Link building is an undeniable aspect of a solid SEO strategy.
This is because link building greatly impacts how a website ranks in organic search.
Links give websites ranking power.
Acquiring high-quality links consistently over time will enable pages on your website to appear higher up on the search engine results pages, commonly known as the SERPs.
Why is this important?
Because pages that rank higher get more clicks, this means more traffic, conversions, and sales.
I can’t explain the importance of link building for SEO enough.
However, link building can only work effectively if you are willing to invest time and resources into your campaigns! This is why many businesses – large and small – outsource their link-building efforts.
This makes a lot of sense, and we will explore why now.
Short Answer: Backlinks from high-authority sites and high-quality content are the two things you need for SEO. Therefore, working with an experienced link builder is the answer to most of your off-page SEO issues.
The Benefits of Outsourcing Link Building
Time-Saving
The bottom line is that outsourcing link-building saves business owners lots of time.
Outsourcing link-building allows you to delegate a large proportion of your SEO tasks to experts in the field.
Instead of spending hours (scratch that, weeks) researching and executing a link-building strategy, you will be able to shift your attention to other important aspects of the business, whether that’s marketing, risk management, or somewhere in between.
The benefit of saving time is evident…
Productivity and efficiency increase across all day-to-day operations.
The impact of time-saving on the day-to-day is significant.
Business owners, CMOs, and marketing managers can often get bogged down with link building.
White Hat link building requires a lot of manual outreach, prospecting, and content creation.
Doing it well is a full-time job, not just a task that can be looked at now and again.
Outsourcing link-building allows you to allocate time and resources to other critical areas of operation.
Shifting the focus elsewhere can mean improved customer service, an uptick in sales, and greater overall performance. Freeing up time allows the decision-makers in companies to focus on strategic planning, which can significantly help with long-term growth strategies.
Expertise
Another key reason why business owners will consider outsourcing link-building is expertise.
By taking link-building out of house, businesses can access the most experienced and skilled link builders. These people will have the most significant knowledge and expertise that they can apply to execute a successful link-building strategy.
Quality link builders are specialists.
As such, they deeply understand the latest link-building strategies and algorithm-friendly practices. This is so key and will lead to better results in terms of organic traffic. They will be able to seamlessly implement a good link building strategy into your current link building efforts.
If you try and manage link building internally, you may well encounter a few challenges.
This is because your team will probably not have the same level of industry experience. In-house teams may also need access to more resources making it difficult for them to execute a comprehensive and effective link-building campaign.
Outsourcing link-building will also allow you to hire experts with different specialties and skills. For example, you could hire a freelance HARO specialist, an outreach specialist, and someone to take care of guest posts. Instead of paying large salaries, you will just pay for what you need.
Outsourcing helps you to benefit from having a diverse set of perspectives and approaches. In turn, this will allow you to be more creative with your link-building campaigns.
Outsourcing gives you access to a wider range of skill sets, varied expertise, and experience. As a result, you may see better results in terms of higher search engine rankings and increased conversions.
Some link-building services will be better than others, but generally, you should always be working with people who know what they are talking about!
Cost-Effective
Outsourcing link building is likely a more cost-effective solution for businesses looking to improve their search engine rankings and drive traffic to their website.
In-house link building can be expensive.
It requires significant investment into hiring and training employees, purchasing equipment and software, and providing ongoing support and benefits.
On the other hand, outsourcing link-building eliminates all of these costs and provides businesses with a far more cost-effective solution.
Link-building agencies can operate with economies of scale. This means that they can provide their services at a lower cost due to their sheer volume of work. That’s not to say some SEO agencies don’t make critical link-building mistakes, but it’s uncommon.
Furthermore, outsourcing link building often leads to better results at a lower cost than in-house link building. This is because specialist link-building companies will have the expertise, experience, and resources necessary to execute effective link-building campaigns.
Outsourcing link building is a great way to eliminate many of the costs associated with in-house link building. Not only that, but it is also likely to lead to better results e.g. a better return on investment.
