Outsourced Link Building
-
Hello,
I'm pretty sure everyone will just tell me to do the link building myself, but the truth is I don't have time.
I've looked at link building firms in the past (and even used one), and they were all pretty dodgy. What should I look for in a quality link builder? What costs do you think are reasonable for a quality link? Is there anything you wish you'd known before going down a similar path?
Thanks in advance for any help!
-
I agree, some clarity on what you mean by "outsourced link building" would be a good idea because if you mean hiring the cheapest labour you can find and giving them the remit to build links for you then yes you are likely to get burned.
In my opinion 'outsourcing' has negative connotations and working with an experienced external link acquisition company isn't necessarily a bad idea.
Working with an expert whether that be an agency or a freelancer can offer incredible benefits provided you are involved at the strategy and quality control level. 2nd or 3rd opinions on strategies and output are often worthwhile seeking if you are unsure of the 'right' direction.
-
I encourage you to be very clear about what you mean by "link building." Do you mean hiring inexpensive folks to submit your site to directories and do low-quality article marketing for you? Or do you mean hiring a professional content-marketing team to attract valuable links?
-
Yep! There are some things SEO companies can do for you that are important but not quit as risky. Page optimization, keyword research, content development, etc.. but the link building tactics that have been used for the last few years have been to kin to carpet bombing, and Google don't like that.
That said I'm sure there are some great SEO companies out there but you also want to make sure you pick a company that is intimately familiar with your industry for best results.
Here is SEOmoz's recommendations
Hope it helps!
-
Hi Donford,
Appreciate the response. The article you linked to was great.
It is also the exact thing I don't have time to do properly. We all know that SEO is important, so it's best that I step aside in favor of people with the time to focus on doing a good job.
Cheers!
-
There was a good YoMoz post on this subject today.. here:http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/build-relationships-not-links
The truth is if you outsource this aspect you are taking a risk. I understand that you already prefaced your question with time. So, perhaps I may suggest that you hire somebody in house to help with SEO, in this case they would have access to you and your industry knowledge which would help build reliable relationships with communities, forums and blogs.
If the website is your baby or bread and butter, then outsourcing something as important as link relationships is very risky. There have been hundereds of post about people getting smashed by Google's penguin and panda updates which directly crushed the way 90% of the SEO companies used to build links for SEO reasons.
I am not trying to be harsh on you, I just don't' want you to end up in a Panda situation 6 months from now.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Would it be a valid "link building' strategy to pay youtube video owners, to link to our company website in the decription of a certain video. ( For popular video's that are relevant )
I was wondering if it would it be a valid "link building' strategy to pay / work out a deal with youtube video owners, to link to our company website in the decription of a certain video they posted? ( For popular video's that are relevant to our business. ) Anyone have any thoughts on this? Thanks in advance! Steven
Link Building | | RockyMountainFlyboard0 -
Is there a way to use your other web properties for successful link building
We have two websites that align with it each other: Site #1 - Industry editorial website that provide high quality, original and current content. This site is mature and has high authority relatively speaking. Site #2 - Industry resource website that educates general public and insiders about the industry. Content is professionally written with fantastic art and basically breaks down different manufacturing processes/materials and walks people through the benefits. Would it be a sound approach to add anchor text/link within articles on site #1 to site #2? Below are a few scenarios: Article on site #1 is talking about using [manufacturing process] to make something and site #2has a page that describes [manufacturing process] in great detail. Article on site #1 is talking about using [material] and site #2 has a page that describes **[material]**in great detail. Article on site #1 is talking why its beneficial to use a particular [material] or [manufacturing process] and site #2 has a page that describes all benefits of [material] or [manufacturing process] in great detail. Obviously, this will only be sprinkled in here and there and not in every article. It should provide users with more insight but will SE's see it that way?
Link Building | | dasickle0 -
How Long Does It Take For opensiteexplorer.org To Find Links Ive Been Building?
Hello, The past 1-2 months I managed to get a website on some high authority news sources. For some reason I still cannot see them with opensiteexplorer, but they are showing up in the Webmaster account? Is there typically a big delay? Thanks1
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Link Building by Guest Posting.... But How many posts?
