Is it possible to get top positions without link-building?

Hello. My theme is biathlon (sport). And i'd like to create site about it on english.
There are easy rivalry (official site, and several news-sites).
But I haven't money for link building, it's risk. Can invest $100-200

And i thinking, is it possible?

Last time i was on english section SEO ... 8 years ago)) Then a lot of people used directories for boost.

What is now effectively?

 

If you can write the content that gives reason to your user for stick around your site and they share bookmark your site then no need to build links for your site

 

How this users find out my site?
Share bookmark...it's not seriously

 

Yes you can get great rankings without any backlinks.

You'll need to start with low competition keyword terms AKA "longtail" to begin ranking for easy terms. Then as you start getting traffic, trust, authority, good metrics (time on page/bounce rate), you can start targeting more competitive keywords. On-page SEO is the most important.

I personally wouldn't touch that niche as it's a winter sport and very seasonal.

 

Link building alone won't get you there. If it did anyone could manipulate the algorithm by creating a large number of backlinks.

I am a firm believer that SEO is dead, has been dead for a while now. So don't waste your time on something as useless as link building. Create something that people want and promote it via social media outlets. Much easier and in the end will prove to be more effective.

 

Are you serious? Please elaborate on what you define as SEO.

 

Thanks for answer. In UA and RU - no any chances without links.
I've got site on russian about biathlon - it's good money on the season for my little city)

Yes. I planned start from longtails.
What are you think, crowd-links (talking on the sport forums, and posting links to interesting news) is working?

 

In UA and RU links very important. Quantity - it's not important, but quality - yes.
Also, i hate facebook, it's most stupid big site.I don't understand how billions people communicating there. No alternativity?

 

This: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/245521



.

 

@qwikad.com reading that article doesn't for a second make me think SEO is dead. The first point says that organic search is down but this is still by far the biggest source of traffic for many websites. It is just more competitive due to the use of ads, however they say themselves more people are savvy about this and just skip down to organic results. It even says later in the piece that "We Millenials are the generation of Googling, Tindering and Uber-ing." Key to that being Googling.

The rest of the points are about social presence, where as they are correct that it is important to have this, many people are actually deserting social platforms and also these same social platforms have begun to make it more difficult than ever for social marketers. Last year Facebook made a massive change to their news feed algo that saw e-commerce and news pages lose anywhere up to 50% of their reach and in some cases much more. Instagram have done similar and pinterest is a great promotional tool but it doesn't really equate into that many sales as it is more of an aspirational platform.

Modern SEO work is about having a range of strategies and for me these include a social presence, good onsite SEO and a strong link building strategy.

 

Can you guarantee that all those methods can get someone's site on the 1st page of Google? The answer is no. Not only you can't guarantee, it's simply not going to happen. Period. And if the answer is no then the only logical conclusion must be: the "modern SEO" doesn't work. Or as I've said: it's dead.

It's dead because the algo has made it dead. It picks and chooses what it's "taught" to pick and choose (based on relevancy score) independent of your or anybody's SEO expertise.

 

Well link building its a good strategy but i have the opinion that creative original and value content its the way to go

 

Without backlinks, it will be really hard unless you are in a less competitive market.

 

I'm going to buy a several drops and making 301 redirect to main site.
On ahrefs it has ranks from 2 to 8. And backlinks 20-100 (domain).
Is it working?
I need a boost!))

 

Of course it's possible.
If you have a great content, people will visit your website very often and they will share link to your website themselves.
For you it'll be really great opportunity to have free linkbuilding.

 

Yes you can rank at first position but your website need on page optimization and also it must be helpful to users. Make link to others, it may chance to rank. I have seen many website ranked.

 

This would argue that Search Engines as a platform to search are declining, more so than SEO. As long as there is a Search Engine, SEO will exist, meaning you will be able to influence the result by the content. Whether that's structure, keywords, amount of content, adding/removing elements ,etc. AI and Rank Brain have to use content on a page somewhere to analyze, thus optimization is possible. SEO will be dead when Google creates all the info they display in their results, at point it would cease to be a true search engine.

Search is changing though like "voice search"
It has a long way to go before it becomes like what forums have become online.

 

This is just unreal!
Only narrow site.

 

Absolutely, *depending on the niche. I purposely built out and ranked a blog for disc golf a few years ago purposely ranking for "best disc golf bags" and "best disc golf discs". My only "backlinks" were reddit blasts to generate initial traffic and a post to a disc golf forum for each post. Here's the website. Feel free to check metrics.

I generate a sale every 2-3 days. Disc golf is super niche, relatively uncompetitive and very seasonal.

 

The secret that everyone keeps forgeting is great content! write good stuff that people will definitely share on their social media accounts. you'll get other websites linking back to you effortlessly. and when someone visits your site, they should stay on the site longer simply because you have content. that will definitely boost your business/rankings