Considering which agency to choose for a link building campaign is starting to seem like beating a dead horse.......
-
So first off, I've got to admit, I really haven't shopped around enough on SEOmoz's Recommended page.
I have been doing some shopping, and have considered a few different people.
The two main people that we are considering (or should I be saying 'were' right now?) is a company called Mainstreet Host.
They have the best price, and when I first came into my partnership with Roseann at Uncommon Thread, she had already paid for some $1,500 trial of sorts.
Our problems with these guys?
- Roseann says the sales guy is extremely pushy
- They want us to pay them a monthly fee to "optimize 11 pages, create 12 blog posts on wordpress blog, rss on homepage for fresh content, blah blah blah..." I was stuck on the fact that they want a recurring fee for a fairly small job
- I just looked into their ability to rank for the keyword they are targeting, and they rank #2 for a keyword difficulty score of 83. BUT, I looked into their linkbuilding and it's pretty blackhat. Several blog comments, mostly guest posts on what looked like some sore of article marketing site, and a few missing links according to opensiteexplorer.org
- did not say anything about link building other than a single Press Release distribution
I guess my question is, is the $6,000 they want us to pay for those services actually going to get us to rank for some competitive terms? like keyword difficulty score 30 - 60?
The other guys we have been considering is OrangeSoda.
Right off the bat, they seem awesome, i mean just take a quick look at their site.
but just like with the other company, they have a pretty dark backlink profile too.
The only thing that they really have going for them is a few paid links on some sort of what appears to be semi-legitimate advertising partner based network. Google was on their too, near the bottom, which I thought was very strange, because it clearly discloses that its a paid network.
They are asking $7,200 for 12 hours per week of work, in which time they will help us go through and fix any technical aspects, create a blog, and create content, as well as build a link building strategy.
Should I keep shoppping??
-
Yeah, keep shopping for sure. In fact, forget about shopping for a while and define exactly what it is you need to help you get the results you are going after. If you are looking at straight up link building companies that are primarily focused on the sledgehammer approach and their own link profiles are shady then.... it does not say much for their approach.
Fact is, that whilst Google are cracking down, there is still a hell of a lot of manipulation going on and many of the top results are there due to the link building they are doing. But, we can't count on this for much longer and a quality approach with longevity in mind should alway be the order of the day for any serious business with long term goals.
My advice would be to do some more analysis, review the competition in earnest, know what you need and what you want and go shopping with a much better idea of what you need.
-
Yes keep shopping. You can get industry legends to work on your price for much less than that. I recommend asking for a proposal and a time frame from as many vendors as possible.
Let them know upfront that this is your budget and that you are not going a dime over. After you get 10 - 50 proposals, start picking out which ones are best for you and based on vendor fit. Don't go with people who are pushy or appear shady - you will regret it later.
Work with people with whom you have great chemistry with.
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
-
How does Google determine if a link is paid or not?
We are currently doing some outreach to bloggers to review our products and provide us with backlinks (preferably followed). The bloggers get to keep the products (usually about $30 worth). According to Google's link schemes, this is a no-no. But my question is, how would Google ever know if the blogger was paid or given freebies for their content? This is the "best" article I could find related to the subject: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2332787/Matt-Cutts-Shares-4-Ways-Google-Evaluates-Paid-Links The article tells us what qualifies as a paid link, but it doesn't tell us how Google identifies if links were paid or not. It also says that "loans" or okay, but "gifts" are not. How would Google know the difference? For all Google knows (maybe everything?), the blogger returned the products to us after reviewing them. Does anyone have any ideas on this? Maybe Google watches over terms like, "this is a sponsored post" or "materials provided by 'x'". Even so, I hope that wouldn't be enough to warrant a penalty.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jampaper0 -
Should I disavow this Link?
