Should You Outsource Link Building? Pros, Costs, And Strategic Alternatives

Why Link Building Matters In SEO

How does Google discover new pages and understand which ones are trustworthy? Link building creates connection links between websites, allowing Google and other search engines to crawl these sites. Basically, links help crawlers discover new content and allow you to get indexed faster. Additionally, when a website links back to yours, it's an indication that they trust your content, and therefore, Google trusts your domain. However, creating a link building plan all by yourself may seem like climbing Mount Everest, as it takes a lot of research and networking to discover high-authority websites you can safely link to. One solution is to outsource link building to seasoned professionals and let them generate high-quality links using strictly white-hat tactics.

With 41% of digital marketers thinking that link building is like rocket science, it's no surprise that SEO link building agencies are in such demand. This demand is often leveraged by black-hat scammers who sell link bundles equal to the contents of a trash can. So, it's crucial you know how to identify a trustworthy white label link building agency whose value is easily corroborated by past clients.

In This Guide, You Will Find...

• The Benefits Of Outsourcing Link Building
• How Do You Prepare Before You Outsource Link Building?
• The Cost Of Working With A Link Building Partner
• Valuable Tips To Create A Successful Collaboration

The Benefits Of Outsourcing Link Building

• You Save Time And Resources

Link building is only one of your various SEO strategies. It requires time to research and identify opportunities, build relationships with website owners, create top-quality content, and follow up on link placements. Small and mid-sized companies just don't have the time or resources to do this in-house. A backlink agency can relieve you from this stress and create campaigns based on your needs. This way, you can spend more time on creating marketing campaigns and working on your social media content.

• You Leverage An Expert's Knowledge

The SEO landscape is changing constantly, as Google updates its algorithm multiple times each year. This means that what worked until today won't work tomorrow. Even companies with in-house link building experts may find it hard to adapt to the new reality. When you outsource your link building needs, you gain insights from professionals whose main job is staying on top of these changes. They not only have a lengthy catalog of high-DA websites they work with, but also can easily identify credible sources. Therefore, they produce links at a greater speed and efficacy.

• You Avoid Crucial Mistakes

Diving into the deep waters of link building can be intimidating for any marketer. Not all backlink SEO services are trustworthy. Many sources may provide you with big bundles of links that have no relevance to your niche or that are of very low quality. Backlink outsourcing to credible agencies helps you avoid these black-hat scammers and waste your money. Experts in the field stay updated regarding the latest news and can provide you with high-quality relevant backlinks no matter the complexities.

How Do You Prepare Before You Outsource Link Building?

1. Prepare Your Website

Link building services can do a lot for you. What they can't do is organize your site structure and optimize your content. So, before delegating this project to anyone, you should prepare yourself. For starters, your site structure should have a clear hierarchy for easy navigation. Then, take a look at your content. Do you have engaging content with multimedia elements that reduces bounce rate? Still, even that isn't enough. Your content also needs to include relevant, high-intent keywords and semantically similar words and phrases. Additionally, pay attention to various on-page SEO factors, including mobile friendliness, loading speed, and content structure. Meta descriptions, title tags, headers, and alt text image descriptions are crucial to fix before you outsource link building.

Lastly, ensure you include internal links and fix any broken links and other technical issues. For instance, if your pages take too long to load, you may have to compress all images to speed up the loading time.

2. Understand How Links Work

Before you contact a link building outreach service, you must gain a good understanding of how building backlinks works. Start with the types of links and sources. Domain authority and relevance are everything when it comes to placing backlinks. For example, placing a link on a website about home improvement is useless if you are in the eLearning niche. Also, well-known websites are better choices than sites that were created only a few months ago. That's why it's crucial you can tell the difference between black-hat and white-hat link building strategies.

But why do you even need to know all that? Because it makes it easier and safer to choose a link building agency. And once you pick it, you can evaluate its work more accurately. Knowing how backlink building works allows you to set realistic goals. You know that when someone promises you hundreds of links within a month, it is nothing but a big lie.

3. Check Your Budget

Quality backlinks cost. Yes, you can buy links by the bunch for cheap, but you can rest assured that they will do nothing for your ranking. In fact, they may push you deeper in the rankings instead of improving them. So, check the prices out there and create a budget within your abilities. Remember that the higher the DA of the websites you work with is, the higher the cost to get a backlink. That's why you have to be realistic and not set the bar too high. For example, you can find SEO link building packages that start from a couple of thousand dollars per month and increase significantly for enterprise outreach.

