There is no use in having a webpage for your business unless the page is ranking high in the Google search results and gaining significant traffic. You also need to rank higher compared to your competitors so as to not become the second or third option. One of the best ways to rank higher is by leading people to your website using a link placed on a different, more trustworthy website. This is called backlinking, and the process of building these networks of links is called link-building.

When you get the job of link-building done via outsourcing, as opposed to hiring in-house employees for it,  it is called white-label link-building. In this article, we will discuss why white-label link-building is the better option, and what steps you should take to make the link-building process most fruitful for your website.

Why should you outsource link-building services? 

In order to understand why you should outsource the link-building service, you first need to know how the job is done.

Why is link-building a difficult process? 

There are many reasons why. Some of the main ones are:

• Determining backlink gaps: Outranking your competitors is the main goal of link-building. However, analyzing the rankings of all your competitors by sifting through vast amounts of data takes a lot of time as well as specific expertise. 

• Customizing backlinking strategies: A customized link-building strategy that falls into the gap of your existing SEO strategy is a must for the process to be successful. There is no one-size-fits-all for this. For this, you will have to conduct market research, refine your tactics, and continuously adapt your strategies based on performance.

• Securing backlink placements: This involves tedious hours of reaching out to sites with high domain authority, pitching content,  and managing communication and negotiations with all of them. It can take hours just to build a single, strong link.

• Content creation: Backlinks are better placed in high-quality and engaging content that compels and connects with the readers. There needs to be a consistent flow of ideas for the guest posts, infographics, or reports that you will generate for the backlinks. 

• Furnishing strategies according to results: You need to regularly study the performance of your site to determine whether the backlinks caused any significant improvements in your search rankings and traffic. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing and your competitors are also constantly improving, so you’ll have to do consistent monitoring and upgrades.

How will your company benefit from white-label link-building?

When you consider everything a link-builder has to do, it becomes evident why outsourcing is the better option: 

• Cost-effective solution: If you want to hire an experienced SEO expert for your company, according to ZipRecruiter, you might have to pay them an average salary of $98,000. And most of the time, a single employee won’t be enough. Meanwhile, buying a single backlink will cost you somewhere between $500 to $1000. With a packaged deal, you will also be buying the strategy that your SEO employee would have made. So with a much lower budget, you would still be able to get most of the job of an employee done by outsourcing. 

• Access to updated SEO standards: A good SEO company, in order to stay relevant for years after years, will constantly update themselves about the ever-changing search engine algorithms and SEO requirements. An employee might not be able to stay regularly updated through individual efforts. By outsourcing your link-building process, you are ensuring that none of your strategies are lagging behind in terms of trends. 

• Take advantage of existing infrastructure: An individual employee will often have a harder time building strong links or at least take much longer compared to an agency that has been in the industry for a while. Due to their years of experience, an agency already has existing relationships, partnerships, and outreach capabilities. Using these, they will already have one foot on the job right after being hired, compared to an employee who has to start from square one. If your business has a massive backlink gap with competitors, you can’t afford to waste that much time building relationships with sites with high domain authorities. 

• Avoiding link schemes: Link-building comes with its own set of risks as it is kind of like cheating the algorithm, and Google doesn’t want to lower the quality of its search engine. Dummy sites, link schemes, and other manipulative tactics can put your website at risk. Often, an employee might use these tactics without even realizing they are wrong. Experienced SEO agencies will make sure to avoid these with great care.

How to outsource link-building?

Now that you’re sure you want to outsource the link-building service, go through the following steps one by one to get the most out of it:

Step 1: Research all about how link-building works

While you won’t be doing the link-building job yourself and don’t need to develop expertise in it, it’s still good to have a clear and detailed idea of what link-building is, how it works, and how the results are supposed to look like when the job is done well. 

That way, you can assess the performance of the service you hire. They won’t be able to fool you by making up scenarios and lies. Moreover, you will be able to familiarize yourself with all the terms, especially those related to the metrics, which will help you understand the reports provided by the agency after a link-building campaign to assess the performance quality.

