How much is a fair amount to pay for link building services?
-
It would be useful to get some feedback from those paying for SME/SMB website link building services re how much is a fair amount to pay and what you are getting for this.
-
It's definitely a tricky question to answer, and there are a few ways of going about it.
I'm a big fan of Page One Power and they do charge by hour blocks, which you've mentioned. The reason Jon Ball says they do this is because every site is different and they can't charge by the link because of that. A link is not a link.
On the flip side:
- One of the most well known internet marketing firms that employees high profile SEO speakers charges $500 per link.
- A UK link building agency that is medium-well known was charging around $125 a link in 2012
- A large multi-media agency based in California I know of was charging $750 a link on old domains in deep pages for their clients
In my opinion the most transparent way all around is to do it in the hour-block method that Page One Power does it because all links are not created equal. In this method the link builder should report to the client at the end of the month how efficiently they spent the clients money in the 20 hours dedicated to link building that month. This method could cause initial strain in the client-consultant relationship however because the client might look at the consultant's rate (say it's $100 an hour) and compare them to other consultants.
Another method is to charge by the link. The problem with this is all links are not created equal. The consultant is not incentivized in the short term to spend 5 hours to earn one extremely valuable link if they're not going to be paid any more than if they spent one hour building that link.
A hybrid method could be to charge the client based on where the link was placed, but evaluating the price of each placed link every month is a lot of work and a lot of discussion.
In 2014, creating super high quality content should be talked about in the same sentence as building links since they go hand in hand. So that brings us to another method, where a block of say 20 hours a month for a small-medium business is set aside to spend on content and links. Some months 70% of that 20 hours is spent on building that content piece, but then for the next 2 months 70% of the time is spend promoting that content piece. This is how I would prefer to work, and it's a win-win both ways. The SEO consultant is both incentivized to create good content and promote it at the same time. The client is ensured that their money is being spent wisely and for the right reason.
I like talking about prices, it's something we need more guidance on in this industry.
-
I dont think there is a right or wrong answer, except don't do the spam
Some of the best links i ever had i got from a 1 man band and cost me $400 for around 100 links, there were some great gems in there, I have also paid a well established company 10X that fee and got not much more than spam.
- Personally I would go with a bit of a mixture, try some guest blogging, really don't have to be actual blogs but you could approach company's for a link in return for some great content
- You could hire a virtual assistant for $400 per month but do vet anything they will do for you before they do it
- You could submit some great articles or content to your own site and hope they will get linked to
Again all depends on your niche and is such a hard question to ask, if your in the insurance market then 4-5k per month if your a local business then no more than 1k even less
-
Hey there, best of luck in your search for a firm to help you with link building. I can't tell you who to pick, but for a small to medium sized business 2500 a month is MORE than fair, but you should be able to nab a pretty strong link builder.
A couple of tips for you as you seek out the right firm:
- Make sure they are truthful about who is building your links, check out profiles of their team on Linkedin (don't tell them you are going to do this).
- A TRUE link builder will ask you a lot of questions about what makes your business unique, what innovative things you have done, who is going to write your copy, etc. They should be asking you to build assets that will naturally attract links.
- They should try to build relationships with trade pubs, find out what kind of content those pubs and bloggers are seeking and have you create it
- Don't think that if you pay someone 2500/mo that they can get you the best type and highest quality links w/o your involvement. I think that is what gets a lot of linkbuilders into trouble in the first place, building links on any old site to just "get links"
-
No interest in spam and think $30k a month for link building is a little excessive for most SMB's.
Perhaps there are others with experience of more moderately priced white hat link building services. For example - anyone had any experience of Page One Power? they pop up fairly frequently on the SES speakers circuit and have 40 hour link building packages from $2500 per month - any feedback on these guys or anyone else would be good to hear.
-
With the new "trend" in guest post type of link building, link building companies are going with fees around 100-300 usd per post (with 1-2 links within). That depends a lot on the quality but this is what some of my accounts are paying for link building sessions.
However, go only with companies that have a very good reputation.
(although even iacquire.com had a good reputation and it didn't turn out that good). Just be really carful and have a valid, dilute link profile.
As Stephan said, $1000 a day is not unusual but again, no matter how much you pay just be carful.
-
Depends on what you need....
Need some low quality spam, $5 will do it. Need high quality links, start at $1000 a day and go way higher
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
-
Spam Link Building Discovered - What would you do?