Scalability
Outsourcing your link-building provides you with the perfect opportunity to scale up or down your link-building.
Why?
Because you will find it easier to meet changing needs and demands.
Your business will grow and evolve. Therefore, you will need to acquire more high-quality backlinks (they can be the difference maker for you).
In-house link-building teams can’t be scaled so easily. This is because you will not have the same resources to grow that professional agencies have.
It would be extremely time-consuming and expensive to scale up your in-house SEO team. Additionally, you would need to provide more support to scale quickly and efficiently.
Link-building companies are well-equipped to handle fluctuations in demand and can quickly make adjustments to meet the needs of their clients.
This flexibility and adaptability can be particularly beneficial for businesses operating in dynamic or rapidly changing markets.
Your ability to scale up will depend completely on the link building agency you decide to partner with. However, unlike traditional employees, most reputable companies will have systems to quickly meet higher demand.
Better Results
Ultimately, nothing matters more than results.
Your link-building campaign’s goal must be acquiring a consistent stream of backlinks from high domain authority websites. Strong backlinks are a key KPI for SEO!
Remember, the best links are usually the result of good relationships between website owners and the link builders themselves.
Therefore, most SEO experts agree that you will see the best results through outsourcing to an agency or freelancer who has a lot of these connections.
Additionally, third-party link-building companies have the physical resources needed to execute super-effective SEO campaigns.
On the other hand, in-house link-building is likely to be limited (at least partly) by a need for more skilled personnel. Link building projects require experts. The people running them should have an in-depth knowledge of link profiles, backlink types, and anchor text.
While an in-house team is not as likely to have people with such strong knowledge, outsourcing can give businesses access to people who are true industry experts. Industry experts will follow SEO best practices. As such, they will be more likely to generate positive returns for you.
Out-of-house link builders are specialists, so they will have access to the best software, which can help with increasing deliverables.
The Process of Outsourcing Link Building
Finding a Reputable Link Building Company
Finding a reputable link-building company is key for businesses that are looking to outsource parts (or all) of their link-building campaigns.
Good link-building systems will lead to improved search engine rankings, increased traffic, higher conversions, and greater revenue… so focusing on choosing a reputable link-building partner is worth it.
How do you go about choosing reputable link-building companies?
Simple, you can start by researching, reading blog content, and looking at testimonials from their previous clients. Try and figure out what the link building process of the company is. If it isn’t obvious, reach out to them and ask a few questions!
Doing this will provide valuable insight into two things – the quality of service and expertise.
This is an effective way to determine what the company in question is about. Also, ensure you are looking for any glaring red flags that a company may be dodgy.
This way, you will quickly realize whether this is the right agency for you.
Additionally, the actual results that link-building companies achieve for their clients will always be a key indicator of how effective the actual links they build for you will be.
As a business owner, you should be able to evaluate the track record and reputation of every link-building company that you encounter by examining their portfolio and past case studies.
Portfolios offered by the link-building company can provide insight into the types of link-building services they offer, the prices of their services, and the results they have achieved previously.
You can also work with link-building companies with experience in your industry or similar businesses.
This may or may not be a dealbreaker for you, but choosing a link-building agency with similar previous experience can be advantageous because previous experience can signify that they have already made strong relationships with websites in your niche.
Defining the Goals and Objectives
Defining the goals and objectives of a prospective link-building campaign is essential for ensuring the success of the work.
You must clearly outline desired outcomes from the offset. Goals are very individual when it comes to off-page SEO.
For example, are you looking to build 3 backlinks to Page A? Are you looking to build two DR50+ homepage links through HARO?
However, writing down these goals will make it far easier for a link-building company to align with your expectations, helping them to effectively align their services with the business’s goals and objectives.
If you are unsure what your goals and objectives should be, you should thoroughly analyze your current search engine rankings. This can be a great way to get valuable insight into the pages that are performing well, as well as areas that need improvement.
The combination of this information can guide businesses in terms of where to focus their goals and objectives for SEO.
