What is the Best Way to Select a Company for Linkbuilding?

[Zippy-Bungle]

We need a few more links, who doesn't, and I've been looking at outsourcing it.

Having checked out Moz posts to get an idea of best practice it seems that most link builders that responded to my Elance advert would give me links that would get me penalised either now or in the next update or two by Google.

Leaving aside the frequent mentions of link wheels on potential SEOs sites, the main problem seems to be that I cannot believe that any content generated will be of any value to anyone other than as a pseudo contextual basis for the link

"Bats are a flying mammal. They use sound waves to navigate. Sound is used in hearing aids. blah blah. blah."

So how do you find decent link builders? How do you validate them? What are the key questions to ask? What are the red flags?

[JaneCopland]

These are all great pieces of advice. You might also want to check out Moz's list of recommended companies. A lot of these companies offer link development services and should prove reliable.

[TomRayner]

Hi there

The most reliable way to select a company or individual for link building is to ask them for examples of their work.  This might be complicated slightly by any existing NDA agreements that they might have, but more often than not a reputable company or individual is going to cite case studies on their website anyway.

You should ask them what they have done and who they have worked with.  Whether or not they give you specific examples of links built at this stage is actually quite irrelevant.  You should instead use tools like OSE, Majestic, Ahrefs etc. to see the links for yourself.  Are they building the kind of links you would be happy to receive.  If they have shared examples with you, does the evidence match up?

The key to all of this is transparency.  You will have infinitely more confidence with a company or individual if they are transparent with their work.  Pricing, reporting, expectations - all of these can, and should, be clearly defined.  There's no excuse nowadays for a company/individual to be obscure with the work that they have done - particularly with the myriad of tools available for you to jump in and have a look for yourself.

I hope this helps.

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Reach out to people you see writing about link building on a more advanced level. If they're talking about creating strategies which don't involve any outdated strategies then you're on the right path. I also think it's noteworthy that it should be somebody within the same country as they know the audience much better. I would be weird if I started as a Dutch person link building for the German market (they have a very different culture, especially on the web).

[webmethod]

Hi,

I've been badly burnt by agencies in the past offering "quality" link building services and have done quite a lot of work on dealing with a conundrum similar to yours. Here is my advice:

1. Links need to be earnt, not bought. You need to overcome your main problem ("I cannot believe that any content generated will be of any value to anyone other than as a pseudo contextual basis for the link"). If you're not producing something of value, the links aren't going to be relevant and you're increasing your chances of a future penalty.
2. Assuming you're selling products or services, or even generating revenue by ad impressions you still have a customer base. The sooner you can understand their needs, the sooner you can produce some content of value to your business.
3. Work on a project basis with an agency to test them out and stay well away from retainers and minimum term contracts. I started working with an agency to produce individual pieces of content and get them legitimately placed on relevant websites. Smaller/startup agencies are typically more flexible on this sort of model as they are looking to win longer term business and build their client base.
4. Avoid any link-building that targets exact match keywords or any other cynical techniques. You are bound to get penalised for this.
5. To find agencies - go to marketing / SEO conferences. e.g. BrightonSEO which has sponsors and attendees you can network with and get advice and potentially recommendations.

Good luck,

George