Link building

Link building diagram

Building links from other sites is the most important part of the SEO mix. Most companies also find it the most difficult. That’s where I come in.

My link building services

I can either work on a consultative basis and advise your in-house team on the best stratagies for building links or you can outsource all your link building to me and I’ll setup links on your behalf and provide a monthly report detailing activity and where your new links have been placed.

Like all my work link building costs £300/day + expenses (for things like directory listings and advertising). The amount you’ll need to invest in link building will depend how ambitious you are with your keyword strategy. Low difficulty keywords may only need a few good links to get you ranking while the toughest keywords like ‘credit cards’ might need hundreds or thousands of good quality links to get you to the top.

My link building is for:

  • Small businesses who don’t have the time to build their own links
  • Companies with SEO teams in-house who want to outsource link building to a reliable but affordable supplier
  • Web design, SEO, PR or traditional marketing agencies who want a whitelabel service to offer link building to clients
  • Anyone who’s been let down by so called SEO companies who’ve taken their money for link building and failed to deliver

Some basics about my link building service

  1. Before I build any links we will create a project plan and timeline for your link growth. This will typically take around a day (£300) although may be more involved for larger campaigns.
  2. All fees are paid to me, monthly and in advance. Where I am placing links which require a fee, like a listing in the Yahoo directory, I will manage the listing on your behalf but to ensure my cash flow your payment will need to clear first
  3. I’ll price a campaign over a number of months (usually 6 to start with). If your situation changes during the project you can cancel any time and aren’t tied into a contract.
  4. Most campaigns will require me to place new content onto your website. Obviously you will be able to approve this before it goes live but it helps if I have access to the site to post content myself.
  5. Where possible, when approaching link prospects I like to email from an address @yourcompany.com. It’s not essential but if you can set this up you can expect a higher success rate with link requests.
  6. I’ll give you a login to my SEO tools (I use a system called RavenTools) to manage link building campaigns. Here you can check the progress of your campaign in real time with records of every link prospect we’re working with, links which have been successfully placed (and their exact location) and how much you’ve paid for any links.

My approach to building links

My link building strategy is simple- I use each and every technique available to secure decent links.

That means I’ll never just add your site to some directories or send out some email requests asking for links. Currently I use over 20 methods of acquiring links. This variety makes my campaigns futureproof because even if Google decides to devalue a certain type of links in the future, you’ll still have lots of links from other sources.

In general the approaches I use can be segmented into the following categories:

  • Links which anyone can get (if they know about them)- these are places like directories, forums, press release sites and article sites. In isolation they offer little value but as part of a collective campaign they serve a purpose.
  • Links which are placed manually – link research uncovers sites where there’s a good chance of securing a link if the site owner is incentivised in the right way. We’ll write guest posts on blogs, swap links or in some cases pay a fee for the link.
  • Links which come ‘naturally’ – we’ll create content for your website specifically designed to have a high liklihood of attracting natural links. We’ll then publicize the content to ensure webmasters who we want to link know about the content.

If you’d like to talk to an SEO consultant with a real understanding of link building get in touch with me today on john@ioptimal.co.uk or using the contact form.

Whatever your budget I can create a strategy to get you the quality links you need to make a real difference to your search engine rankings.