Link Building Cost

[TP_Marketing]

Can anyone share typically what a US Based SEO Agency should or would charge for creating good quality backlinks? All of the pages we are targeting have been optimized with quality content and are ranking half decent. The keywords we are targeting are med-high competition keywords. We've located a few offshore agencies with prices in the 100$ range for 10 keywords but are leery of moving forward, currently it's the cost we are paying for 1 Keyword here in the US.

Thank You!

[GregB123]

Hi Little Bigman,

I just finished doing a little research on hiring a group to help with link building. All the quality places wanted about $200 per link. So if you are happy with the links you get for $100 each, it's probably best to stick with them. Can you share the name of your current source?

$10 a link from some mysterious overseas agency sounds way too dangerous. Besides, the SEO value of one great link will probably easily be 10x that of some crappy link....

[TP_Marketing]

Thank You!

For a Med-High competition keyword typically how long do you think it should take to crack top 10? We have good quality links & content but the overall DA is a bit low when comparing competitors. All strategies follow Google guidelines and are completely 100% white hat. We find ourselves ranking but stuck on pg 2-3.

[GregB123]

I'm not an SEO pro, just a guy with a couple of ecommerce stores trying to keep up with the changes. But getting to pages 2 or 3 does mean you are doing the basics right. The way I understand is that it takes an additional "order of magnitude" of effort and luck to jump up each page level.

So if jumping from page 4 to page 3 requires an effort level 6, then jumping from page 3 to page 2 will take and effort of 60, and jumping from page 2 to page 1 will take an effort of 600.

How long has it taken for your site to get to the page 2/3 zone?

[MoosaHemani]

I don’t think there is a fixed cost for building quality links. My advice would be to talk to different agencies and ask them what will be their action plan and then decide the cost accordingly.

If the strategies will Include Link Baiting, then probably the charges will land on the higher side but if the strategy will be to get links from brand mentions, infographics, blogging and other content marketing then prices might land in the medium range.

Keep that in mind quality link building is never cheap!

Hope this helps!

[TP_Marketing]

Hello,

We've been at it for almost 14 months, with slow/steady progression, at what point do you throw in the towel? I understand SEO is a long term investment but wondering if we can possibly get a better ROI using PPC. We've alway been cautious with PPC, it doesn't take much to hit budget limits,

[GregB123]

Being solidly on page 2 and 3 after only 14 months means you are doing great. I have sites that are 5 and 7 years old that still show up on page 2 for some of the keyword phrases we target.

PPC can be a powerful way to cover the gap until you get on page 1.  It all really depends on what your market is. Some high competition areas (like weight loss, or payday loans) are outrageously expensive. Other areas (like garden tools) are fairly cheap. I find it profitable for some of my items, but not for all. After running campaigns for a while, pause the losers and let the winners run. If your area is not highly competitive, you can do a lot of PPC for the cost of a $100 link...

Can you share your URL so we can make more accurate comments?