Hello I am a small Computer/Tech Blogger (part time) from India and following are my Domain stats: PR: 4 Alexa Rank: 65K *** Open Site Explorer Page Authority: 46/100** *** Open Site Explorer Domain Authority: 35/100** *** Open Site Explorer Linking Root Domain: 98** *** Open Site Explorer Total Links: 1196** *** mR: 4.83** *** mT: 5.81** Domain Age: 3 Years and 4 Months Blog Posts I made: around 580 I never spent ANY time in Link Building, only wrote content for my blog. I only attached my Blog URL in some BIG forums as a signature (never meant for link building, but later found that the signature section of some forums are DOFOLLOW) and very few sites linked/links to me/my articles. Reasons why I am asking question here: Majority of my blog posts ranks very well (top 10) on Google.co.in, but on Google.com, most of them are present from Page 2 - Page 10 - I want to rank my posts well on Google.com, Google.co.uk etc. SERP of Big sites remains static, but my position shuffles a lot. Sometimes any particular blog post of mine is on first page (on a particular Google Domain) and after some days/months, it shifts to 2nd or 3rd page! This happens a lot! As soon as Google Updates pagerank, many recent articles of mine will get atleast PageRank 2 or 3, but when pagerank in updated again, the pagerank of these very same articles drops! Very few articles of mine have static pagerank I am not a master in Computers/Tech and am not the first one on the internet to discover and write something UNIQUE/NEW, but I try to write detailed and good quality tutorials. If main keywords of my posts matches with the keywords of BIG domains, I never rank on first page, no matter I have written more detailed content compared to the content of these BIG sites! Google sends me traffic to majority of my blog posts by means of random keywords! I have decided to do Guest Posting on some blogs of similar niche and with Open Site Explorer Domain Authority ranging from 60 to 80. I will try my level best to write good content for them and they also allows Author Bio with a backlink to my Blog Homepage (in my case, the anchor text for this link will be my Blog Name) I want to ask following questions: Is one guest post with a backlink to my Homepage is enough? or I have to write more content for same domain? I have heard that, if you link to a website/blog which is linking to you, Google don't pass any juice to either of them because of reciprocal linking! - Is this true? The websites on which I am planning to do guest posts are very well established and trusted websites. Some of them have Open Site Explorer Domain Authority of 80+. Also, I never linked to them nor I am planning to do so! I request SEO Gurus here to please help me and I apologize in advance if I am wrong at any point. MY SEO concepts are not much clear and I am a newbie 🙂 Thanks and Regards
Link Building | | technotech0 -
Link-Building update in SEOmoz
Hello, I have been doing some link-building and Im worried because I still dont see those links pointing to my website in SEOmoz. How long it takes to see those links in SEOmoz? ( I started last wednesday) Tks in advance, Regards, Pedro Menezes Pereira
Link Building | | PedroM0 -
Link building by inviting bloggers
Hi everyone, I'm relatively new to SEO, and I have a question on a link building strategy for a holiday resort I am working on. The resort has a paintball arena and zorbing facilities at their premises. I want to use this in the link building strategy and the owners have agreed to have an open day for bloggers. Basically the resort will invite 20 local bloggers for a day to their resort. They get to play paintball, zorbing and get to see the resort in exchange for an honest write up about their day at the resort. I am looking at asking the bloggers to write about the event twice (Once before, and once after they visit the resort) with a minimum of 4 links to the website. I want to know how I can identify the top bloggers? What factors should I consider while making a list of 20 bloggers, and how do I measure these factors? Also, is this a good strategy for link building? And please feel free to add anything else you think I am missing out on, or will help in the link building. Cheers! Arjun
Link Building | | ArjunRajkumar0 -
Link Building: Asking for links versus building links
I am currently delving into link building for SEO having started out from a social media marketing side. From that angle, it was always my belief building high quality links came from engaging targeted bloggers and sites in my market and related verticals for product reviews and/or providing expert advise and opinion for posts they are creating. As I am learning more the "technical" side of SEO, I've read a lot of posters on here talk about asking from links from websites. While I get the concept from a strategic stand point, are links really asking for or is better to continue to pursue the long term investment of pitching to get coverage from well known bloggers and sites?
Link Building | | joshuaopinion1 -
Link Building Training Courses (UK)
Hi, Does anybody know of any good UK Link Building training courses or trainers? I have read loads of information on here and other sites which tells you that you need to get good high quality links but have not found much information on exactly how you go about doing this (apart from looking at competitors links - which is easy). So I would love to get some training for me and another team member here on Link Building specifically.We have all the other areas of SEO pretty much covered and get pretty good rankings for long tail and some broad phrases. We just need a bit of extra Link Building help to boost some rankings up even further. Thanks in advance Andy
Link Building | | BoxLimited0