Link Building On a Budget

[TP_Marketing]

Hello!

We are a small online business with a tight budget. Most of the content, social, ppc is done in-house to keep things under control & cost down. Can anyone suggest a local or offshore link building agency that we can trust or that someone else has used with good success? Some of the local agencies we've contacted quoted us 150-200/mth per keyword, is that typical? Has anyone been successful with agencies overseas?

Thank You!!

[benjaminmarcinc]

If i was you i would consult with a company face to face before hiring and also see if you can do some things on your own. Social media and blogging is something that someone in house can do and they also have first hand knowledge of the business.

[KeriMorgret]

I've never hired a link builder and don't have direct experience in this. I can just say get as educated as possible before hiring anyone.

[KeriMorgret]

I get a ton of emails every day from people overseas, and even some domestic, offering me SEO services. I ask them to optimize our About Us page, and include a screenshot of http://www.strikemodels.com/about-us/ with

If you contact us with offers to help with the website design or optimization, you will receive a screenshot of this very statement. If we’re in a bad mood, you’re likely to get the spelling and grammar in your proposal picked apart, and glaring errors in your website pointed out (for the 10% of you that aren’t using a disposable gmail address).

highlighted in red. I either hear nothing, or will often get a response that they would be happy to help optimize that page, not even having looked at the image.

I wouldn't trust them, personally, without extensive vetting...and that time and effort would probably be better spent on you yourself making the connections that can lead to links.

[TP_Marketing]

Hi Keri!  Most of the keywords are sports teams and concert performers so the are 80-90% are in the med to high. Sorry I should have been more clear.

[KeriMorgret]

That's similar to "how long is a piece of string". If your keywords are sex, drugs, and lawsuit, it's going to be way higher than if you're looking for waterproof sail winch servos, georgetown gallery antique mahogany furniture, and lompoc high school yearbook.

[TP_Marketing]

What should be we paying per mth having 10-20 keywords?

[K-WINTER]

Avoid at all costs. Having talked with many SEO I'd say that is extremely low, something's fishy. I agree with Spencer, $1,000/mo would be really low. $200/mo reeks of spam. Most agencies charge $100-$200 an hour. Good content is what you need, and that takes time, NOT random link building. A new person looking to make a name for himself you might, and I mean might, find for $40 or $50 an hour, but you get what you pay for.

[spencerhjustice]

I would be wary of most services that are charging under ~$1000 a month total, not necessarily on a keyword basis.  I would also highly advise against using an overseas agency, you're more likely to get screwed than to get a good deal in  my experience. I would suggest checking out Moz's recommended agencies or agencies that are active on Moz and other SEO related blogs/news sites.

This is definitely tough because you are an online business, which generally means more competition. Hopefully you're in a fairly specific niche that isn't super competitive.

Good Luck!

[TP_Marketing]

We are actually trying to rank nationally on some of they keywords, I've found some of the longer tail keywords drive a good volume of traffic and comp. is not that high.  Have you personally worked with anyone overseas? Can they be trusted if they know exactly what we are looking for? I wouldn't even know where to start. I know a large number of the agencies here outsource overseas.

[OlegKorneitchouk]

I'd be wary of that - many will just employ old school link building tactics that may hurt your rankings more than help. I'd ask them to share exactly how they plan to build links and to provide some samples.

I'm going to assume that you are in a low-competition area (otherwise you'll have a tough time competing on that budget) in which case you can just do on-page optimization + use a service like getlisted.org. Many times, just having complete and consistent information across all of the major local directories is enough to get you ranking locally.