Hi Mozers, After investigating our no 1 competitor we have discovered their 87k back links comparing to ours 1k. After dipper investigations we discovered that all the back links are gained by the websites created by themselves. So what they did is - they had purchased 10+ domains and created 10+ new websites that are identical as their original .com version. EVERY SINGLE LINK on these 'new' websites link to their .com version. The 'New' websites are not indexed. Literally each of us can do the same and gain thousands of back links, but isn't it violating google's policy? What are your thought on it? (What is the best practice to report the violation of google's policy to Google?) Best regards, Lana
Link Building | | Chemometec0 -
Questions About Link Building .
Hello Moz Community, I am about to hire a SEO firm for my website ranking. I have few questions about their link building plan. http://priceperlink.com/SEO-Link-Building/ Their link building plan ! I have purchased package 4. I have noticed they will use same article and PR again and again . Is that acceptable ? This plan is not authenticated to me. I hope google will catch me for duplicate content. Anyone can clear it please ? Another question is , If i provide unique articles , will that plan be helpful ? Still i have confusion. As I read few days ago, google don't give any value to article submission and press release distribution without any news ! So, help me quickly and suggestion as well. Will i continue with them or not. Thanks
Link Building | | businessowner0 -
Link Building in 2014
Hi everyone.
Link Building | | KarenJames
We like most are struggling to link build this year in line with Google guidelines. First step for us is a back link clean up then a really thorough competitor analysis to see what the competitors have that we may wish to emulate. We also ask the clients to provide us with information about their associations, memberships, suppliers, partners etc so we can see if there is synergy to get them a decent link from sites in their immediate orbit.
After that we produce some excellent content but getting it published, particularly with a follow link, is just getting harder and harder. We are also a PR agency so we encourage the clients to 'think out of the box' with regard to a PR campaign. It is fair to say that most clients don't understand what we are trying to do and don't have the stomach to be different.
I was wondering if anyone else did anything different, any fabulous ideas we are missing?
Also is anyone still submitting content to Ezine articles? They are incredibly picky about unique content, grammar etc but is it/will it still be grouped in with the article link farms?
Any advice much appreciated.
Thanks Karen1 -
Link building Activities
As everyone is saying that link building is dead , And we should be doing RCS, to earn links. Q1, so my question is that are these below mentioned activities no longer effective?: directory submission
Link Building | | conversiontactics
classified listing
business listing
social bookmarking
reciprocal listing
Guess bloggin
blog comment
forum posts
inforgraphics
Articles
Press release What sort of activities should we be doing for earning links Has anyone got any process , please share.0 -
Link Building - Where to start and how long to see results
Been working a lot on on-page seo and it mistifies me to observe that when i get A's constantly for search terms for on page but im not on the first 10 pages of Google compared to a competitor on page 1 with on page reports of C, D and even E! So, a lot of hard work "on page" does not equal to a lot of hard work which is obviously link building. my domain and page authority is only 18 and 27 whereas the main competitors are 50's and 60's. Is "link building" or lack of it my main issue? Here is the site http://www.govisitthelakes.com Very new to link building 😞 Anyone know a good place to start? Ive been working through open site explorer and starting to get some of my competitors links. How long to see results from link building to improve domain and page authority? or is it just "how long is a piece of string" and be patient. Thanks Ouji
Link Building | | oujipickle0 -
Link Building Speed
Hello everyone, This is my first day at SEOMOZ and I have already searched the forum for an answer to my question with no luck. How do I work out the pace at which I should be building links? Everyone talks about the importance of makling link building seem natural/organic, but how xactly do you go about this? Many thanks in advance.
Link Building | | ups0 -
Do you consider it risky to hire outside firms to build links?
Based on what happened to JC Penny do you think there is a significant risk of penalties if you have an outside firm build links for your site? For example they could buy some links and get caught or engage in black hat tactics without our knowledge. Is there anything that can be done to minimize any such risk?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs0 -
Link Building - Natural - My site is the best to rank #1
Hi, I like to ask the mozers. Write here, the link building methods, the most natural way, with 0% spam. Tell us, i make an example, on a small competition on the internet, i see competitors with 100 - 120 backlinks from root domains. Tell us, the best tips, to use and to build 50 - 80 backlinks for a month, on the most natural way, nothing is too much, so write here, demonstrate!
Link Building | | leadsprofi0