Why and How to Outsource Link Building to An Agency in 2020

Why and How to Outsource Link Building to An Agency in 2020

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Hiring a link building agency is not a big deal, but finding the right one is quite a hell of a load of work.

Studies and surveys indicate that less than 36 percent of clients are satisfied with the output delivered by their agencies when they outsource link building. Most of the time, the gap is either in communication, expectations, or budget.

In addition to the expertise, there are times when we want to focus on more important things like product innovation in-house and wish to outsource the promotional side of it to outreach and PR agencies since they have a big network.

Coming back to our core topic, why do we need to outsource link building?

Link building is an essential element of SEO and search rankings; however, many do not recognize its value. They help you in the following different domains.

  • Links are all about brand awareness and improved brand visibility on search engines. If your website obtains backlinks from quality sites, its visibility may increase. This, as a result, increases your potential prospects and leads.
  • Referral traffic is probably the most visible and measurable advantage of link building. They refer to good traffic from the sites where they are placed and win more customers and leads.
  • Studies have endorsed that links play a vital role alongside content and RankBrain in ensuring your brand’s optimal visibility and ranking against certain queries.

Related – If you wish to learn more about the importance of link building and why investing in building good links, please refer to our previous post on this blog.

As the value of link building is pretty much clear, let’s return to the core topic, which is why we should outsource link building.

Why Outsource Link Building?

There are plenty of reasons why you could be outsourcing your link building activities. In the following, we have shortlisted some of those possible factors that may force businesses to seek help from outsourcing agencies.

1. You Do Not Have the Resources

Not every business has all the resources (human and technical) to manage the link building activity. Some are either too of the industry, and others are too big to think about smaller things in-house due to cost and priority concerns.

There are always two options in such a scenario: either bring the resources in-house or search for some link building outreach agency to get things done for you. Both options have advantages and disadvantages but for small businesses with limited resources, hiring an agency looks better and more cost-effective as compared to building a team of their own. Agencies can help in several areas like content production, outreach, and link building.

2. You Do Not Have the Expertise

Another probable scenario could be your lack of skills in digital marketing. There is no shame in accepting that you do not have the required or desired skills in search engine optimization or outreach, as they are very technical and tricky subjects, and you have bigger things on your plate to focus on.

Particularly when it comes to link building and outreach, there are a lot of things that come into play, and you may not be in a position to tackle them all.

Choosing the right link building method, picking the relevant opportunities, writing an engaging marketing pitch, and creating valuable content resources required a deep level of expertise. Hence, if you do not have the desired skills, it is better to outsource link building than anything spam, which brings more harm than good.

3. You Do Not Have the Desired Marketing & Outreach Tools

Like any job or exercise, SEO link building and outreach require subscriptions to many tools and resources. Subscribing to those tools could be very expensive if you have to use them for only one or two projects/campaigns.

For agencies, the cost is significantly lower because they have a number of projects/campaigns going on. These tools help in process management and analytics, which essentially means that you must expect a better return on marketing investment in the light of analytics.

4. You Intend to Scale Up Marketing Activity

On the other side, the company and people’s decision to move towards outsourcing the link building activity is to scale up. Some folks may be looking to scale up their existing link building activities, or maybe their current strategy may not be working for them, and they wish to change things for better link building outcomes.

In this scenario, the best option seems to be hiring an expert link outreach agency that could help achieve your SEO and marketing goals.

5. You Want to Go Out of the Box

Digital agencies work with a variety of clients from different industries and with varying needs. Due to this exposure, they have a plethora of tailored-made solutions. Therefore, when you reach out, they can present you with a comprehensive plan of action, including some out-of-the-box ideas that literally worked for their clients in the same or sister niche.

In short, companies outsource link building due to a shortage of resources, lack of skills, or other priorities, and this could be a very viable business option for the greater good.

Benefits of Outsourcing Link Building

For digital marketing agencies, link building service is a vital component of services as you cannot promise good search engine rankings to clients without it. Without the right people, the right skills, right budget, the whole exercise becomes a tiring and fruitless effort.

So, if you are here to determine the benefits of outsourcing link building activities, you will find a lot of them. However, at no point, do we strongly advise that outsourcing is the only viable solution. Instead, it is one of the options with lots of pros and cons.

