What is the Best Way to Select a Company for Linkbuilding?
-
We need a few more links, who doesn't, and I've been looking at outsourcing it.
Having checked out Moz posts to get an idea of best practice it seems that most link builders that responded to my Elance advert would give me links that would get me penalised either now or in the next update or two by Google.
Leaving aside the frequent mentions of link wheels on potential SEOs sites, the main problem seems to be that I cannot believe that any content generated will be of any value to anyone other than as a pseudo contextual basis for the link
"Bats are a flying mammal. They use sound waves to navigate. Sound is used in hearing aids. blah blah. blah."
So how do you find decent link builders? How do you validate them? What are the key questions to ask? What are the red flags?
-
These are all great pieces of advice. You might also want to check out Moz's list of recommended companies. A lot of these companies offer link development services and should prove reliable.
-
Hi there
The most reliable way to select a company or individual for link building is to ask them for examples of their work. This might be complicated slightly by any existing NDA agreements that they might have, but more often than not a reputable company or individual is going to cite case studies on their website anyway.
You should ask them what they have done and who they have worked with. Whether or not they give you specific examples of links built at this stage is actually quite irrelevant. You should instead use tools like OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs etc. to see the links for yourself. Are they building the kind of links you would be happy to receive. If they have shared examples with you, does the evidence match up?
The key to all of this is transparency. You will have infinitely more confidence with a company or individual if they are transparent with their work. Pricing, reporting, expectations - all of these can, and should, be clearly defined. There's no excuse nowadays for a company/individual to be obscure with the work that they have done - particularly with the myriad of tools available for you to jump in and have a look for yourself.
I hope this helps.
-
Reach out to people you see writing about link building on a more advanced level. If they're talking about creating strategies which don't involve any outdated strategies then you're on the right path. I also think it's noteworthy that it should be somebody within the same country as they know the audience much better. I would be weird if I started as a Dutch person link building for the German market (they have a very different culture, especially on the web).
-
Hi,
I've been badly burnt by agencies in the past offering "quality" link building services and have done quite a lot of work on dealing with a conundrum similar to yours. Here is my advice:
- Links need to be earnt, not bought. You need to overcome your main problem ("I cannot believe that any content generated will be of any value to anyone other than as a pseudo contextual basis for the link"). If you're not producing something of value, the links aren't going to be relevant and you're increasing your chances of a future penalty.
- Assuming you're selling products or services, or even generating revenue by ad impressions you still have a customer base. The sooner you can understand their needs, the sooner you can produce some content of value to your business.
- Work on a project basis with an agency to test them out and stay well away from retainers and minimum term contracts. I started working with an agency to produce individual pieces of content and get them legitimately placed on relevant websites. Smaller/startup agencies are typically more flexible on this sort of model as they are looking to win longer term business and build their client base.
- Avoid any link-building that targets exact match keywords or any other cynical techniques. You are bound to get penalised for this.
- To find agencies - go to marketing / SEO conferences. e.g. BrightonSEO which has sponsors and attendees you can network with and get advice and potentially recommendations.
Good luck,
George
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
-
A lot of blogs use wordpress or blogspot, are these blogs still useful for SEO in terms of linkbuilding, or should they be avoided?
I am very new to linkbuilding and SEO as a whole, so please forgive my ignorance. Reaching out to bloggers is a common tactic, but I've found a lot of people tend to blog with the assistance of wordpress or blogspot. I was wondering whether these blogs are still useful for SEO or if it is best to avoid them? Thanks in advance, Lewis
Link Building | | Samstore0 -
Looking for a reliable SEO company at a reasonable budget
Good day I've tried to contact most the recommended seo companies MOZ has but loads of them are mostly for MID-LARGE business and are out of my budget I have a monthly budget of 750-1,500 USD The niche is related not competitive and should be easy to rank, stoped doing seo 11 months ago and still rank 4-8th for the keywords im interested in anybody knows any good company for my budget? thanks a lot
Link Building | | recreoviral1 -
Best resource for baclinks
Looking for a different path to generating simple backlinks to websites using competitive analysis from MOZ. Anybody have any ideas.
Link Building | | victorbao1 -
Best Backlink checker - OSE or Hrefs?
Hi Guys I am looking for a new back link tool but i'm not sure which one to go for. Should I continue using Open Site Explorer or should I go for something else like Ahrefs.com or something else?
Link Building | | AndersDK0 -
Penguin issue or wrong linkbuilding strategy?
Quite a few month ago before Google implemented Penguin algorithm I had a great situation. After 24th of April my ranking and traffic dropped instantly. Here a a screenshot from my GA: http://imageshack.us/a/img15/4717/screenshot20121013at120.png I have reviewed my linkbuilding strategy and on-page optimisation however some keywords which dropped out of page 5 don't want to come back even close to page 1. I would appreciate a professional advise on how my strategy, on-page optimisation can be improved. For those who are interested here is my domain: http://www.desertsafariabudhabi.ae The keyword which is more interesting for me is "desert safari abu dhabi". Thanks in advance, Russel
Link Building | | smokin_ace0 -
Linkbuilding strategy for website development firm... some questions...
Hi there: I own a website development and internet marketing business. We began providing onpage optimization as a natural extension of our website design services for our clients. I'm now personally working on the backlinks for our site, and I have a question for someone with more insight than I currently possess: You folks are probably aware that many web design agencies post footer links in their client's site, with some sort of anchor text to the effect of "website designed by Blankety Blank..." I've read that these types of sitewide footer links are probably a wash, in terms of linkbuilding value. (Thoughts anyone?) My best sense is that they help a little, but not a lot. Which led me to my next stratagem, which I'd like some feedback on the merits of... I'm thinking of offering my clients a slight price reduction in exchange for a dedicated page on their site for attribution. It wouldn't be pure self-promotion in nature; really just a brief description of tools used to build the site and a backlink. It could be part of a pre-existing "partners" page on the site, if client has one, currently. (Some of ours do...) The net result of this would be a single backlink from the main body content of client's page. Is this a smart move? I'm wondering what others think...
Link Building | | splatdude0 -
Linkbuilding from different niche!
Hi Mozzers, I have a small question. If my website niche is Rent a Car, and lot of friends, people around the world, have restaurant, for example friend of me was a CHEF of restaurant for about 15years, and now he started working with Cars, how is danger if he receive backlinks from the restaurant websites? Its this danger? can google penalize the site if receive backlinks from different niche,different cctld domains,and language too? Thanks
Link Building | | leadsprofi0 -
Infographic best practices
Anyone know of any good sites to post an infographic? These guys want $50.00 to review and MAYBE they will post: infographicsshowcase(dot)com. They have a PR4 , 70k alexa. PropertyAuction2010Survey_infographic-180x300.png
Link Building | | Orikleinnyc0