If your budget is in the hundreds, not thousands, you can purchase one-time packages. It may not be the fastest way to reach your goals, but it's an effective tactic to generate good-quality backlinks. eLearning Industry offers compelling link building packages to all companies wishing to strengthen their backlink profile. A dedicated account manager works with you along the way and keeps you updated. We usually work on minimum 1000-word articles and DA 40+, 50+ sites to ensure the best-quality service.

4. Find The Right Partner

To outsource link building, you should do your research to identify the right partner. First, you have to choose between a contractor and an agency. If your budget is small, a contractor may be a better option. However, if you want scalability and the whole SEO package, an agency is your ideal choice. Regardless of who you choose, you should look out for certain characteristics. Pricing is obviously very important. Look carefully at the services provided and the final price. Many scammy agencies don't provide a clear outline of the fees and prices, and surprise you with hidden costs when it's invoice time. In these cases, prices are often way too low, which should be a massive warning sign.

At the same time, you must evaluate each prospect's communication and transparency. Ask them how often they provide updates and which SaaS link building strategies they enforce. How much do they charge, and do they provide the domains they work with beforehand? The latter is particularly important, as you have the opportunity to check these sites' authority. Lastly, SEO backlink service providers should be willing to provide you with testimonials, case studies, and their portfolios. These are social proof that you need to evaluate their worth.

5. Know What Each Plan Offers

Usually, the best link building agencies offer two plans: managed and per-link plans. On managed link building plans, an agency works hand-in-hand with you to create high-quality content, choose the ideal websites to link to, optimize your anchor text, and identify the best keywords. These plans are long-term and typically cost a lot on a monthly basis. That is because agencies take a lot of time to organize their strategy and link building ideas. Despite that, the actual per-link cost can be lower than you'd expect.

On the other hand, per-link plans are one-time orders where you pay based on how many backlinks you want. The higher the authority of the websites you link to, the more you pay for each link. In this case, the agency doesn't create a strategy for you but simply helps you create beneficial anchor texts. This plan is good for companies that just want to boost their SEO strategy without spending too much. Many digital marketing agencies also enforce this solution to help their clients.

6. Be Aware Of Red Flags

When you outsource backlink building, it's possible to run into contractors and agencies that appear too good to be true. To create backlinks, you need time. When someone promises you that they can get you links in just a few days, you'd better stay away. They are probably placing those links on their network of websites or belong in a link farm. These link building services are usually offered at a very low cost, which is another huge red flag. Additionally, stay clear of prospects that promise you the first spot on Google rankings. Nobody can guarantee you that. It's like someone promising that they can turn water into wine.

Lastly, quality link building agencies and contractors are more than happy to share past client success stories and testimonials to prove their worth. When someone refuses to do so, it's an indication that no one has anything positive to say about them. Honesty and openness should be at the top of your priorities.

The Cost Of Working With A Link Building Partner

As we explained earlier, when you outsource link building, you usually choose between different plans. You can either choose long-term partnerships where you are charged monthly or make a short-term per-link purchase. Therefore, a link building package may cost a few hundred or a few thousand dollars. Let's see the various factors that form the final price tag.

• Quality Of Links

Link building agencies usually charge more the higher the DA of a website is. That is because the more authoritative a domain is, the more impact it will have on your SEO. Some agencies may also charge differently depending on the industry. For example, buying backlinks for a gaming website may come a lot cheaper than websites in difficult niches, including finance and healthcare. Depending on your niche, you have to think carefully about whether outsourcing link building is a viable solution.

• Volume

It's logical that the more links you wish to purchase, the more money you'll have to spend. Some backlink building agencies offer packages for specific links, while others charge per link. Both are good options once you ensure that these offering packages are not link farms.

• Types

Many companies don't understand the different types of links and their worth before outsourcing their link building needs. However, this part is highly connected to the pricing. For example, standard contextual links on a relevant blog post will most likely be cheaper than links on a high-authority, high-traffic website.

• Content Creation

The best SEO link building agencies typically offer content creation services apart from backlink building. For example, they might offer guest posts on trustworthy publications, infographics, and articles on content syndication platforms. It's only natural that these extra services will cost you more, as more people will be involved in the process.

