Why You Should Outsource SEO Link BuildingRead Time: 15 minutes

Ready to outsource your link building?

Engage your SEO efforts and take them to the next level with a professional link building service that yields truly high-authority links.

Backlinks are one of the top two ranking factors within Google’s page ranking algorithm. High-quality links from trustworthy websites are vital to signal to Google that your page is just as high quality.

Create a feedback cycle that ultimately accelerates your rise up the rankings. Improve your Domain Authority, acquire more traffic, and get more eyes where they need to be.

Before hiring an SEO agency to build links for you, what is link building, and why should you care?

The concept is simple enough to understand. It’s the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites linking to your own. Internet marketers often build links to provide an SEO boost to their clients, but this isn’t always the case.

Understanding the anatomy of link building is simple, but what does it mean with the content of search engines? 

Your Links are the Pathway to Success

Google will crawl your website and conduct a complete analysis of everything that’s going on. One of the areas they look at is how many links you have and where they come from.

Search engines utilize links in two ways, as illustrated by Google:

  • Discovery – To find brand-new web pages they have yet to index within their results. Google will often find new websites through links from known websites.
  • Ranking – To determine the quality of a website and how well a page should rank within its results for a targeted keyword.

Links are one of the oldest factors determining where a site should rank. The concept of links as a factor began as early as the late 1990s. By incorporating links into the algorithm, Google could elevate the usefulness and relevancy of its search results beyond what its competitors could offer.

Fighting back against algorithm manipulation about linking has been a constant battle as white hat and black hat agents compete for dominance. Today, Google has firmly won the war, illustrating the importance of working with the right link building agencies.

Link building is not the only factor in how you rank. Everything links together. At Sure Oak, we don’t believe any aspect of SEO can exist in isolation. For example, great content is just as important as links because, without quality content, you’ll never get the links you expect. The same goes for optimizing anchor text for SEO.

In other words, your site must be perfect within the ultra-competitive landscape of 2020’s SEO.

Why Link Building is Important for SEO

Links are just part of the patchwork of SEO factors that determine where your brand sits in the grand scheme of search.

Google analyzes your blogs and core pages for evidence of links to other websites. The search engine giant also analyzes other websites for links leading back to your page.

The principle of link building in SEO is simple:

Reliable, trustworthy brands link back to other reliable, trustworthy brands.

Our job is to put your brand where it needs to be in all the right places. It’s no wonder that 69% of marketers believe that buying links positively impacts search rankings. 

Increase Your Traffic and Rankings

Increase Your Traffic and Rankings

Your journey to SEO success starts with fulfilling Google’s key ranking factors. Today, it’s impossible to rank well without quality backlinks. The importance of links means this is a non-negotiable aspect of SEO.

Get it wrong, and your site will sink.

Improving your rankings naturally means acquiring more traffic. According to Forbes, the first page of Google gobbles up 71% of the traffic, with this number being as high as 92% in recent years.

If your brand fails to reach page one for its chosen keywords, you may as well not exist at all.

Increase Your Authority and Credibility

Become an authority in your industry to give yourself the edge in the battle to be number one.

Page and Domain Authority are ranking factors designed to show how you match up with your closest competitors. Building and maintaining your authority rankings is a full-time job, with the competition more formidable than ever.

Demonstrating your authority and credibility to Google means acquiring “link juice” or “link equity.” Our job is to ensure our clients maximize their link juice through:

  • Posting great content
  • Consistently producing quality content
  • Link to pages with high authority
  • Improving the quality of your traffic
  • Acquiring outbound links

You cannot have any of the above without a comprehensive link building campaign. As a business owner, do you have the time to manage these aspects of your website? It’s a full-time job, which is why smart business owners understand the value of outsourcing link building to the experts.

Build Relationships with Valuable Websites

Acquiring links requires developing relationships with link providers. The entity placing a link to your site on their content must exercise the same care and attention as you to providing links for others.

In other words, they have to trust you. Your link building agency works with high-quality websites to make them aware of your brand, your operations, and what you stand for.

It underlines the importance of targeted link building services to achieve optimal results. Producing the right content will yield links from these websites but cultivating relationships will further enable you to gain subsequent links.

Link building isn’t just about throwing links around the Internet.

Benefits of Outsourcing Link Building

Undecided on whether to outsource SEO link building?

Acquiring backlinks for your website may sound easy, but it is not. Today, 60% of leading businesses outsource their link building activities to an SEO expert. Simply put, unless you are a high-powered multinational, managing the task in-house takes vital time and resources away from running your business.

Still undecided? Here’s why choosing to outsource SEO link building is the right move.

Industry Experts Follow Best Practices

The Google algorithm is what makes Google work. Staying on top of what Google does is vital to successful link building.

Looking up the history of Google updates or upcoming changes may sound simple, but Google only tells us part of the story. Many of the SEO best practices for link building today are gleaned from industry experts analyzing the behaviors of search engines.

Even today, nobody knows how Google’s algorithm truly operates, including most of Google’s own employees. It’s the leading search engine’s best-kept secret and has created an era of high-quality search.

Staying on top of Google’s changes is a full-time job in itself. Fall short in any area, and your competitors are overtaking you or inadvertently breaking a new Google regulation. Working with industry experts guarantees you stay on top of the latest SEO practices because it’s their job to ensure everyone stays in Google’s good books.

Moreover, even if you possess limited SEO experience, working with an industry professional when you outsource SEO link building is an opportunity to learn and be guided by an expert.

Hiring In-House Link Builders is Expensive

Outsourcing link building sounds expensive. Believe it or not, outsourced link building services are more affordable than you think. The number one reason people don’t engage in link outsourcing is fears over cost. 

Outsource link building, and you might be surprised at the cost. Today, the cost of hiring a link builder in-house averages $40,000 per year, plus employee benefits. The most experienced link builders command $100,000 per year, plus benefits.

But without a bonafide expert, your business risks implementing poor-quality link building strategies. An expensive, ineffective strategy with no results leaves you with a black hole in your business’s finances.

Furthermore, link building is not like data entry. Successful teams require multiple experts to pool their knowledge, resources, and know-how to get results. Large companies that are lucky enough to enjoy an in-house SEO team spend six figures per year easily to keep their teams together.

Outsource and gain access to that same quality team at a far lower price.

By deciding to outsource SEO link building, you gain access to an entire team of experts at a fraction of the price. Take advantage of our link outsourcing packages and be amazed at how quickly you can acquire tangible results at a fraction of the price.

This is the era for link building, so don’t get left behind. 

Get Consistent, Measurable Results

Google wants consistency in how brands build their links and gradually establish their authority.

Bringing in an in-house link building expert, content writer, and virtual assistant to scrape emails may sound like the perfect setup, but is it?

Hiring your own team is no guarantee of consistent or measurable results. Assigning someone the task of acquiring high-quality backlinks is no guarantee of success.

Should you outsource link building?

Predictability and consistency are guaranteed through outsourcing because external SEO companies rely on delivering results to their clients. You can fire your link building agency in a second, whereas removing and replacing an employee is entirely different.

Engaging an experienced team to outsource SEO link building gives you access to tools, resources, and strategies, contributing to the likelihood of seeing measurable results fast.

Exercise Quality Control

Outsourcing link building is pivotal in helping your business stay updated on the latest link building practices. However, they go beyond that.

Quality control is essential for ensuring the links acquired are of a higher value. Bringing in new links to your business’s website is a risk every time. One or two bad links can undermine your link building activities.

Unless you have experience in link building, how will you exercise quality control with an in-house team? An expert must sit at the top of the pyramid to develop the standards and enforcement procedures required to see the results you expect.

Your SEO agency will police itself. You are the lifeblood of their organization, meaning if they cannot prove great results, they lose their primary source of income.

Consistent quality control protects your business and enables you to build on your existing progress.

Gain Niche Expertise in Your Link Building Efforts

Industry SEO experts alone can achieve incredible results for your brand. However, outsourcing to an SEO link building agency comes with an additional benefit.

You can access niche experts who may already have experience supporting brands in your field. Knowledge of your niche and an existing network can enable your agency to get results faster.

Accelerating the growth of your brand through taking advantage of someone who understands you is one of the best white hat SEO strategies available today.

Outsourcing Allows You to Scale Your Link Building Strategy

Link building remains the forgotten SEO strategy. Did you know 66.31% of all web pages have zero backlinks pointing to them?

Savvy brands understand the value of backlinks, with the average value of a high-quality backlink being measured in hundreds of dollars. To truly unlock the potential of link building and to enable your brand to soar, you need to scale.

Grabbing two or three authority links is just the beginning. Rest on your laurels, and you will soon see that link juice dry up.

The brands you see at number one have scaled successfully to stave off the competition’s efforts. Reaching page one is the easy part. Staying there is the most daunting challenge your brand faces.

Working with Sure Oak means always having a team to acquire white hat links at scale. Your professional team of link builders will work around the clock to develop the strategy and scale to realize your SEO ambitions.

What is the Best Way to Outsource Link Building?

Outsource SEO link building to someone you can trust. Unethical and immoral link building techniques have existed since backlinks became a ranking factor.

What is the Best Way to Outsource Link Building?

Black hat SEO schemes take advantage of the loopholes in Google’s algorithm to boost your site. Unfortunately for people who unwittingly engage in these tactics, the results rarely last more than a few days or weeks.

Get caught, and your brand could be forever eliminated from the Google search engine rankings.

Not every business using black hat SEO schemes consists of bad people. These SEO “agencies” take advantage of people who lack SEO knowledge. Promises of big results fast at a low price are too much to pass up.

Working with a reliable link building agency will involve slower progress but guaranteeing that your site will hold its position and avoid the legendary Google ban hammer.

Perform Your Own Research

Avoid comparing link building agencies based on the price they charge. Opting for the cheapest option will only result in you not getting the long-term results you expect.

Don’t take what we (or anyone) say at face value. Perform your own research to discover the truth. Some examples of avenues to explore during your search include the following:

  • Online Reviews – Look up online reviews to find out what their customers are saying about the experience of working with them. Examine different review sites, such as Google, Facebook, and Reddit posts.
  • Case Studies – Any good link building agency is willing to show its work. Check out some of the latest case studies on their websites. Search for the client yourself. Are they still on the first page of Google?
  • Scam Watch – Typing [name of the agency] + “scam” is an easy way to determine whether a link building agency has received complaints. If Google is clean, your chosen agency is clean.

Also, don’t be afraid to get in touch with us to ask any questions. Any good link building agency will be more than happy to offer a free consultation where you can talk about your goals and ambitions.

Reputable agencies provide open and honest opinions on an upcoming SEO link building campaign. 

Thoroughly Vet Outsourced Link Building Candidates

Create a shortlist of agencies you have expressed an interest in and dig deeper into their offerings and how they operate.

Regardless of your experience with SEO, it’s essential to listen to how your chosen link building agency works. Some of the aspects to focus on include the following:

  • Workflow – What is the process your link building agency goes through to establish the foundations of a successful campaign? Does it sound credible and likely to succeed?
  • Case Studies Access – Any reliable link building agency will be delighted to give you access to various case studies. While case studies are always a highlight reel, the lack of any is a significant red flag.
  • High-Quality Communication – Expect the same standards of communication as an in-house team. Working with a virtual team from afar means communication is even more vital than usual. Is communication easy and straightforward?

Listen to your gut feeling when hiring a link building agency. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Watch Out for Red Flags

Here are the secrets to discovering an agency that could be potentially hazardous to your brand. If you notice any of the following red flags, cross that agency off your list.

  • Extremely Low Prices – A flash sale around the holiday season cannot always explain underpriced services. No expert will diminish themselves by charging pennies when they should be charging dollars. Look for a fair price and avoid getting drawn in by too-good-to-be-true offers.
  • No Communication – Is your agency reticent about jumping on a call with you? This is a red flag because the last thing scammers want is to speak to their clients any more than necessary. Reputable link building agencies are always willing to keep their communication channels open.
  • No Long-Term Plan – Link building is a long-term endeavor, with plenty of bumps in the road. Your agency should develop a plan for the next year rather than just the next few weeks. You need a long-term plan from day one, and your agency should already have one without asking.
  • Crazy Promises – Promises to help you reach the number one spot on Google in one month or less are commonly found across the industry. Regardless of who you are, it is impossible to build authoritative link networks that achieve these results in such a short space of time.
  • Lots of Links – It may seem counterproductive, but a site with too many links too fast will be penalized by Google in the search rankings. These behaviors are among the hallmarks of black hat tactics in progress. Agencies promising thousands of links to your site are almost certainly indulging in immoral tactics.

Navigating the SEO outsourcing market can feel like a minefield at times. Take a step back and evaluate the options before jumping in with any SEO link building agency.

Set and Manage Goals and Expectations

Like any relationship, you need to understand the expectations from both sides. Miscommunications result from a failure to define expectations from day one.

Speak to your SEO link building agency about what you expect. Be specific, including some rough timelines, for results.

Your link building agency will also want to lay out how quickly they can get results based on their previous track record. Professional agencies can produce results faster than the average business, but it still takes time to identify and acquire high-value links for SEO purposes.

At Sure Oak, we regularly publish new case studies illustrating our latest successes. We believe link building should ultimately mean growing revenues for your company. For example, our work with Bivvy, a pet insurance company, managed to achieve a 773% in traffic and 29 times the number of referring domains (and we have the numbers to prove it!).

Define where you are when you outsource SEO link building from day one and enjoy a happier, more prosperous relationship with your SEO link building agency.

Link building is a complex mix of contemporary strategies, traditional SEO values, and good old hard work.

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