I am looking for a link building service, recommendations?

[d25kart]

I am looking for a link building service, are there any recommendations or tips I need to consider. With so much to sift through on the web I figured I could get some good advise from the Moz community. Thanks!

[inhouseseo]

There are two type of links (speaking in general terms). There are the quality one-way links you get from quality sites, and there are the spammy links you can by generating content of little value, or just spam techniques.

I. Quality one-way links

• You either get these by:  creating unique and useful content that people in the relevant industry will recognize, appreciate; or, buy them (i.e sponsored reviews and such). If you have a creative streak, and know your customers, you can create content that serves as "fun facts," basically useful bits of information that a user of the site will need in order to make an informed decision. This can be in the form of infographics, bulleted lists, or very concise guides.

Pros: each link is worth many times more than a lower quality link

Cons: Unless you get creative and spend time planning, these links can be extremely difficult to get. In fact, you will likely have to engage in some sort of quid pro quo, which is risky given the current post-Penguin landscape. In addition, if you are an online business, and you are competing with multi-million dollar companies (many of whom are paying for links to rank but have much higher domain authority and benefit from "big brand bias"), you cannot really compete as far as buying quality links. It essentially becomes a form of PPC. And, if that is the case, you may as well hire an experience offshore consultant via Odesk or Vworker, and spend the money on long-tail keywords that convert.

II. Lower quality links

• Any of the following fall into this category: article submissions, mass bookmarks, mass directory submissions, blog comments, forum postings.

Pros: you can get tons of them at relatively little cost. If you really want to save money, and you are knowledgeable about SEO, you can hire a few ICs through vworker or Odesk, and tell them what to do.

Cons: Many of these links add little value for what you spend, they are not a reliable way of achieving solid SEO success, and at worse may result in a penalty. NONETHELESS, it wouldn't hurt to add a reasonable amount of these links so you have a more varied "link profile." You have to be very careful, if you get aggressive, you WILL set off a spam filter.

III. Things to consider when deciding on a company

• If a U.S based company is offering to improve your rankings, and they are going to use methods that generate the lower quality links (i.e article submissions, directory submissions, etc.), you are better off hiring an off-shore company to do it at a lower price.

• Because U.S based companies know they can't compete with off-shore SEOs when it comes to low quality links, they try to set themselves apart by doing quality link building. This will likely cost you an arm and a leg if you work with a reputable company.

Bottom line:

It really depends on your resources. If you are planning to spend under $1K a month, hire an offshore SEO company so they do a range of the lower quality links. Then, spend the time to generate some quality content on your own, and try submitting them as guest blog posts to relevant sites.

REMEMBER, EVEN IF A HIGH-END SEO COMPANY BUILDS QUALITY LINKS FOR YOU , NO ONE KNOWS YOUR PRODUCTS/BUSINESS THAN YOU DO. THEREFORE, NO ONE IS MORE QUALIFIED TO CREATE QUALITY LINKBAIT LIKE YOURSELF.

[inhouseseo]

BTW, do some research online and checkout SEO rankings (such as topseos.com) for some prospects. Have them submit a proposal and talk to them in depth about what they will do. Even if you can't afford one, you still get an idea of the process and what they offer.

[EGOL]

That was a great post inhouse....  if you add a little more it might make a good youmoz post.