• Lifetime Value

There are short-term and long-term backlinks. Naturally, permanent placements on trustworthy sources can show their benefits for years, generating traffic, which later converts to buyers. Therefore, these links are more expensive than short-term backlinks. For example, if the lifetime value of a link is $12,000+, you will be expected to pay $800-$1,000 per link. If the lifetime value is <$7,000, then you might have to pay around $600 per link.

Valuable Tips To Create A Successful Collaboration

1. Ask Questions

Meeting with various link building agencies is like interviewing potential new hires for your company. Don't you ask them a list of questions to understand their competency and overall fit? It's the same when you want to outsource link building to an agency or contractor. You need to understand their methodologies. How do they identify credible websites and prioritize certain links over others? Also, it's important you know which metrics they track to measure campaign success. During this questioning process, you realize their level of transparency. If, for example, they have trouble explaining how they find trustworthy publications, maybe it means that they process their link building and backlinks through questionable websites.

2. Keep Your Expectations Low

Quality link building services can't deliver results overnight. It's utopic to think that you'll pay your bill today and you'll start seeing results next week. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Trust and patience are two crucial virtues in your link building progress. Let your agency do its best and wait at least a month to see actual results. It's the same with SEO AI optimization. You wouldn't expect your SEO-optimized articles to start appearing immediately in AI Overviews within a few days, right?

3. Don't Micromanage

Requesting regular communication and updates is natural, and most seasoned link building companies are prepared for this requirement. However, don't micromanage your partner. For example, you can't be asking for updates every single day and requesting changes all the time. If you've agreed on fixing broken links, you need to give them enough time to do research and reach out to these websites. It wouldn't be wise to change the strategy and ask them to discover unclaimed mentions. Micromanagement will only delay their efforts and hinder your success.

4. Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket

When you outsource link building, you shouldn't focus on only one strategy. Try to expand through various types of links and publications, including regular blogs, news sites, niche-specific websites, and directories. Some links are much easier to generate, and it would be beneficial to do so if you want to create a robust backlink profile. For example, it's easy for anyone to submit their company to niche directory submission sites. eLearning Industry's PPC directories are specifically designed for eLearning and HR companies to put their solutions in front of the right eyes.

5. Track Deliverables

Any SEO link building agency usually tracks various KPIs to ensure the success of its links. During the interviewing phase, ask them to tell you in detail which metrics they track and why. Every time they provide you with reports, they should mention the impact of the generated backlinks, including referral traffic and any improvements in search engine results. You may go one step further and check whether these links have improved your domain authority.

Every once in a while, check these links to ensure they are relevant to your content. While you should trust your partner, you must also check whether their work aligns with your strategy.

6. Watch Out For Black-Hat Tactics

Have you heard of private blog networks (PBNs)? These site networks exist solely for linking to each other. The website owners either work with content farms or use AI-generated content for quick delivery. These sites may appear legit and sell links for cheap, but they can actually harm your ranking if Google realizes that you are connected to them. Additionally, pillow link building is another ineffective black-hat tactic. Basically, scammy SEO specialists leave comments on websites with your links in them. These comments, though, pass no value or juice. At their best, they may generate some referral traffic without improving your ranking.

Another black-hat link building tactic is adding a link inside a plugin or theme code. This means that every time someone downloads and installs it, it automatically links back to the target website. Finally, one of the most extreme and least-used tactics is hacking websites to add links all over their content. Hackers usually target old blog posts with vulnerabilities, as website owners are less likely to check these pages regularly.

Key Takeaway

Having an in-house Search Engine Optimization specialist may not be enough if you want to strengthen your link building profile. If you don't want to invest in an in-house expert, you had better outsource link building and backlink generation. Not only will you save time, but you will also leverage an external collaborator's expertise while you let your in-house SEO handle tasks like keyword research and on-page optimization. However, before you hand over your website, make sure it's ready for link building. Make as many on-page improvements as possible, create high-quality content if possible, and do some research regarding backlink services. It's crucial you know how it works so you can analyze each prospect's capabilities effectively.

You may even perform a technical SEO audit to ensure everything is okay on this side of things. During the partner interview stage, ask questions to understand their level of communication and transparency. If you suspect they might be involved in black-hat link building, stay away. Once you partner up with an agency, let them do their job without micromanaging them, and patiently wait to see measurable results.