Buy Backlinks Guide 2022: Link Building Pricing & Expert Hacks

As you build your SEO strategy, you’ll certainly encounter the concept of buying backlinks. There are lots of people talking about this concept. And there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about this concept. On one side, you’ll hear it’s a horrible idea that will destroy your brand. On the other, it’s a great idea that you should focus on exclusively. So, what exactly this link building does to your website authority and brand? Let’s find out!

The good news is, there’s a middle ground. It’s possible to engage in thoughtful link buying while still focusing on your business as a whole. After all, the ultimate aim is to build your brand and generate revenue.

Google wants you to engage in “natural” link building. To avoid businesses buying low-quality links in bulk, it regularly checks the quality of the links you receive. However, the truth is that everyone buys links from time to time; it’s crucial to getting your business out there.

How can you avoid getting on Google’s bad side? How can you still manage your company’s outreach while you do it? Well, that’s a tricky one. But there are ways to handle that, and you have to have an expert hand for that. Also, deciding between paid and natural links is one big thing for your website growth. But before that, let’s find out how these two link-building techniques vary.

Why Are Backlinks So Important?

Whether you buy backlinks or they naturally come to you, you will reap the benefits anyway. And the importance of backlinks will surely reflect in the overall SEO of your website. However, buying backlinks is still a controversial practice, but the agencies who have experience and expertise know how to bring it to the table.

Google wants you to engage in “natural” link building. To avoid businesses buying low-quality links in bulk, it regularly checks the quality of the links you receive. However, the truth is that everyone buys links from time to time; it’s crucial to getting your business out there.

But at the same time, you must escape getting caught by Google. So, how will you manage your company’s outreach? Well, that’s a tricky one, and that’s exactly where experts like Outreach Monks come into play. And how easily they get backlinks will be discussed in the latter part of this post. Keep reading to find out more on this.

What Exactly is Buying Backlink?

Buying backlinks is the process of paying a website to provide you with a backlink from their website. We can say it’s kind of a give-and-take process. You give them money, and they give you a referral link. Of course, when purchasing a link, you aim to increase the ranking of your website in SERP (Search Engine Ranking Pages). One website’s authority can indirectly help enhance your website’s ranking with backlinks. Now that sounds fun! Isn’t it?

Is that the reason why people buy backlinks? Absolutely!

Google, being one of the biggest search engines, keep updating its search algorithms, and backlinks are still the significant factor influencing the search results.

At the same time, this is why it becomes more difficult to decide whether to buy backlinks or not because Google is ready to penalize all those who are buying backlinks using wrong practices. More precisely, to those who are involved in black-hat SEO practices.

Google’s ViewPoint on Buying Backlinks

It is presumed that buying backlinks is a no for Google. But is it really like that? No, it’s not like that. Google is not against buying backlinks but against using the wrong means to do that.

According to Google Link Schemes, “Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

What’s the Difference Between Paid Link Building and Natural Link Building?

There are two main types of link building. That may sound simple, but the processes can still be confusing. Let’s take a look at the differences below, so you can approach link building prepared.

Natural Link Building

Natural link building is when companies offer links for your website without any research. For example, imagine someone’s writing an article about travel agencies. They may link to Travelocity in their article because it’s an agency they know about. That’s natural link building.

This is the type of link building that Google wants you to engage in. When you create high-quality content, you’ll get your name out there. Then, people are more likely to link naturally to your business.

So, what’s the problem with natural link building? Mainly, natural link building rarely happens if you’re not already well-established. And when you’re first growing your business, you may need to invest in paid link building to maximize your visibility.

Paid Link Building

Paid link building, on the other hand, is when you pay a company to place your link in their content. Some bloggers will write content for you. On the flipside, many companies write their own content with a link, then submit that to a blogger for a price.

Isn’t paid link building something Google dissuades companies from? Well, yes and no. While it’s technically against Google’s TOS, the real truth is that Google doesn’t like it when you manipulate the SEO algorithm. So what’s a clever workaround?

