Considering which agency to choose for a link building campaign is starting to seem like beating a dead horse.......

[TylerAbernethy]

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?

1. Roseann says the sales guy is extremely pushy
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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??

[CatalystSEM]

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.

[Marcus_Miller]

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.