Step 2: Determine your needs and goals

Your company must have certain goals that you want to meet by using link-building. Be very clear about what those goals are and what exactly you want to derive out of the service you will be hiring. Here are some things you need to decide beforehand:

• Type of backlink: Backlinks can be of many types, and they all serve different purposes. You may want high-quality backlinks of any kind, or you may want links that are specific to your niche. Or you may need a mix of both. This will affect the rates, so decide it carefully.

• Volume of backlinks: You should have a clear idea of exactly how many backlinks you want to put out. Too much of anything is not good, so it should be a logical number.

• Project deadline: You need to make a timeline for the link-building project depending on how fast you want your goal to be met.

Step 3: Prepare your site for link-building 

Before you put your website up for backlinking, you need to make sure your website has a decent SEO performance already. Most agencies will not make you a customized SEO strategy; they will only work on link-building strategies. So you need to have a solid and effective SEO strategy on place to discuss with the agency later on. Link-building should be the only thing missing in your SEO strategy.

Moreover, you need to have an idea about your competitor websites and how much your backlink gap with them is. You also want your on-site and technical SEO to be as perfect as possible for the backlink to have a significant impact. This means that your website’s rank might be too low for you to be satisfied with it, but it should still be able to rank at least. 

Here are some things you must ensure to prepare your website for the link-building procedure:

• The content your website is showing is well-built, engaging, and fully relevant to your brand.
• There are no broken links anywhere.
• Your content meets all the latest SEO requirements.
• There are at least 1000 words on every page.
• There are no indexing errors according to Google Search Console’s “Index Coverage Report”.
• You have a good understanding of the most relevant keywords and how to use them.
• There should not be any duplicate contents, like two pages ranking for the same keyword.

If you have all these done beforehand, then all your website needs to perform better in the search rankings is an impactful backlinking network. It will also make things easier for your link-building provider as they will be able to create a more effective link-building strategy.

Step-4: Allocate the budget for this service 

Budget is one of the main reasons why you’re choosing to outsource link-building in the first place. But even among outsourcing providers, you will find a massive difference between the rates. Mainly, there are two types of link-building service providers:

• Freelancers: If you have a small and tight budget, hiring freelancers will be the most cost-effective option. A highly-rated freelancer is the most sustainable option for when you have a small backlink gap to quickly fulfill. But they might not be good for longer projects as they are not experts in the specific field and hence the job might not reach its full potential. 

• Link-building agencies: Agencies will naturally charge a higher rate, and for good reasons: they specialize in this field and have expert knowledge and skills for the job. If you can choose the right agency, you can rest assured that the job will be well done. However, your budget will have to be moderately high for this.

Step 5: Choose the type of service

If you are going for link-building agencies, you might get two types of services:

Managed Subscription-based Link-Building Plans 

This is a long-term plan where the agency will take responsibility for your entire link-building campaign from scratch. The agency will create the content, choose the most effective pages to link to and identify keywords for you. Typically, they will charge you a fee for it on a monthly basis. Through this plan, you will get to build a solid relationship of trust and understanding with the agency over time. 

The main drawback of this plan is that you might have to pay several thousand dollars at a time for the monthly fee. While it will still be lower than hiring a team of in-house link builders, it can put a toll on your budget. However, in the long run, it might be more cost-effective than the per-link plan.

Pay-Per-Link Plan

This plan is a cheap way to outsource link-builders and hence is the most popular option. For this, there will be a specific rate for every link, and all you have to do is choose the number of links you want to buy for the order. Higher authority sites usually charge more for this, but they also have connections with better websites. However, with this plan, the agency will not take charge of your entire link-building strategy and the work might not be done in a fully planned way.

Moreover, since link-building is a job that requires consistency to an extent in order to stay on top of the competition, you might end up spending more on the link-by-link route compared to the package-format route that is the managed link-building plan.  