High-quality content. Google can’t tell the difference between a paid and a natural link as long as you create high-quality content.

It’s common to pay for links to some extent. If you’re just starting out as a business, you may find this practice helpful and necessary to get into the visible radar of other credible websites. It can kick-start your SEO standing, even if it’s just a few links.

Why Should You Consider Buying Backlinks?

Many companies purchase backlinks, and for a good reason. The obvious reason for buying backlinks over natural link building is to save time and generate better opportunities. However, some other benefits you can enjoy with paid backlinks are listed below. Certainly, these driving points have made the process very attractive.

Time-Saving

Starting from scratch in the online market is both uncertain and time-consuming. As such, many companies purchase backlinks because it saves time.

Since link building is only one part of creating a successful internet presence, many business owners can’t wait for it to happen naturally. Purchasing backlinks can give you a leg up on other business owners who are just waiting for natural link building to take place.

A link-building strategy also takes time. It may draw your time and energy away from tasks like producing your own content, refining your products, or strengthening your social media presence. So, yah! You can save a lot of time with paid links.

Built-In Audience

Purchasing backlinks on a well-established site means you have a built-in audience. As such, more eyes are on your content, and more people are clicking through to find out more.

Not only does this cause Google to reward you with a higher ranking. It helps your business more directly. If your links are found on the right sites, you could take home a chunk of that site’s following.

Pool of Options

There are more options for buying links than ever before. You can find the perfect option for your budgetary needs, your company size, and your ideal audience.

Purchasing backlinks isn’t about buying from a shady, fake blog. It’s about offering a blogger money to create quality content that advertises your website more attractively.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Buying Backlinks

When you’re purchasing backlinks, be sure to observe these rules. They can help you avoid pitfalls and make the most of your bought links.

DO:

• Purchase backlinks on authoritative and relevant sites
• Reach out directly to content creators
• Ensure all your content is high-quality and relevant
• Advertise with creators whose audiences overlap with yours

DON’T:

• Prioritize quantity over quality
• Post comments inquiring about backlinks
• Blindly trust a company’s quality
• Utilize backlinks as your solitary outreach program

Link Building Pricing: What Does It Cost?

Link building is a service that no digital campaign can survive without. But understanding good value for money for link building would require some effort. So what would you consider a fair deal when it comes to the pricing of link building services? Well, there isn’t a straightforward answer to this one. So you need to know about certain factors that significantly determine an optimal price point for link building.

So what’s a standard link building pricing scale?

Surprisingly, you can expect the price of link building to vary a lot, in a range between $100 – $20,000 per month, based on the quality and volume you are looking for. The range would probably confuse you. But the best way to figure out the costs for link building in the long term is by determining a price point per link.

Understanding the DR and DA dependent pricing model

While cost per link is one model you can check, you may find several vendors and agencies using DR (domain rating) or DA (domain authority) as the key parameters for pricing the service. We can’t call this one a perfect system, because these scores are third-party metrics that do not give an accurate assessment of the true quality of a website. However, these scores are widely used as a benchmark system to measure the quality of a website, apart from other factors such as organic traffic.

The link-building prices under this system may fall in the $80 – $600+ range, depending on the quality of the links.

Case Studies on Link Costs

Being a link building agency that makes money for delivering this service to the clients, I think it makes sense to showcase some case studies to see how fair and average pricing can be estimated for link building.

1. Ahrefs connected with nearly 700 sites to see what bloggers and site owners were charging to place links for the clients. Using those numbers, they calculated that the average cost of a backlink from a site is $361.44 . Read More

2. Siege Media, a leading content marketing company, suggests that the average long term price per link should be around $500. read more 

The difference between In-House and Agency Pricing

A serious link building initiative with a dedicated in-house professional is a full time job. You can expect the process to take a lot of time because it involves much work, from developing prospect lists to approaching them with targeted outreach and nurturing every opportunity available.

