Building a link building team
-
I just joined SEOmoz and I have enjoyed all the information.
I currently outsource link building to an agency that charges $50 per link. For this, they handle the anchor text creation, the surrounding text and solicitation, acquisition and monitoring. I know they send the actual work to their independent contractors.
How do you find those independent contractors so that I can build my own network of contractors and save the client money?
-
Hi Drew. Did you ever find some good link building freelancers who do link building right?
-
Hi Steve, I really appreciate the perspective. I'm going to consider moving the account. You and Ryan have given me the perspective I needed. Thank You.
-
Sorry, reading it back it looks like I was a bit blunt when stating the issues. One thing I will say, judging by the number of other links on the blog they must have some pretty convincing sales people lol. But yeah honestly there's a tonne of other places out there that will get you some great links. I don't know how much it works out that you're paying them monthly, but there's some great SEO companies you could probably hire for a similar amount (maybe less?) who would do a good job with your link building. Half of the people on these boards probably run them lol. Check out the SEOmoz market place and get a few quotes... and don't forget, Distilled have just opened up a branch in the USA, and they're endorsed by SEOmoz so you can't go wrong there!
-
Your points are well taken. I have spent a great deal of time researching this today and really appreciate the feedback. I had a feeling this might be the case but I'm thankful to have the affirmation.
-
Concur. Looks like a link farm and your link isn't surrounded by content so much as it's surrounded by a ton of other links. Definitely look for another solution.
-
Thank you Ryan
-
Okay, based on that blog... before I say this, please get the opinions of others too as I'm aware I'm starting to sound too negative here... you're being taken for a bit of a ride.
That blog is spammy, irrelevant, full of links to random sites, contains dire content (probably dupe but haven't checked), looks like a domain purchased for it's old page rank as it doesn't fit the content, etc... etc...
That is far, far from a quality link and isn't worth 5 cents let alone $50.
Run a mile!! If that's what they've been doing, you could have achieved the same results for $50 one-off.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news
-
Great expansion on the line of thinking from Steve here. Thumbs up. @Drew T, questions like these are the things you'll want to consider and map out for someone(s) that you task with building links. Ultimately some of the best relationships you'll cultivate online will come from more than just getting a link, but actually connecting with other people that are in your niche.
-
Hi Steve. Thanks for the time. Here is a link to a pretty typical result...http://www.hanoverstables.com/. We were doing about 1500 per month and now we are around 2250 or so. We are in the storage business with 2 of our top 10 keywords in the top 3, another 5 holding stable at 14 (up from say page 3/4) and another 2 or 3 well outside the top 50.
Our conversions are only up 10-15% during the same period. We have done on-site optimization, we add 10 relevant articles per week across our targeted keywords. We do not have a big directory presence and are not in yahoo, dmoz, or many niche directories.
We have over 120 links going on any given month.
-
Hmm, iffy. I think you're probably doing the right thing looking elsewhere (in my opinion). If you have low traffic (not saying you have) then a 50% increase isn't a lot, plus, how much of an increase in conversions are you getting would be the more important question.
All I mean is, if you're in a field that's not competitive, you started off low with no rankings, and they got you a few low value links which bumped you up to having a couple of okay ranks, which are driving some "not-so qualified" traffic, then that's not worth $50 per link. You could have done that yourself pretty easily, or employed someone at $10 per link.
But...
If you've got some good rankings out of it which are driving good, targeted traffic due to those links then great
Edit Also, how many other links are there on these blogs going to other sites, are the blogs spammy? Care to share one?
-
No they do not. They have encouraged me to review links in yahoo explorer. I've noticed through yahoo site explorer that we have more low quality blog sites that give us a link with 15 or so relevant words around the link. The link is a desired keyword as the anchor text. I've also noticed an emergence of sites that give only a link with the anchor text in the blog-roll.
Organic traffic has increased more than 50% since we engaged them 6 months ago so I feel it's working.
-
I hope they're good links then. $50 is cheap for a great link, expensive for a worthless one... do they not provide anything so you can see the value of the links?
-
Thank You Ryan. I appreciate your time in answering my question.
-
You can use websites like oDesk, Rent-a-coder, Craigslist, or many similar other sites to bring on outsourced contractors. With a careful plan you can probably attain a much higher rate of return.
