Agency VS Freelancer: Industry rates for a GOOD link builder
-
Hello Moz Community,
I am looking to hire a link builder for SEO purposes. What are the normal rates and what I should expect for my money? Can you guys please share your knowledge with me so I am better prepared when hiring the right person!
Bonus point for tips on what to look for when hiring someone and also best places to look for an SEO specialist!
I look forward to all your replies!
-
Thank you Marcus !
-
Hey. I have followed and read Eric's advice for years. He is an old hand. I am also unfortunately. His Link Moses newsletter is well worth the subscription fee. So much of this comes down to strategy and I am sure a consultation with Eric would give you enough direction for 12 months.
Hope that helps.
-
I can completely relate. Do you have Skype please? I'd love to know your process as I feel I am exactly in the same boat!
-
Hey Marcus,
I couldn't have hoped for a better reply. You really have helped me out a ton here! I will 100% talk to Eric Ward - have you used his services?
L
-
Hey
I think there are only like a handful of really good, all round link builders out there. Sure, some folks may get good at building links in a specific niche or sector but it can be tough to know every potential avenue.
Another problem we tend to see at the agency I run in the UK is that folks want absolutes:
- we want 10 x links from DA 30 domains per month for £1000 (or whatever)
But, the best link building is often a form of digital PR. So it can be a bit lumpy. Certainly, you can go out and find 10 sites that accept guest posts and hit the proposed metric, but are you getting any real big wins like that? How valuable are those links that are just so easy to get?
Likewise, you really want to get your strategy dialled in first. That is, have something that really deserves to be linked to. If you can create that linkable asset then it makes the link building process so much easier. If you don't have linkable assets then it could be that is the first step here so make sure the agency or freelancer can help in that regard (or go back to the drawing board).
There is a good overview here of how to start with the value for your link building efforts (by me - as a disclaimer).
:http://searchengineland.com/organic-traffic-link-building-small-businesses-269353
If you want the best check out Eric Ward:
http://www.ericward.com/evaluation.html
He can put you a strategy together and give you the direction. With the strategic elements in place you can then better understand what component parts you need to run that strategy. Not cheap but if you want to win big then... start with a solid strategy and layer your link building tactics over that.
So much of this depends on the current situation and marketplace. So you need some form of situation analysis. Are you in a crazy competitive space? Is the competition low end? The price you pay will need to consider the difficulty of the task at hand.
So... lots of moving parts but I certainly hope that helps.
Marcus
-
Very useful. Thanks for your input!
-
A lot of the time it's all about what you can do for them too; writing an article for a website on a subject and linking back to your own site as a form of payment (though you may actually ask for $$ too), especially early on in your 'outreach' campaign. Building a reputation is important.
Over time you may be asked for articles etc, or be able to show off your work in order to gain more exposure.
-
Thanks for the reply, fascinating for to me to read as I'm new to SEO and not heard of these commissioned articles. Is there a marketplace for these deals or is it all about the right contacts?
-
Sure.
In a broad sense, you get what you pay for. If you buy 10,000 links from fiver then expect it to be picked up almost instantly by Google and watch your rankings fall.
I know of people who commission articles for $300-500 and ask for a link back to a certain product or page as part of the deal, usually around 800-1000 words and on a reputable website, rather than some MIT personal student blog.
When it comes to link quality, it is usually the case that less links from high quality sources, over many links from low quality sources is best practise. However, building links naturally is a true recognition of quality.
-
I would still like to know what to expect from the industry in regards to this question but thank you for the reply!
-
I'd suggest doing the work yourself with the assistance of programs such as BuzzSumo.
Doing the work yourself will help keep you in touch with how your brand/business is being talked about in both social platforms and blogs, as well as everything in between.
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
-
Can links be hidden?