Some agencies will also offer a Hybrid plan mixing both of these types. In many scenarios, the Hybrid plan will be the most fruitful one. Carefully choose which one serves you the best.

Step 6: Hire the service  

One you have determined the type of service you want, it’s time to research an agency to hire. Lay down all your possible options and find the agency that best fits your needs and strategies. Make sure to compare the pros and cons before you hire. 

What factors should you focus on when hiring outsourcing services for link-building? 

When you’re looking for the best link-building service provider to hire, you are bound to face confusion because of how many options you have. That’s why you should first make a list and then cut out one name after the other depending on some factors. These factors include:

The agency’s SEO 

If a link-building agency boasts its skills and expertise in the field, the best proof of its credibility is the agency’s website itself. They should have top-notch and perfect SEO metrics and lots of backlinks of their own. If their website does not show proof of their own performance, you can still use various online SEO tools and backlink checkers while doing the research yourself.

Testimonials and reviews

Read through client testimonials and reviews of the agency. Most agency will advertise their best testimonials on the website itself. Verify if those testimonials are coming from real people. There are other third-party sites that determine the credibility of such agencies from an unbiased perspective. Read the reviews on those sites to understand their strengths and weaknesses. If an agency has negative reviews on almost every site you see, then that’s a clear sign of the agency’s shortcomings.

Experience

Experience speaks the loudest. If an agency has managed to last several years in the industry, it means it provides services good enough to last long without going bankrupt. It means they have a solid track record of customer satisfaction. It also indicates that they have constantly updated their skills based on the ever-changing rules of SEO.

Pricing within your budget

Different agencies will have different pricing plans based on their different approaches to the work. You need to find an agency that can do what you want within the budget you want. However, make sure both your budget and their pricing plans are realistic. The study you did before starting your search will help you here.

The communication structure 

A link-building service provider will not only build links for you based on demand. They should also provide you with reports summarizing the result of the money you put into them. If your initial goal is not fulfilled, they should be willing to discuss the gaps with you and rework. If a company doesn’t have that kind of communication structure in place, you should avoid them.

Quality of links 

An agency being able to generate a lot of links within a short time isn’t an example of a good agency. In fact, links that are easy to generate, for example, links from social media websites or directory websites, are not going to help you much, if at all. The links generated should be from sites with high domain authority, preferably those that have been around for a while. The agency you hire should take their time to generate the highest quality links to create more traffic in your website.

What to watch out for when hiring outsourcing services for link-building?

You don’t want to fall into the hands of the wrong agency. So watch out for these red flags: 

• Guaranteeing success: Agencies should not be making any 100% guarantees because nothing can be said for sure. Instead, they should be promoting their skillset, experience, and what makes them better than the alternative options. So those types are most likely scams.

• Speedy turnaround: You already know by now that link-building is a job that takes time. So if the agency promises to do it within a very short time, it’s a red flag for sure.

• Unclear strategies: If the agency is not clear about the strategies they are designing for your company, they might not be creative with customized strategies to begin with. They might also not show interest in your overall SEO strategy.

• Offering unrealistically low prices: Link-building is not an easy job and hence it should not cost too little. The usual price range is around a thousand dollars per month. A lower price could very well mean lower quality of links. 

• Not disclosing metrics: Lack of transparency is a huge red flag. A good agency will be willing to show you the fruits of their hard work and boast about it so that they can gain strong testimonials. Never trust an agency that refuses to communicate its strategies and metrics.

• Unethical practices: Link farming is an unethical practice used by many SEO agencies to get more work done in a short time. There are many spammy sites out there that seem like real websites and have high domain ratings, but will actually not benefit you in any way and may also get you in legal trouble.

Link-building is one of the most effective strategies for better search engine optimization, but only when it is done right. When you’re on a budget while also needing quality links, outsourcing to an experienced and reputable company is your best shot at success. Don’t be shortsighted, aim for long-term SEO success!