Communicating with the Link Building Company
Effective communication is crucial to ensuring that your link-building campaigns are successful… This is even more true when you are outsourcing the work.
By establishing clear and open lines of communication with the link-building company from the outset, it’s much easier to set up in a position where everyone feels like goals and time constraints are understood.
As you know, getting communication right is so important.
How can you do this?
Well, regular check-ins with the link-building company to discuss progress is the most ideal method.
Monthly or bi-weekly phone calls or video conferences to discuss strategy, accompanied by regular reporting on the overall campaign progress, is a great way to improve overall communication.
Getting relevant links is the most important part of the overall strategy. Still, you will only get links that are truly relevant when there is consistent two-way communication between the SEO agency and the buyer.
Monitoring and Evaluating Results
Monitoring and evaluating the results of your campaigns is essential for companies who are looking for long-term results, not just artificial short-term gains.
Whether running a PPC campaign or an SEO campaign, you must consistently monitor and evaluate your deliverables and results – this is imperative to get the desired outcomes.
If everything is going well, continue. If not, you can easily make the necessary recommendations and adjustments to the campaign strategy.
Measure The ROI of Link Building
In theory, measuring the return on investment (ROI) of your link-building efforts is simple enough. Your job is to determine the investment made in the campaigns. From here, you can then calculate how much you have financially benefited from the work.
Determine the cost of link building.
Many businesses actually inflate their ROI by discounting costs incurred. Relevant costs will be the hiring of any employees, any fees paid to link building companies, and subscriptions to popular SEO tools e.g. Ahrefs and Semrush.
Once you have determined the cost of the entire link-building campaign, it’s important that you track website traffic and conversions.
Using Google Analytics is probably the easiest option for traffic-related metrics like visits. However, if you want to track sales or subscriptions, you should be able to do this through the platform you are using.
Most likely, you are prioritizing tracking rankings for keywords.
Links mean higher rankings.
Higher rankings mean more traffic, conversions, and sales.
Therefore, improving rankings will be a clear-cut indicator that your link building campaign is paying off.
To calculate the ROI,, subtract the cost of link building from the increase in revenue you can attribute to the improved ranking positions, increased traffic, etc.
What Is a Good ROI?
The definition of a “good” ROI for link building depends on the business’s expectations and the number of resources (time and money) invested in the campaign.
Some business owners have the mindset that if they invest $1 and get $1.01 back, then it’s a good investment, but we disagree.
Although this wouldn’t be catastrophic, investing means taking on risk. Therefore, the reward should be higher.
ROI for link-building campaigns will always vary, but generally, most companies are seeing an ROI for link building that is approximately a return of 3-5 times the initial investment.
However, it’s important to keep in mind that link building is a long-term strategy (don’t expect 3-5x returns right away). It will likely take several months or even years to see the full benefits of the investment.
The most important thing for your business to do is to set realistic goals (in terms of ranking positions), track progress regularly (metrics like traffic and conversions), and adjust the strategy when it is needed – this will help you to experience the 3-5x ROI from link building campaigns.
Conclusion
Ultimately, outsourcing link-building can bring about significant benefits for businesses.
By outsourcing link building, businesses have been able to save time, reduce costs, and achieve far better results than they were doing previously when fully managing SEO in-house.
In this article, we have also discussed the process of outsourcing link-building and explained the most important steps for finding reliable SEO partners and getting the most out of your co-working experience.
As an SEO expert with extensive experience building incredible backlinks, I would like to take a second to plug my SEO services.
Whether it’s getting a bit of help with link building or fully managed SEO, my company is in a great position to provide you with the most comprehensive and affordable services available.
We are building awesome, authoritative links for our clients that are helping them experience huge traffic gains, increased sign-ups, and much higher profits.
At the end of the day, it is in your interest to select a service provider you can trust! Building ethical, impactful links, and generally “just awesome” is the key to off-page SEO success.
If you are interested in learning more about my link-building services or have any questions, please get in touch with me at matt@splintereconomics.com – any questions? I’m happy to help!