I was wondering if anyone can help me with some advice on agency work. We have just employed a new SEO agency to conduct work on one of our websites. I took a look on OSE and GWT to see if we had any new links since the agency started working (1 month ago) but there's was nothing new. When l asked for an update as to what link building efforts had been completed last month, l was told they don't give out a list of links as it could compromise the agencies techniques. They told me that they use software to hide links form link aggregators so that our competitors don't know what we are doing. Can anybody confirm that such software exists or is this agency just taking us for a ride? If there is such a software, could this not hinder what links the search engines could see? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobSchofield0 -
Unnatural links to your site—impacts links
I got message in my Google webmaster tool: Unnatural links to your site—impacts links Does anyone knows the difference between "Unnatural links to your site—impacts links" and "Unnatural links to your site" Thank you Sina
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SinaKashani0 -
How hard would it be to take a well-linked site, completely change the subject matter & still retain link authority?
So, this would be taking a domain with a domain authority of 50 (200 root domains, 3500 total links) and, for fictitious example, going from a subject matter like "Online Deals" to "The History Of Dentistry"... just totally unrelated new subject for the old/re-purposed domain. The old content goes away entirely. The domain name itself is a super vague .com name and has no exact match to anything either way. I'm wondering, if the DNS changed to different servers, it went from 1000 pages to a blog, ownership/contacts stayed the same, the missing pages were 301'd to the homepage, how would that fare in Google for the new homepage focus and over what time frame? Assume the new terms are a reasonable match to the old domain authority and compete U.S.-wide... not local or international. Bonus points for answers from folks who have actually done this. Thanks... Darcy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
Cross linking between categories
Is it useful for SEO to cross link between TOP level categories, let's say I have a Home page and then 2 sub categories, one about green widgets one about red widgets
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics
Should i create a link from the green widget to the red widget or should I leave those are separate silos ? I know that within a silo i need to cross link ( from green widget 1 to green widget 2 etc... ) but how about about from the main category to the other main category ?0 -
I currently have a client that has multiple domains for multiple brands that share the same IP Address. Will link juice be passed along to the different sites when they link to one another or will it simply be considered internal linking?
I have 7 brands that are owned by the same company, each with their own domain. The brands work together to form products that are then sold to the consumer although there is not a e-commerce aspect to any of the sites. I am looking to create a modified link wheel between the sites, but didn't know if my efforts would pay off due to the same IP Address for all the sites. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HughesDigital0 -
1 hr of SEO vs Paid Link
Can me paying an SEO firm $250 for one hour of work benefit me more than buying a lifetime link on Best of the Web for $249? ( Firm said I had to buy a min of 8 hrs though) The firm strongly suggested that I not purchase a paid link. (All my major competitors have paid the $249) Boodreaux
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Boodreaux0 -
Link Anchor Text
As I keep studing SEO I reach to the conclusion that the Anchor Text from other site is crucial to get more positive results for our website and for the link-building strategy. My question is - Is it better to have an Anchor Text to my main link our should I ask for a determine targeted keyword? Tks in advance! Pedro M Pereira
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PedroM0 -
Correcting an unnatural link profile
A site I work with ranked page 1 for a competitive keyphrase until recently. (Not Panda-related as far as we can tell.) We've done extensive on-site tweaking and the page is still parked at 27-32 in the SERPs. We believe the only viable explanation at this point is an unnatural link profile. Over the course of several years the site has racked up a large collection of footer links with anchor text due to business relationships with the sites in question. So the profile is now skewed, with the result as follows: 100,000 domain links (top 10 competitors range 1800-50k) 87% anchor text optimized (competitors 0-41%) 99% follow links (competitors 85-100%) The vast majority of links are footer links We're working on creating more natural, high-value links but this of course takes time. In the short term, two questions: Should we aim to remove or change some of the footer links? If so, do we remove them, or just change anchor text? How many? How many new links should we pursue each month to make a meaningful impact on the profile without being too aggressive? Any other thoughts on how to fix this are also appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kdcomms0