The short version: there is no magic figure, but a local or niche small business site competing seriously should be aiming for somewhere between 30 and 150 referring domains within its first two years, with quality and relevance matting far more than the total count. A site with 40 backlinks from relevant, trusted sources will outrank one with 400 from spammy directories every single time. Stop counting links and start counting the ones that send you traffic or trust.
Why the question itself is a bit of a trap
I understand why people ask "what's a good number of backlinks". It feels like a target you can hit. Get to 100 links, win the internet. But Google doesn't score sites like a loyalty card where link number 73 opens up page one. It's comparative. The "good" number depends entirely on what your competitors have, what niche you're in, and how old your domain is.
A plumber in a town of 20,000 people might only need 25 to 40 decent local backlinks to dominate the map pack and organic results, because the other three plumbers in town have 10 links each and none of them are relevant. A SaaS company competing for "project management software" is playing a different game entirely, where the top ten results often have thousands of referring domains each.
Realistic benchmarks by business type
Here's a rough, honest guide based on how search results look across different categories, not a formula pulled from a backlink tool's marketing page:
- Local service business (plumber, dentist, hairdresser, accountant): 20 to 60 referring domains is often enough to compete well, provided many are local (chamber of commerce, local press, other local businesses, industry directories).
- Regional or niche B2B business (a bookkeeping firm, a specialist manufacturer): 50 to 150 referring domains, usually a mix of trade publications, supplier or partner sites, and guest contributions.
- National e-commerce or content site: 150 to 500+, because you're competing against bigger budgets and more established domains.
- Competitive national SaaS or finance niches: often 1,000+ for the sites sitting in positions one to three. This is not a small business game unless you have a serious content and PR budget behind you.
Notice the pattern: the number scales with how much competition exists, not with some universal rule.
A worked example
Say you run a small independent garden design business covering one county in England. You check Ahrefs or Semrush (naming the tools, not linking to them) and see the three competitors ranking above you for "garden designer [county name]" have 15, 22 and 9 referring domains respectively. Most of those links come from local newspapers covering a show garden, a listing in a regional "best of" article, a link from the trade body you're a member of, and a handful of supplier and partner sites.
In that scenario, you do not need 200 backlinks. You need maybe 25 to 35 good ones, built deliberately: a profile on the Society of Garden Designers directory, a feature in your local paper about a project, two or three guest posts on gardening blogs with real readerships, a link from a landscaping supplier you work with, and a mention in a "best garden designers in [county]" roundup you pitch yourself for. That's a realistic, achievable list, and it would likely outrank all three current competitors within six to twelve months because the links are relevant and the competition is weak.
Compare that to chasing 200 links through a cheap outsourced "link building package" filled with low quality directories and guest posts on unrelated sites. You'd spend more money, get a worse result, and possibly attract a Google manual action for unnatural links. I've seen small business owners proudly show me spreadsheets with hundreds of backlinks and zero organic traffic growth to match. The number meant nothing because the sources were worthless.
The uncomfortable truth most backlink guides skip
Here's the bit that doesn't fit neatly into a "get X links" headline: for a huge number of small businesses, especially local ones, backlinks are not your limiting factor. Your Google Business Profile optimisation, your reviews, your on-site content answering real customer questions, and basic technical SEO often matter more in the early stages than chasing link number 41. I've looked at small business sites with barely 15 backlinks that were losing to competitors not because of link count but because their website took six seconds to load, had no clear service pages, and hadn't touched their Google Business Profile in a year.
Link building is often the thing agencies sell because it's measurable and sounds impressive in a report. "We built you 12 backlinks this month" looks like progress. But if your website structure is a mess or your page doesn't answer what the searcher wants, those 12 links won't move you. Fix the fundamentals first. Then build links to amplify something that's already working, not to compensate for something broken.
How to check what "good" looks like for you
Skip the generic benchmark and do this instead:
Want AI doing the heavy lifting in your marketing?
I build the systems that handle the boring 80 percent, so you get your week back. Done properly, with the human kept in.
- Search the exact term you most want to rank for.
- Look at the top five results and check their referring domains using a free tool like Ubersuggest or a trial of Ahrefs.
- Note the average, but more importantly look at where those links come from: are they local press, trade bodies, genuine guest content, or spammy directories?
- Set your target at roughly matching or slightly exceeding the weakest of those five competitors, built from similarly relevant sources.
- Review every three months, because your competitors are moving too.
This gives you a number that's meaningful for your market, rather than a round figure someone picked because it sounded authoritative.
Quality signals that matter more than quantity
When you're deciding whether a link is worth pursuing, weigh it against these before you worry about the running total:
- Is the linking site relevant to your industry or location?
- Does the linking site get real traffic, or is it a link farm with no actual visitors?
- Is the link placed within genuine content, not a sidebar widget or footer stuffed with unrelated links?
- Would a human reader click it?
One link from a well-read regional newspaper or a respected trade association is worth more than fifty links from low-quality directories you paid £5 each for on a freelancer marketplace. This is where people waste money: buying bulk low quality links because the invoice says "50 backlinks" and that feels like value, when ten relevant ones would have done more work.
When to get outside help
If you've fixed your on-site basics, claimed and optimised your Google Business Profile, and you're still stuck because you don't have the relationships or time to build relevant links, that's a fair point to bring in outside expertise. A decent AI consultant for small business can help you combine smarter content creation with a realistic, targeted outreach plan rather than throwing money at a volume-based link package that won't move the needle.
Frequently asked questions
How many backlinks does a new small business website need to rank?
There's no fixed number, but most local small business sites can start seeing movement with 10 to 20 relevant backlinks in their first six months, provided the links come from related or local sources rather than bulk directories.
Can too many backlinks hurt a small business site?
Yes, if they're low quality or built unnaturally fast. A sudden spike of hundreds of spammy links can trigger scrutiny from Google and in some cases a manual action, which is far harder to recover from than simply having fewer, better links.
Is it better to have more backlinks or more referring domains?
More referring domains. Twenty links from twenty different relevant websites almost always outperform twenty links from the same single site, because Google weighs the diversity and trustworthiness of sources, not just raw link volume.
How long does it take to build a good backlink profile for a small business?
Realistically six to eighteen months of consistent, genuine outreach: local press, trade directories, guest content, and partnerships. Anyone promising a fully built authoritative profile in a few weeks is usually using tactics that will cause problems later.