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
-
Link building | SEO Agency Cardiff
Hello, we have been link-building to the home page for some time now. We believe that we have better on-page SEO than some of our direct competitors. We want to rank for “SEO Agency Cardiff,” but despite building backlinks, building Nap, and writing content marketing, it will not get onto the first page of Google. Despite hundreds of hours spent on it, and all SEO reports saying we are better than some of the companies on there, are there suggestions as to what our agency could be missing? We would be grateful for any SEO advice, as we cant get it onto the first page of Google, despite hundreds of hours, trying get on Google for this keyword "SEO agency Cardiff".
Link Building | | sarahwalsh0 -
Link Building Issue
Hi, While prospecting for backlinks target do you guys filter links less than a specific DA or PA? for instance - if PA<5 then remove
Link Building | | Janki99
My VA accidentally selected a PA 3 link where the site owner eventually gave us a backlink.
Due to that link the traffic jumped 14X!!!
Had it been my filtering process would never got the backlink and traffic. What do you guys suggest?0 -
Is there any link building value to design showcase websites?
I am interested to hear people's opinions on this. We are launching a microsite that is for branding purposes only, no real SEO strategy beyond optimizing for branded terms on it. However the design of the site is strong in my opinion. I think it could get picked up by "sites of the day" websites, showcases, galleries, etc. Would there be SEO benefit of in being featured on those sites since they tend to be curated lists of only the best sites and therefore editorial links? Or is there danger of those not being seen as quality links that could get you into trouble?
Link Building | | IrvCo_Interactive0 -
Link building
I keep sending personal emails to website asking for a link form them but every one says no how do other website get so many links to there website whats the best software to use
Link Building | | homesandindustrial0 -
Link building too quickly
Hi all, I have recently started trialing to outsource some SEO to a 3rd party, who obviously promissed white hat techniques and manual links etc.. All has gone well for the first month. But on speeking to another expert they point out that the search engines will spot inconcistencies in link building and penalise me. I know there will not be a know ammount but as we stand at the moment, what is the current feeling of too fast. Links built for me in one month were 100 directory submissions 80 bookmarks 16 search engine submissions 15 Article submissions 46 forum links 10 local classified searches Is this too fast? , If to do I stop and create more inconsistency or continue at a similar rate. Of course quality of link will be an issue, but how much. Many thanks from SEO jnr
Link Building | | smartcow0 -
What's the typical response time to link building email requests?
Hello Forum, We're about to embark on a link building campaign and were curious about how long, on average, it takes to get a response to an email requesting links to our page. We're trying to come up with a timeline estimate for our campaign. Thanks
Link Building | | pano0 -
Build links through blogging?
Although my site is a wordpress site it presently has about as many static pages as blog posts. The site has a lot of directory links and is doing pretty good with a PR3 after about a year. When I first put the site up I had a well known blogging expert help me with the permalinks and a couple of other things and he said that with a blog there is no need to build links, it can all be done through natural link acquisition off of the blog posts. I was skeptical at the time because it seemed that a lawyer's site was something not a lot of people would be interested enough in to link to it. Now I am thinking about trying his stragegy, as 1 of my blog posts that I put up on a very topical subject immediately got about 15 backlinks. My questions are: Is it reasonable to try to build links just by posting frequent topical blog posts? If yes, should I have links in the blog posts to my home page, to internal pages, or both? \ Paul
Link Building | | diogenes0 -
Will building up the page rank of a page you have a inbound link bring any benefit?
Right then here we go You have a link in an article on a well known national newspaper site that points at your website. Is there any benefit of linking to the newspaper article in order to build up the PR of the article page and therefore passing over some link "juice"? Sub questions 1. Would it be more beneficial simply to gain links to your main website? 2. What are the chances of the article going into the archives and then at some stage being deleted? 3. If the article link points to a domain, which then forwards to a another domain will this pass on any "juice"? 4. If the article points to a domain that then 301's to another domain will this pass on any "juice"? 5. Does Google simply register the link and "juice" on the first pass or will it revisit and upgrade the "juice"? 6. What are the negatives? 7. What are the positives?
Link Building | | therealmarkhall0