Listener (4:25)

Okay?

Grumpy SEO Guy (4:25)

SEO is like a race, okay? There's always a website in first position, there's always a website in second place, and so on. So the amount of authority that you need. And we're going to not talk about the other things in this episode. We're only gonna talk about authority. So the amount of authority you need is normally based on the amount of authority that your competition has, okay? That's why competition analysis is a big part of SEO. You can't just do. Well, I mean, you can. You can just do stuff, but if you don't know what you're up against, there's no reason to do it. That's why I've mentioned this before, but we don't even. For example, we don't even start building backlinks until we have gone through a complicated assessment process that takes three or four weeks where we look at a lot of stuff. A lot of that is spent looking at your competition and what they're doing and finding out why they are ranking. Because it makes no sense to just start trying stuff if you don't know what the competition is doing. Do you want to spend thousands of dollars and months and get no result because you don't know what your competition is doing? Or how do you know if it's even possible to outrank somebody if you haven't looked at your competition? So anyway, long story short, the answer to the question is, basically, you do not need to keep building backlinks, but you might have to if you lose your rank.

Listener (5:48)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (5:48)

It's not like you have to keep doing it and just build more backlinks. I have to build more. And I have to build more. And I have to build more. If you're already in first place, it almost definitely means you have more authority than your competition. Okay, so once you're in. But that doesn't. Okay, but that doesn't mean that you can just like stop doing SEO, right? Like, okay, look, if you're in a race, just cause you're in first place.

Listener (6:09)

Right.

Grumpy SEO Guy (6:10)

Doesn't mean you can necessarily slow down.

Listener (6:12)

Right.

Grumpy SEO Guy (6:13)

Or stop. It doesn't mean you can stop. But like, this kind of brings us to another question, and we already have two episodes on this other topic, but this other question is why do you lose your rank?

Listener (6:27)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (6:27)

By the way, that's episode 89 and episode 90.

Listener (6:30)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (6:31)

I think they are titled why your SEO position is losing rank, part one and part two or something like that. I can't remember. I'll put links to them in the notes. But anyways, look, there's a number of reasons that you can lose rank, okay? For example, we're not gonna go through all of them here, but two of the main ones are algorithm updates.

Listener (6:51)

Right?

Grumpy SEO Guy (6:52)

Obviously. And your competition is stepping up their SEO game.

Listener (6:57)

Okay?

Grumpy SEO Guy (6:57)

So let's think of that as if it were a race. You're in first position, you're winning the race. Okay, but what happens if your competition decides to turn up their SEO efforts?

Listener (7:12)

Right?

Grumpy SEO Guy (7:13)

What happens? Well, that's like the person in second place starting to run faster and eventually they pass you. Now they're in first position and you're in the second position. SEO is the same way.

Listener (7:24)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (7:24)

You can be in first position and your competition can start doing better SEO. And then now they're in the first position. Okay, so. And by the way, that's why people work with SEO agencies. Because they need better SEO.

Listener (7:40)

Right?

Grumpy SEO Guy (7:40)

So like nobody? Well, I can't say nobody. Usually people don't hire us if they're in the first position because they don't need SEO. I mean, there's exceptions to each thing. Right? But generally speaking, people that hire us are not in the first position.

Listener (7:57)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (7:58)

And so then if we get them to the first position, the person who used to be in the first position is like, wait a minute, now they're on the discussion boards posting. I'm not in first position anymore. What happened? Well, your competition stepped up their SEO game.

Listener (8:12)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (8:13)

You need to think of it like a race. Like you're in a race.

Listener (8:15)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (8:16)

So the purpose of a race is to win the race.

Listener (8:20)

Right?

Grumpy SEO Guy (8:20)

Obviously. Anyways, so let's say you're in first place. You're in the search results. You're in first place. I don't want to tell you that you have to keep building backlinks because you might not. You obviously already have sufficient authority to be at the top of the results. So I don't know that you need to keep getting more. That's going to take you time and money.

Listener (8:41)

Okay.

Grumpy SEO Guy (8:41)

But maybe you might want to keep doing it if you want to like, make you make your lead even further. Like, just cause you're in first place in a race.

Listener (8:50)

Right.

Grumpy SEO Guy (8:50)

Doesn't mean that you slow down necessarily. Maybe you're gonna try and win by even more. So you don't necessarily need to keep building more back. Or let me. Let me put it this way. When you're in first, when you're on the first page, you generally will organically collect backlinks anyways. Because people link to websites on the first page because they can find them. If you recall from a different episode, there are four ways to get. Okay, I'll put a link in this episode to that episode if you want to go listen to it. But there's four ways to get backlinks. One of those ways, the first way is to wait and let people find you. Right now, that doesn't work. Every time I mention this, I say, this does not work if you are not already ranking. Because if you're not ranking, why would anyone find your website? Okay, they wouldn't. But if you're at the top of the search Engines, of course people will find you, and of course they will probably link to you. And I'm talking about real links. I'm not talking about those marketing backlinks that everybody gets right now. By the way, we have another episode on that, too. I will put a link in the description to that one, too. Anyways, look, so if you're on the first page, people are gonna link to you, probably. So websites on the first page regularly get more backlinks.

Listener (10:04)

Okay?

Grumpy SEO Guy (10:05)

So you can maybe decrease your efforts a little bit, but it also depends on how competitive things are. It depends on what your competition is doing. It depends on a lot of factors. But generally speaking, if you're in first, you can maybe step back a little bit from building backlinks. Now, that's not to say that everybody does. Some people are like, I'm in first position. I need to keep building backlinks because I want to maintain my lead. That's fine. You can absolutely do that. But you don't necessarily have to. But you should always be focusing on things like where you rank, because you never know when there's going to. When your competition's going to do something or when the algorithm is going to change or, you know, the other reasons it can cause you to lose rank. So I hope this answers the question. It's not like a quick question to answer. SEO is not like a formula that you follow. It's not like, well, I'm in the first position now. I'm done doing SEO. It's like, no, it continues, but when you're in the first position, you can maybe ease off a little bit, maybe. I don't know. I hope this answers the question. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can Visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or. Or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder. And it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks, and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast, because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet, and it's free. You can do so@patreon.com Grumpy Seoguy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode.