Ever since the dawn of the web, link building has played an important role in SEO. In the earliest days, the sole determining factor of who gets to rank highest in the search engines was the sheer number of backlinks pointing to that person’s website. As you can imagine, it quickly turned into a competition between webmasters to see who could build the largest amount in a short timespan.
Soon, the search engines realized that spam was being proliferated only for the sake of generating as many backlinks with as little effort as possible and started emphasising on relevance and quality of backlinks to sheer numbers.
If you’re a webmaster considering to hire link building, you should pay attention to where you’re sourcing your backlinks from and only work with the industry’s best link building services. Going out and buying backlinks from low quality sources can hurt your ability to do well in SERPs.
So in this guide, we will give you the most important bits and pieces of information you’ll need to build backlinks safely and a list of professional link building companies that you can hire to do it the right way.
10 best link building services - the list
Below, you will find what we consider the industry’s top link building companies, along with a short description of each:
1. OutreachZ.com
OutreachZ.com combines the best of a marketplace model and managed service giving you the best of both worlds. You get the freedom to pick publishers based on your requirements, domain metrics and pricing and yet, you are guaranteed placements as the team would take care of the job end to end. Also, pricing is dynamic and they do not charge hefty fees based on domain metrics, rather a fixed success fee regardless of the metrics. The number of ways you can do build backlinks on the platform giving every user the flexibility makes it the best link building service provider.
2. RankZ.co
RankZ.co another widely rated as the best guest posting service takes a personalised approach, especially if your SEO knowledge is limited, they will advise you based on the unique characteristics of your business. No matter what niche or industry you’re operating in, you can count on their established network of partnerships to find you a suitable high authority blog to publish your content on. Unlike some of its competitors, their services are priced very reasonably, and they can further help you with a complete SEO service, beyond just link building.
3. Whitespark
Whitespark remains one of the favorites among local business owners. Without a shred of doubt, giving you a helping hand with your local marketing efforts is one of their specialties which also makes this link building company unique in many ways. Through local citations, they will boost your organic reach and see to it that your business gets seen by more people. Prior to starting the work, they will review the information about your business based on which they’ll custom-tailor their campaigns. When the work is done, you will receive a customized report listing every single local citation they’ve built, right along with corresponding login details of each website used in the process.
4. Siege Media
Siege Media is one of the link building companies that believe in the value of content-driven marketing, meaning you can count on their team of content marketing specialists and writers to come up with the kind of content pretty much everyone would be happy to publish. On top of that, they can do research for you as well, so you can dedicate your time to what you do best while they scour the web for the best guest posting opportunities in your niche. Thanks to their vast network of established partnerships with webmasters, journalists, and editors, getting your content published on some of the most reputable publications on the internet won’t be an issue.
5. uSERP
Being one of the best link building services providers, the talented crew at uSERP is no stranger to working with some of the most well-established industry names such as RobinHood, Monday.com, and Hotjar. The backlinks they will help you secure will do wonders for your search engine rankings, traffic, and, ultimately, revenue. Working with small businesses and large enterprises alike, they are bound to have a pricing plan that suits everyone’s needs. Their approach to link building is 100% white-hat and content-driven.
6. FATJOE
Regardless of being relatively new to the SEO scene, their link building and content writing services are quickly rising to the top, positioning them among the best link building agencies. In addition to the classic blogger outreach side of their offerings, they also provide specialized services such as niche edits and business citations. Those who are looking to diversify their backlink profile as much as possible will be glad to find that FATJOE can also help you create and distribute press releases as well as infographics. Since they don’t require a long-term commitment, this is a suitable option for small businesses that can’t afford to take on too much risk.
7. Sure Oak
This US-based company is growing fast and has already attracted some high-profile clients. This was made possible by custom-tailoring their link building strategy with a strong focus on relevance, metrics, and anchor text optimization. Having built long-lasting professional relationships with webmasters across several different industries, their network of pre-approved blogs for content distribution is a reliable way to secure guest posting opportunities for their clients. They even have the resources necessary to generate backlinks from .edu domains which are widely considered to be a holy grail of authority since they’re coming from reputable educational institutions.
8. Linkology
Linkology is a UK-based link building services provider that focuses on content-based link building. Thanks to their zero-risk policy, you are fully within your rights to request a refund within your first 10 links if you aren’t completely satisfied with what you’re getting. Since the link building agency has a network of writers who produce the content, you won’t need to worry about having to find your own creative team. Their SEO specialists will locate the top authority websites in your niche that are willing to link back to you, thus boosting your own brand recognition and authority. All the backlinks they build for you are pre-vetted and thus of the highest quality.
9. OutreachFrog
If you’re looking for link building services that specialize in guest posting, look no further than OutreachFrog. Since they’re working with native English speaking writers exclusively, you can count on the content they produce to meet the strictest quality standards, meaning that most webmasters will be happy to publish it. Regardless of this, their link building services won’t cost an arm and a leg, and you can also order article writing services from them individually as well as an SEO audit. Last but not least, if any of the links they’ve built for you disappear within 12 months, they will arrange a replacement (free of charge).
10. Page One Power
Page One Power is one of the link building agencies that emphasize a personal approach, meaning they will evaluate your unique needs and present a fitting solution. Before starting with the link building campaigns, they will find the most relevant websites from your niche, all of which need to pass their quality criteria. Once the list is complete, they will initiate the blogger outreach process in a systematic manner to discover the webmasters who are willing to link back to your website in exchange for quality content. Since this is a long-term collaboration, expect them to require you to sign a 3-month contract.
Can you do SEO on your own?
If you have the time, knowledge, and resources to back it up, sure! In fact, many small businesses opt to do it manually in the beginning since they tend to have more time than monetary resources. Be advised, however, that SEO is a time-consuming process if you want to do it the right way. Moreover, it’s utopic to expect any results to come overnight. Depending on the size and age of your website, it could take anywhere from a couple of months to a whole year before you finally manage to move the needle through link building.
To help you along the way, we’ll focus on the latest link building strategies that are bound to bring you results, all of which are white-hat and thus safe for Google. If you’re aiming for any kind of longevity as it relates to your search engine rankings, we advise you to focus on giving value and forget about trying to game the system - it might work for a short while, but it certainly won’t be future-proof in any kind of way. Remember, white-hat SEO is key. Do not take any shortcuts!
The industry’s most effective link building tactics
In the SEO industry, no one can be sure in which direction things will be headed in the future. However, the safest and most stable strategy (as well as the one that has worked for years) is to focus on getting thematically-relevant backlinks. In other words, if you’re selling golf clubs, don’t try to get a backlink from a website about cute animals. It’s simply not going to work. In fact, getting a backlink from a website about the same topic can be even more valuable than getting a generic one with high authority, so keep that in mind.
The best link building strategies you will find below are all based on this concept. Let us take you through each:
1. Resource pages/Guides
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get people to create backlinks pointing to your website without even asking? Well, if you create the most awesome and comprehensive resource page on a topic in existence, this is exactly what’s going to happen. Think of them as the ‘ultimate guide’ type of articles. For the strategy to work, keep in mind that the article not only has to be informative, but well-written as well.
Naturally, you’re going to have to get your resource page noticed somehow to get the ball rolling. Therefore, the best strategy is to write about popular topics and utilize the hashtags that are trending as you promote your content on social media. This will get you a decent chunk of traffic that will start coming in even before your website starts ranking in Google.
2. Guest posting/Blogger Outreach
As you focus on getting the best backlinks out there, it’s crucial to understand the exact location of their placement on a page is a major contributing factor to how effective they will be. How does this relate to guest posting? Simple: since you will be providing free content in exchange for a backlink, you will have the luxury of asking for your links to be placed in the body of the content (rather than, say, in the sidebar or the footer).
In the eyes of Google, this is the highest vote of confidence you can receive as it signals that someone has chosen to link to you deliberately (links in the sidebar, for example, can oftentimes be automatically generated by ad network scripts).
The tricky part about any guest posting arrangement is blogger outreach. Since not every webmaster is open to this kind of collaboration, you’re often going to have to send hundreds of emails to webmasters in your niche before getting your first reply. As if this wasn’t exhausting enough, you’re also going to need to provide a well-written piece of content worthy of being published. Unless you’re good at writing yourself, you’re going to need to hire a copywriter.
3. High authority “parasite websites”
By getting your content published on high authority websites that accept user-generated content, you can expect it to rank on its own without building any extra backlinks to it. In order to get this to work, ideally you should go after low-hanging fruit, focusing on long-tail keywords that aren’t getting a lot of monthly searches, but being very targeted and quite easy to rank for. In some cases, depending on the niche, this also works for low-to-medium difficulty keywords.
To apply this strategy successfully, you’re going to have to find the right websites in your niche that meet the following criteria:
- Thematic relevance
- Open to user-generated content
- High authority
This varies from niche to niche. However, there are 2 websites we recommend, both of which should work for most niches:
- Medium
- LinkedIn Pulse
4. Infographics
Infographics tend to be visual in nature and quick-to-the-point. This makes them the perfect candidate for organic link acquisition. In other words, since they present useful content in an easily digestible manner, most people don’t need too much convincing to link to them. This method is more about organic link acquisition rather than intentional link building and works in a similar way as resource pages. Granted, it requires the skills of a talented artist or graphic designer, but there are also templates you can use for free if you’re just getting started.
In order to get the best results with distributing infographics, bear in mind that you have to be discerning with your choice of topic. Generally speaking, fact-based and stats-based topics tend to perform well. You could also present a step-by-step guide in this format, provided it’s packed full of attention-grabbing icons and not too wordy.
5. Press releases
Let’s say you’re about to release a new product, organize an event, or anything similar that is news-worthy. Why not take the opportunity to write a press release about it? This way, the content will get picked up and published by news agencies. Since the news piece also links back to your website, this is a solid white-hat SEO tactic. Granted, most of these backlinks will likely be “nofollow”, but even so, you can count on getting some direct clicks and user referrals once the news articles go live.
To write a press release, there are certain content structure guidelines you should follow. For it to be as info-packed as possible without being too long, focus on answering the questions your readers will most likely want to know the answers to:
- What are you announcing?
- When is the product launching?
- What is your target audience?
- What will they be getting?
- Who is the person to contact for more information?
Think of these as rough guidelines as none of them are set in stone. However, they will certainly help you craft the press release in the most optimal fashion possible.
6. Content syndication
Instead of publishing your content one time only and letting it sit there, see if there’s a way you can repurpose it and syndicate it. For instance, a regular article can easily be converted into:
- Videos
- Infographics
- Podcasts
- Presentations
- Etc.
After that, you have everything you need to distribute it across websites designed for podcast, infographic, presentation, or video-sharing that accept user-generated content. The idea here is to make the most of your time. In most cases, an article can serve as a manuscript for a video with minimal tweaks to its content flow. From there on out, you can use a systematic approach to distribute it around the internet within minutes.
Will these backlinks be the best ones a webmaster can hope for? Although they pale in comparison to guest posting and editorial links, they’re still good for the sake of making your backlink profile look natural. Plus, there’s the organic clicks you’ll be getting, which are also valuable.
To squeeze some extra juice out of this SEO method, you can also grant people republishing rights to your syndicated content in exchange for a link back to the original. This way, you will get some nice tier 2 and tier 3 links built by others, which will make the original backlinks stronger.
7. Broken link building
Did you know it’s possible to get a backlink in exchange for helping others detect and fix broken links on their website? However, it’s not going to be quite as easy as getting in touch and pointing out the issue. What you need to do is provide a replacement source that is at least as good as the original.
To discover these broken link building opportunities, you will need to get comfortable with using certain scrapers and SEO tools or outsource the work. This is going to be the hardest part. Then, you’re going to need to write the article. To get some inspiration, you can check out what others have written on the topic simply by googling. You can also check out a web archive to get an idea how to proceed with writing.
Finally, remember that transparency is crucial to making this method work. Be honest and upfront that you’re offering them a mutually-beneficial arrangement as opposed to trying to hide your intentions. At the same time, don’t forget to emphasize what’s in it for them.
8. Q&A websites
If you’re knowledgeable in a certain area and don’t mind helping a person out, Q&A websites are a fantastic way to get some organic clicks and traffic to your website all while securing a backlink or two. As is the case with any other content you put out, your answers should be helpful to the reader.
By constantly providing value and actionable advice, you’ll establish yourself as an authority in the niche, meaning that people will actively start seeking you out for advice and be on alert for any content you put out. An example of this is Quora, the leading Q&A website (although you shouldn’t ignore LinkedIn Answers either).
The key thing to note is that your answers should not be too salesy or promotional - the community doesn’t like that and you will get kicked out before you can say “cheese”. The pages you link to shouldn’t be salesy either (linking to a standard blog post is fine in most cases, as long as you don’t overdo it).
9. Expert interviews
Since most people love being the center of attention (whether it be for personal or business reasons), they will be more than happy to be interviewed and having the interview published on your website. After all, publicity is good for business and it also helps with industry recognition, so why not?
Here’s the kicker. Once the interview goes live, the expert you’ve just interviewed will more than likely link to it from his or her own website, thus earning you an editorial link, one of the best kinds you can score. As an added benefit, you get to cover a topic you may not be knowledgeable enough on to cover yourself, thus effectively filling a gap in your content strategy.
Long story short: expert interviews are a win-win arrangement. The expert gets recognition and you get a backlink plus highly specific expert advice your readers will love.
SEO in a nutshell
We’ve already established the importance of going after thematically-relevant backlinks. Certainly, you should focus on quality rather than quantity, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Without making this too long-winded, here’s a quick recap of good SEO practices you should follow when building backlinks:
- Aim for editorial backlinks (aka. the ones that are placed in the body of the article). These can be quite powerful, especially if they’re coming from a website devoted to the same niche. Guest blogging is a good example of this.
- Keep your anchors varied. In the past, focusing on “exact match” anchors worked wonders, but ever since the dreaded Penguin algorithm update was released roughly a decade ago, this is no longer the case and will give you a fast-lane ticket to getting penalized.
- Keyword density is a thing of the past. In other words, don’t try to stuff your content with keywords hoping to get ranked. It doesn’t work. A keyword mention or two is enough (anything below 2%).
- Stay consistent with link building. Remember that SEO is a marathon, not a sprint. Google wants to see that your website stays relevant and up-to-date, and gradual acquisition of backlinks over time is a good signal of that
- Steer clear of anything blackhat. Spamming, toxic link farms, and even automation in most instances will get you penalized before you even know what hit you. If you want to be in this game for the long-term, white-hat is the way to go.
Conclusion
Given how long it can take before your link building activities start getting you any kind of results, it’s easy to get discouraged. While SEO will certainly test your faith, it can be done if you’re willing to put in the time and energy it takes to succeed. If you feel you don’t have the knowledge necessary or simply don’t want to take on the work yourself, we’ve vetted the best link building services you can feel confident entrusting the task to.