I am trying to clean up my link profile to get rid of a partial penalty and am not sure to do with one of the links to my site http://www.seoco.co.uk The link is 100% organic and has come from a foreign language site that published an infographic that I did: http://www.clasesdeperiodismo.com/2012/12/23/la-evolucion-de-las-redes-sociales-este-ano-en-una-infografia/ The thing is that in the link to my homepage they have used the anchor text SEO as opposed to my company name. I have already sent them an email and asked them to change the anchor text but they haven't responded so I am guessing they probably wouldn't respond to a removal request either. Should I disavow it?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Eavesy0 -
Where Is This Link Coming From?
According to Moz Analytics we have a link coming from here: http://www.grayshadowfinancial.com/ The anchor text is earthquake prone map. I can't find the link, but if I cntrl+f "earthquake prone map" it shows in the find box, even though I can't see it. I'm guessing this is some spam tactic and they are hiding this with their CSS? Is there anyway I could see it? Best, Ruben
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Site-wide links: Nofollow or eliminate altogether?
As a web developer, it's not uncommon for me to place a link in the footer of a website to give myself credit for the web design/development. I recently decided to go back and nofollow all these site-wide footer links, to avoid potentially looking spammy. I wanted to know if I should remove these links altogether, and just give myself text credit without a link at all? I would like for a potential client who is interested in my work to still be able to get to my site if they like my work - but I want to keep my link profile squeaky clean. Thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | brad.s.knutson0 -
Do legitimately earned links from unrelated sites help or hurt?
We have a few charity events coming up that have offered to link back to our homepage. While we do genuinely like the charities we are going to sponsor, I'm not sure how those links will look seo-wise. For example, one is for the local high school basketball team and another is for a Pediatric Care Mud Run. To a human, these links make perfect sense, but to a robot, I'm not sure if it differentiates these links from spam/some negative link. Granted, I understand that a small percentage of links probably won't do anything either way, but I'd like to ignore that for the purposes of my question. All things being equal, do links such as these help or hurt? Thanks for your time and insight, Ruben
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Site being targeted by hardcore porn links
We noticed recently a huge amount of referral traffic coming to a client's site from various hard cord porn sites. One of the sites has become the 4th largest referrer and there are maybe 20 other sites sending traffic. I did a Whois look up on some of the sites and they're all registered to various people & companies, most of them are pretty shady looking. I don't know if the sites have been hacked or are deliberately sending traffic to my client's site, but it's obviously a concern. The client's site was compromised a few months ago and had a bunch of spam links inserted into the homepage code. Has anyone else seen this before? Any ideas why someone would do this, what the risks are and how we fix it? All help & suggestions greatly appreciated, many thanks in advance. MB.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MattBarker0 -
Suggestion for Link Directory Script?
I own a subscription to PHP Link Directory but was wondering if anyone could suggest an alternative link directory script/software/service to PHPLD. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | fergusonconsulting0 -
Should I 301 Redirect a Site with an 'Unnatural Link' Warning?
Hey Fellow Mozzers, I have recently been approached by a new client that has been issued with an 'Unnatural Link' warning and lost almost all of their rankings. Open Site Explorer shows a ton of spammy links all using main keyword anchor text and there are way too many of them to even consider manually getting them removed. There are two glimmers of hope for the client; The first is that the spammy links are dropping off at a rate of about 25 per week; The second is that they own both the .com and the .co.uk domain for their business. I would really appreciate some advice on the best way to handle this, should I :- Wait it out for some of the spammy links to drop off whilst at the same time pushing social media and build some good clean links using the URL and brand as anchor text? Then submit a recosideration request? Switch the website over from the .com domain to the .co.uk domain and carry out a 301 redirect? Switch the website over from the .com to the .co.uk without doing a redirect and start again for the client with a clean slate? I would still register an address change via Webmaster Tools. Add a duplicate site on the .co.uk domain. Leave the .com site in place but rel="canonical" the entire domain over to the .co.uk Any advice would be very much apprecited. Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0