% of teams are given 6 months or fewer to prove the value of their link building. Yet the data shows that meaningful impact, especially for strategic approaches targeting product pages, often takes 8-12 months to materialize.
Reactive strategy: Only 32% of organizations follow a documented, repeatable link building process. The rest take a more spontaneous approach, making it nearly impossible to properly test, measure, and optimize results.

What does this mean for SaaS companies? There's a massive competitive advantage available to those who align their link building with revenue goals and adopt a more strategic, patient approach.

The most successful SaaS companies we work with are doing exactly what most organizations aren't: focusing on building high-quality links to product and key conversion pages, measuring impact beyond just traffic and rankings, and following a consistent, documented process that allows for meaningful optimization over time.

Interestingly, the data also suggests that AI is making link building more important, not less. 68% of respondents believe links will become more critical over the next two years due to AI's influence on search. Yet, only 11% have a repeatable process for getting cited in AI-generated results.

This is precisely the kind of opportunity we've been helping our clients capitalize on—building authoritative, high-quality links that influence both traditional rankings and visibility in AI-powered search environments.

Bottom line: While lots of organizations struggle with link building strategy and measurement, those who approach it as a strategic channel aligned with revenue goals are seeing disproportionate returns on their investment. The key is patience, consistency, and a relentless focus on quality over quantity.

🔗 LINK ROUNDUP

Til next week,

Eric