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The truth is there aren’t many things that impact your rankings more than link building.
But building links is:
- Hard work
- Time consuming
- Frustrating
Not to mention, building links manually is getting expensive.
Most website owners know how much a link is worth today and charge a hefty publishing fee for it.
Thankfully, you can outsource link building and leave the hassle to professional SEOs and link building services that know what they are doing.
But you must be careful with whom you choose to take ove your link building efforts.
In this post, we’ll go through the upsides and downsides of outsourcing link building and give you six essential tips to consider before you hire an agency.
What Does Outsourcing Link Building Mean?
Outsourcing link building means hiring a link building service or SEO professional to build links for your website.
In other words – Rather than manually building the links yourself, you hire someone else to do it for you.
Link building is one of the hardest aspects of SEO.
That’s why many website owners, business owners and even SEO agencies outsource link building.
This frees up time for them to focus on growing their business while letting pros take care of their links.
Should You Outsource Your Link Building?
Here’s the deal:
Outsourcing link building is a good idea for most website owners.
But there are some cases where it’s not worth it.
Ultimately, it will come down to your business and what you are trying to accomplish.
So, if you are deciding whether to outsource your link building or not – here are some things to consider first:
You Should Outsource Link Building If…
Below I listed the reasons why you should hire a link building agency.
1. Hiring In-House Link Builders Is Too Expensive
For anyone serious about SEO, you need to build quality links that actually help your website grow.
But the cost of hiring an experienced, in-house link builder is expensive.
For most businesses, it’s just not feasible.
More than that, you probably don’t need a full-time or even part-time link builder anyway.
Outsourcing is a much more cost-effective method and gives you a level of control over how much you spend on your links each month.
You can scale and reduce it depending on your needs.
2. You Need To Get High-Quality Links Quickly
Need links quickly?
This is the perfect time to outsource link building.
Quality link building services have everything in place to deliver large volumes of links in a relatively short time period.
The best link building services can deliver links in just two weeks on average.
Manually building links yourself and juggling the whole process will take longer than getting a professional agency to handle it for you.
This is especially true if you don’t have:
- The right team
- The right systems
- The processes in place
If you need links quickly, outsourcing link building is the way to go.
3. You Need Help To Train Your Team
From time to time, you will need to level up the skills of your link building team.
SEO is always evolving because Google’s algorithm is constantly being updated. If you don’t pay attention, you will be left behind.
But here’s the real problem:
When you are training your team, they aren’t building links.
This is the perfect time to outsource link building. Your team is developing the skills they need and you still get the links you want.
It also gives you a chance to see how other agencies and SOE pros are building links.
4. You Need To Scale Your Current Link Building Efforts
Scaling link building isn’t easy.
Why?
Because of the amount of people and costs involved in the process:
- Publishing Fee – These days, site owners know what a link is worth and often charge a fee
- Outreach specialist – You need a pro to find link opportunities, contact the site, arrange the placement and ensure it meets your specifications
- Writer – You need to pay a writer to create at least a 1,000 word article to place with the link
- Quality Control – You should ensure that the link meets your quality control guidelines, which takes around 20 minutes per link.
And then you still need someone to manage the entire team and process end to end.
When your current link building strategy needs to be scaled, outsourcing can provide the additional resources needed to accelerate your site’s SEO growth.
You Should NOT Outsource Link Building If…
Below I listed the reasons why you should NOT hire a link building agency.
1. You Don’t Have A Solid SEO Foundation
Link building works best when you already have a strong SEO foundation in place.
What does that mean?
Three things:
- Good on-page SEO
- Technically sound website
- Excellent quality content
Don’t have those three things in place?
It might not be worth building links yet.
Focus on laying a foundation before you outsource link building.
Pro Tip: If you are just starting your website and want to build some initial domain authority, build the first 5 to 10 links to your home page before building links to your content pages.
2. You’re Too Busy To Communicate With The Agency
Agency and client relationships are a partnership.
Outsourcing link building requires:
- Regular communication
- Collaboration with the agency
The agency will need information from you regularly to do their job well.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as a question in an email – other times, you’ll need to have a meeting.
The SEO campaign will fall flat if you are too busy to communicate with the agency.
That means you won’t get the results you want and the agency will be frustrated with you.
3. You Don’t Have Enough Budget
Here’s the truth:
When you outsource link building it is expensive.
Most website owners and businesses spend at least $500 to $1,000 a month on links. You need to be prepared to make the investment to see results.
What’s more?
It takes time for links to kick in.
While the best agencies don’t lock you into a contract or long-term commitment, it takes about 6 to 9 months of consistent link building to see serious results.
Spend time evaluating your financial position and make sure you are prepared for the investment.
Benefits & Downsides Of Outsourcing Link Building
There are pros and cons to outsourcing your link building needs.
Before you outsource link building, make sure you have fully considered the benefits as well as the downsides:
| Benefit | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Cost-effective solution for link building | Less quality control of the links built |
| It saves you tons of time | No control over the link building process |
| Access to real experts that build great quality links | Depending on an external agency and their tactics for building links |
| The ability to scale or downsize your link building needs as much as you need |
|
| Flexbility to choose the links you want and let someone else worry about placing them |
The biggest benefit of outsourcing your link building is how cost-effective and flexible it is. You choose the number of links you need each month and let the pros take care of it.
