Link Building vs Content Marketing: Where Should the Budget Go?
Spend on content marketing first if your pages don't yet answer the searches you want. Spend on link building once they do and sit below stronger sites. Content gives other sites something to link to; links carry it up.
Content marketing buys: pages that deserve to rank.
Link building buys: other sites pointing at those pages, which Google reads as a signal.
On MentionAgent's own blog (DR 39), 82% of pages older than 60 days have no linking domains. 26% of those still rank on page one for a real query. Of pages with at least one linking domain, 50% do.
387 blog pages, Ahrefs referring domains and 90 days of Search Console data to 9 October 2026. Method at the end.
The difference in one line each
- Content marketing is publishing pages people want to read: guides, studies, tools, comparisons. Its output sits on your own site.
- Link building is getting other sites to link to your pages: outreach, guest posts, digital PR. Its output sits on someone else's site.
They overlap. A page with original data gives a blogger something to cite, and outreach needs a page to point at. So the choice is mostly about order, not about picking one forever.
What Google says about each
Its guide to helpful content opens: "Google's automated ranking systems are designed to prioritize helpful, reliable information that's created to benefit people, and not content that's created to manipulate search engine rankings."
On links, its spam policies list what counts as a link scheme, starting with "Exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links". So link building that pays for followed links works against you. Earned links, from sites choosing to cite your page, don't.
Our blog as a test of content without links
MentionAgent's blog has over 580 pages and, at DR 39, few links to individual pages. That makes our own blog a fair test of how far content gets on its own. We took every blog page published at least 60 days ago, its referring domains from Ahrefs, and its last 90 days in Search Console.
| Blog pages | Share | On page one | In the top 3 | Got a click |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No linking domains | 82% | 26% | 6% | 31% |
| 1+ linking domains | 18% | 50% | 19% | 51% |
| 2+ linking domains | 4% | 71% | 24% | 59% |
Two things follow. First, content alone does rank: a quarter of pages nobody links to still reach page one, and they brought 56% of the clicks to these 387 pages, because there are so many of them. Second, pages with links rank on page one about twice as often.
The second point needs a caveat. Some of those links may have come after the page ranked, from sites that found it in search. This table shows the two go together. It can't show how much of the gap the links caused.
Where to put the budget
- You have few pages, or they don't answer the search: content first. Check by reading the top 3 for your target search next to your page.
- Your pages match the search and sit on page two: links to those pages. Put the top 10 domains into our DR checker. If the ones above you are far stronger, that's the gap.
- Your pages already reach page one: split it. New content for searches you don't cover, links to the pages stuck at positions 4 to 10.
If you're unsure which a specific page lacks, content vs backlinks walks through how to tell, using 1,193 search results.
What each costs
Links have a market price when a site asks for money: publishers asked a median of $150 per link across 261 quotes to MentionAgent users (how much backlinks cost). Paying them is the link scheme Google describes above, unless the link carries rel="sponsored" or nofollow. When a blogger asks for money, that's the trade-off.
Earned links cost time instead: finding sites, writing each pitch, and waiting. See how long link building takes. Content costs writing time or a writer's fee: see what Verblio and Brafton charge.
When your content is ready: get it linked
MentionAgent finds blogs writing about your topic, pitches each one the page of yours that fits, and handles the replies with you. From $99/mo.
Start Getting Mentioned On AutopilotMethod
- Pages: every live mentionagent.ai blog page first published on or before 11 August 2026 (from the site's git history): 387 pages.
- Links: referring domains per page from Ahrefs Site Explorer, Best by links, read on 10 October 2026. Pages missing from that report have no linking domains in Ahrefs' index.
- Rankings: Google Search Console, 12 July to 9 October 2026. "Rank on page one" means at least one query with 10 or more impressions and an average position of 10 or better; "top 3" the same at 3 or better.
- Limits: one site, in one field (link building and SEO software). Our domain rating is the same for every page, so the comparison is between pages, not sites.
Frequently asked questions
Is link building part of content marketing?
They're separate jobs that feed each other. Content marketing makes the pages; link building gets other sites to point at them.
Can content marketing work without link building?
To a point. On our blog, 26% of pages with no linking domains rank on page one for a query. Pages with links did so twice as often.
Should a new site start with content or links?
Content. Without pages that answer a search, there's nothing worth linking to, and outreach has nothing to point at.