How much should a link building program cost?

[Jcoveyduck]

Hi All,

I am relatively new to the world of SEO but it is vital to our business that we improve in this area.  I believe our site architecture is good although we have a new site coming in the next few weeks which is effectively a re-skinning of the existing one that makes the user experience more relevant.

What I would like to know is how much a link building program shoudl cost from an SEO provider and how they quantify what they charge - is there some kind of indicative cost per link or is it just "give us some money and we will do our best?"

We have started writing daily articles on our news site and our natural listings are already pretty good.  What I am looking to achieve is top three status for the London area (where we work) accross a broad range of keywords.  I know this is what everyone wants but we are already front page and top 3 for many keywords and the back link building would appear to be where we are weaker compared to some of our competitors.

Thanks

James   www.morganpryce.co.uk

[jbmedia]

ya its preety nice that you are in 1st page on search engine , ya link building cost depends upon the page rank of the site in which you are building your link so its matter of different price .

[Dr-Pete]

I'm afraid that there's no one-sized-fits-all answer to that question. I'd be very wary of being charged by the link, because anyone who focuses on quantity is going to inevitably sacrifice quality. If I promise to build you 50 links for $500, you'll get what you paid for (i.e. not much). Worse yet, below a certain quality threshold, you're taking a long-term risk. In other words, you won't just risk spending your money poorly - you'll risk a penalty or serious SEO problems.

On the other hand, I definitely don't think you should settle for "give us some money and we will do our best" - your link-building company should definitely have a plan and be transparent about it. Preferably, that's going to be a mix of helping you develop content and build/attract links to it, but it should be quantifiable.

Anything related to real estate is going to be competitive, and that means expensive (done right). I'd definitely stay local, honestly - someone who knows the UK and even London market will have not only more relevant experience but more relevant connections. A bunch of links from Istanbul aren't going to help you much. A really great firm may even have PR connections, but obviously that's a different price level.