It doesn’t get much easier than that, right?
And most quality link building services offer discounted link building packages when you commit to a specific volume of links each month.
This is a great way to get better value for money!
But you also need to choose a link building service you can trust.
Almost every downside of outsourcing link building comes down to trust.
When you outsource, you have less control over the process and the type of backlinks placed.
You need to be confident your link building agency is trustworthy.
6 Tips To Outsource Your Link Building Successfully
Don’t outsource your link building until you read these six tips.
The truth is that you need to be careful who you hire to build links for your website. Follow the six tips below to ensure you hire a link building service that delivers the results you need.
1. Make Sure To Understand The Process
Before hiring a link building service, you must understand their process.
Quality link building services and agencies will have a detailed process written out on their website.
They usually explain how they acquire links and the quality control guidelines that they have in place.
Understanding the link building process is important so you can be confident that the agency delivers quality work.
2. Determine Your Link Building Needs
Before you build even a single link, there are three things you need to know:
- Which pages should you build links to?
- How many backlinks do you need to build?
- How do I choose the right anchor text?
Outsourcing link building costs money.
The last thing you want is to waste money building the wrong kinds of links to pages that don’t matter.
You have to be strategic.
Click on the links above and check out each of the three tutorials to have a complete understanding of link building.
They will ensure you get more value from every link you order!
3. Set Your Expectations
This might sound like a funny tip.
But most SEO and link building campaigns go wrong when the client’s expectations and the agency’s capabilities aren’t aligned.
Here are a few questions to consider:
- What do you expect from the agency?
- What goals do you have?
- Does the agency have any case studies with previous results?
You must be confident that the agency you hire can deliver the results you expect. You also need to have realistic expectations.
It will help things run smoother and ultimately achieve better results.
4. Be Aware Of The Cost Of Outsourcing
Outsourcing link building can feel expensive.
But it’s important to remember that high-quality links come at a price.
Building links from quality websites takes:
So, how much does link building cost?
Here is a rough idea of what you can expect to pay per link for a quality service:
| Domain Rating | Average Cost |
|---|---|
| 20 to 34 | $150 to $190 |
| 35 to 49 | $220 to $270 |
| 50+ | $300 to $340 |
Stay away from link building services that are cheap.
These agencies often use questionable tactics to acquire links and run a bigger risk of attracting a Google penalty to your site.
In the link building industry, you get what you pay for.
5. Be Aware Of “Over-Promising” Services
Nothing in SEO is guaranteed.
That’s just the nature of the industry because everyone is ultimately at the mercy of Google.
All quality link building agencies understand this and help adjust their client’s expectations by not overpromising results.
But there are a number of dodgy link building services that promise high DR links for low promises.
Word of advice – Stay away!
Getting links placed on high domain authority sites isn’t easy. If it were, everyone would do it.
If you feel that a link building service is overpromising, turn around and run the other way. It’s just not worth the risk to your site.
Remember: If it sounds too good to be true – it probably is.
5. Start Your Research Based On Your Criteria
Before you even look for an agency to outsource link building to – establish some criteria.
This will help you sift through all the different services out there, making it easier to find the right one for your business.
These are the things you need to consider:
- Your expectations
- Link building needs
- Budget
- Types of links
- Quality control guidelines
The last one is critical. When you outsource link building, you also pass the quality control over to the agency.
Each agency is different and has a different process for building external links.
Our advice is to look for agencies and services that have guaranteed quality control. It will mean you ultimately get better links that have a better impact on your search engine rankings and traffic.
Outsource Link Building To LinksThatRank
Want to outsource your link building to an agency you can trust?
LinksThatRank has a reputation for building high-quality links that deliver real results for their clients.
They have simplified the link building buying process so you can choose the links you need, tell them your target keyword and they will take care of the rest.
But that’s not all…
What really sets LinksThatRank apart from other link building services is their commitment to quality control.
Every link they build-
- Passes a 23-point quality control checklist to make sure you get links that rank
- Contains custom target anchor text that benefits your rankings and won’t trigger an anchor text penalty
- Is placed with at least 1,000 words of content by default
- Includes internal and external links within the placement content to appear more natural
- Will NOT be placed on sites with “write for us” pages and known guest post farms and PBN networks
- It is guaranteed to pass their own link building tool and be blacklist free
Because of these strict guidelines, LinksThatRank have developed a reputation for building the best links in the industry.
You can check out their link building results on the case study screenshots on their website.
Plus, LinksThatRank even offers monthly link building packages for a discounted price!
If you are ready for outsourced link building, make sure you check out LinksThatRank.
Wrapping It Up?
Outsourcing link building is a great way to save:
You get real professionals building quality links for your site while being able to focus on growing your business.
It’s a great way to get the benefits of backlinks without the hassle of building them yourself.
But make sure you choose an agency you can trust!
Spend some time working out what kind of backlinks you need and how many you want to build.
Getting clear on your criteria ensures you have the right expectations and helps you get better results.
Ready to outsource link building for yourself?
Check out LinksThatRank and start getting links that will actually move the needle forward.