In-house link building

Speaking about in-house costs, hiring an experienced SEO professional in major cities across USA or UK would cost you around $4,000 per month, which adds up to a good $50,000 per year. You will also need a manager to supervise the link building professionals throughout.

Further, you can add the cost of paid links every month and the cost of content creation for link building with guest posts. You will also need some essential software, such as Ahrefs for several link-building tasks and Pitchbox for outreach. So you can well imagine how much it would add up to!

On the flip side, there are also some great things about in-house link building. There’s the advantage of complete control over your own outreach team. Moreover, aligning your content initiative seamlessly with the outreach and link-building efforts is easy.

Time is surely a concern, but if you’re serious, you can manage it pretty well.

There are large companies with large content teams that are managing it really well. They’ve mastered the content and link-building combo to earn valuable traffic and created a team that works in perfect tandem.

Agency link building

For agency costs, everything boils down to who you hire for the job….

As we’ve already talked about the pricing models and range for link building, we’ll focus on deciding the agency to hire.

Top-tier content marketing or outbound marketing agencies that offer an end-to-end service may charge anywhere from $5,000 – $20,000 per campaign, particularly the ones based in major cities like New York. If you calculate the average cost per link cost, it will come in the $500 – $1500 range.

Conversely, you can connect with link building specialists like us that charge far less. What’s more, you can get major price differences with increase in link volume.

Some agencies wouldn’t give you much analysis or insight on your website. They work on a price per link model, while offering guest posts for a fixed price. If you want to check the leading players in this space, a quick Google search for “guest post service” will suffice.

How Much Does Link Building Cost At OutreachMonks?

Since we have clarity on exactly what we charge and how we do it, we can start with our own pricing directly. But you need not worry as we will tell you about the averages as well, so just keep reading on.

There are two pricing models for our clients, both white label clients and direct clients, with a tailored approach to match their needs and expectations perfectly.

Price-Per-Link Link Building Services

Check out our la carte services, typically apt for resellers. These include four link building tactics:

• Guest Posting: $59 to $419 per link
• Blogger Outreach: $59 to $419 per link
• Niche Edits (Link Insertion): $69 per link
• Country Specific Links: $159 per link

Now let’s explain these in detail!

Guest Posting & Blogger Outreach

Essentially, guest posting and blogger outreach are the same. We provide both because we understand how people search for them (in terms of search keywords).

Our per-link pricing for Blogger Outreach and Guest Posting ranges from $59 to $419 per link.

You can secure some pricing discounts by ordering 30+ or 50+ links in a single order.

Pricing as per DA range

Pricing as per monthly traffic

Niche Edits (Link Insertion)

Affiliate marketers and local businesses go after our niche edits service. For this service, our costing starts at $69 per link placement. This service focuses on securing relevant, quality link placement opportunities on websites we already have a relationship with.

How Much Does OutreachMonks’s Link Building Packages Cost?

We offer pre-designed fully-managed link building packages starts at $549 per month. We structure our monthly pricing on the basis of your requirements with the aim to bring a successful outcome. Our monthly plans are just right for the clients looking for a fully-managed link building solution.

How Much is Outreach Monks’s Custom Link Building?

Our custom link-building campaigns start at $1500 per month. You can expect to spend around $5000 per month for a standard campaign.

The number of backlinks we secure for this budget depends on your goals and resources. Typically, our custom link building plans are billed hourly, but we also offer hybrid pricing in some instances.

For example, the client may need both research and planning and blogger outreach as the elements of your overall strategy. In that case, we can give a mix of pricing, with per-link pricing for the blogger outreach links and hourly billing model for the rest.

To know which would work for you, booking a consultation would be the best way to start. We would want to know your business better and help you weigh your options.

More Frequently Asked Questions

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks, also referred to as “inbound links,” are links from one site to a page on another. These are seen as votes for a page, and multiple backlinks tend to boost the search engine ranking of a page.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

Consider backlinks as votes which indicate that the content on your site is useful, credible, and valuable. Your site ranking increases as you have more votes (backlinks) from other websites.

What Types of Backlinks are Valuable?

Backlinks are not created equal, and the high-quality ones are more valuable. So you must focus on creating high-quality links if you want your web pages and site to secure higher rankings in the SERPs.

My backlinks are decreasing. What should I do?

Losing some links over time is normal. It is vital to understand that link acquisition is an ongoing activity rather than a one-time event. You must keep acquiring new backlinks to cover the ones lost. While you do it, prioritize quality over numbers.

I cannot see my backlinks in Google Search Console, Ahrefs, etc. Why?

You can see only a sample of your link profile Google Search Console. Similarly, you cannot expect a comprehensive view with third-party tools like Ahrefs. You will see only a percentage of your entire link profile with them.

Can I Get Any Backlink?

Yes, you can easily acquire backlinks, but everything boils down to getting the right ones. Look for the best opportunities, which you can do by analyzing data and picking the relevant ones only. Look for backlinks from websites that:

• Are from the same niche, which makes them relevant
• Are from a non-spammy site
• Have a high domain authority score

What are Follow and No Follow Backlinks?

By default, every backlink on a site is a ‘follow’ link, which means that it is passing the authority to the linked website. However, some sites set ‘no follow’ for their backlinks so that the website authority is not shared with others.

Are Fiverr backlinks good?

Fiverr isn’t a great opportunity for acquiring links, so you should avoid buying them from this source.

Are NoFollow backlinks good?

You cannot expect many benefits from NoFollow backlinks because they do not pass PageRank. They have no value from an SEO perspective, though you may get referral traffic or sales from them.

How many backlinks per day are safe?

Link velocity matters only when you build artificial backlinks. As long as you are getting them through outreach and content promotion, the daily numbers hardly matter.

What is a Backlink Profile?

A backlink profile is essentially your website’s backlink portfolio built over time. Creating a backlink profile helps you in several ways. It offers an insight into the sites linked to your website. You can use it to find new traffic and exposure opportunities and pinpoint spammy links from irrelevant sources. You can easily purge such links with Google’s free disavow tool.

What is the Penguin Algorithm?

Google keeps evolving its search algorithms that guide the ranking system for websites. The Penguin algorithm plays a key role in picking sites that use manipulative linking schemes and penalizing them. The algorithm came in 2012 and has come a long way since then, with many updates and improvements before it became a part of the Core Algorithm in 2017.

How Do I Acquire A Backlink To My Website?

While backlinks are acquired naturally over time as other sites link with your site, you can build them with some legitimate practices. These include:

• Posting guest posts on relevant sites
• Creating infographics
• Reaching out to influencers
• Reclaiming broken links

What’s a Toxic Backlink?

If having high-quality backlinks can benefit your websites, the wrong ones can be toxic enough to harm your rankings. These unnatural links come from low-quality or suspicious sites. Also, they may be manipulative and built using black-hat practices. You should steer clear of toxic links because they can do more harm than good in the long term.

How to Remove Toxic Backlinks?

A backlink audit is an activity that gets you on track for improving your SEO strategy. It enables you to identify the toxic links that have the potential to harm your rankings or get your site penalized. Even as you may get rid of toxic links, some may still remain at the end of the cycle. You can go the extra mile by taking measures to improve your online reputation after eliminating as many toxic links as possible.

Conclusion

Everyone knows how important link building is in SEO. It is, however, a major investment for any business and can cost a considerable sum.

So, before you go ahead with paid link building, it is essential to create an action plan which could include deciding upon the pages and keywords you want to target, creating a prioritized list and researching the competitors. Remember, not all backlinks are equal. Always check that the backlinks you purchase directly benefit your website. After all, that’s why you’re buying them, right?

Even though Google often frowns on purchasing backlinks, there is a compromise to be found. So long as you don’t buy links with a desire to manipulate the Google algorithm, everyone wins.

Hence, it would be safe to say that buying backlinks undoubtedly is highly beneficial if you adhere to a thorough link selection process and criteria. Thoughtful link building leaves no room for distinguishing between a paid or natural link.