  • It Saves Your Time: The most significant advantage of outsourcing the link building activity is that it saves a lot of your time. Since every task is outsourced, you are saved from micromanagement of things and just focus on the results and output. The saved time can be invested in other priorities and other marketing initiatives, whereas your hired link building agency takes care of the link’s activity.
  • It is Convenient: Link building may sound like an easy thing to do, but it is a very tough job. Preparing a list of sites to reach out to, filtering the list of sites on a set of filters, crafting outreach emails, creating content (relevant and qualitative), and devising keywords strategy. It is a hell load of work.The most visible advantage is convenience when you outsource it as your campaign is being managed without your active involvement.
  • It Saves You Money: You may be thinking that you have to pay fees for link building, so how does it save your cost?Well, link building agencies deal with portals, bloggers, and publishers regularly, and owing to bulk purchases, their cost per link is comparatively lower. For example, a website may ask for $500 per article published (with a backlink to your site) as an editorial fee from an individual, but the same website can offer the same deal to agencies for roughly 50 percent of the cost. In addition to this, the agency’s cost of software and cost per hour of an employee is still lower compared to what we do in-house.
  • You Borrow Expertise: Not everyone has years of link building experience under their belt, which creates a bottleneck and a demand for expertise. Since you borrow someone’s expertise, it means your exercise will be more efficient and yield greater results than otherwise.
  • Little Worry or Concern: When we do something ourselves, and we aren’t sure about the game’s rules or the outcomes (precisely), the end result is devastating. This gives us a fresh dose of depression every other hour, and we fall prey to sleep deprivation. Conversely, when a link building expert is taking care of your campaign, it is less likely to run into an SEO dilemma. This makes you feel relaxed and take care of other important matters.In addition to this, there are loads of other advantages like fresh insight, a growing network, and a lot more.Now, since the advantages are confirmed, the next step is to understand the hiring process and filter out the best link building agency.

How to Find the Right Agency?

There are thousands of link building agencies, and everyone claims to be perfect. Hence, it is very difficult to find and hire the most competent agency.

In this scenario, how do you find the right marketing partner that could help you win over the competition and beat against the odds? While this may not look simple and easy, following a few tips may help you pick the right agency.

1. Check their profile

By profile, we mean checking their credibility as a marketing agency. You can get to know this via several things. i.e. client reviews, samples, their existing clients, team, and effectiveness of their past campaigns.

Checking on customer reviews and getting to know the liked and disliked things about them. If their past work, campaigns, and reviews give them a favorable view, move to the next step.

2. Seek a personalized Quote

Most of the agencies have a fixed plan and package, a sort of one-size-fits-all, which actually is a terrible thing. To avoid falling prey to something like this, you should ask them to give you a personalized plan and quote. If they are not flexible enough, skip and move to the next. However, if they show flexibility and share a customized plan/quote, move to the next step.

3. Understand the Process

Get on a call with their representative and seek a detailed presentation of things and their processes.

  • How do they build links?
  • What is their workflow?
  • Which domains, TLDs, and niches they have worked on before?
  • What is their campaign setup process?
  • How do you track performance?
  • What are their pitches and how do they reach out?
  • Who writes their content, and what is the process to ensure quality?
  • Do they offer pre-approvals on both content and websites before placements?

In short, you need to ask the basic questions that come to your mind, ensuring that your project will be dealt with in a professional manner.

4. Discuss the Budget

This is probably the most important thing. There are agencies that charge hefty amounts on account of link placements and content production. You need to make sure that the link outreach agency you are hiring offers services within your budget.

The best approach is to define a monthly budget and then seek the maximum juice out of your link building campaign. At the same time, you should seek if any hidden charges or service costs may be payable by you.

5. Avoid Contracts

The last but not the least important point – never agree to sign a binding agreement for years or a fixed term. Keep it open and seek monthly or even a few engagements with a set of deliverables. However, please go away from anyone selling you cheap links for dramatically low costs. Often, those links lead to devastating results and search penalties, in many cases.

This comprehensive coverage of link building would have given you a fair idea of their importance, value, and best practices for building those. Simultaneously, we have tried to warn you from indulging in any black hat practice that may cause a penalty or lead to a bad business repute.

Remember, links are value-adding elements and you cannot get those simply without any cost (time or money). They will be expensive to get but equally a good long-term business investment.

Some General Rules for Effective SEO Results

Here are some rules for effective results and better engagement between the client and link building service providers to minimize mistrust and miscommunication between the parties.

  1. As we have outlined earlier, the first thing to do in any engagement is to set and define certain rules of the game. For example, get to understand their pitch, content creation, website list, and reporting formats. Also, identify the best way to communicate with your account manager for any query, etc.
  2. No link building agency can deliver instant results as none has a magic wand. If you set your expectations right and understand the results time frame prior to the campaign. However, this does not mean waiting for too long. Generally, a quarter is a good time to expect some results, but again, this depends. Therefore, if you sort this out initially, it will kill the probability of any confusion or conflicts later on.
  3. Make every communication and detail black and white. Verbal communication is good in terms of understanding, but business communication is better in the written format.
  4. While the agency is responsible for the results delivery and campaigns, you too should offer some help and advice to account managers. It is important to share your intelligence about competitors and their general marketing practices so that the agency can help you more effectively.
  5. Think of the long-term perspective and set your link building strategy accordingly. At times, some tricks help us win quick results, but they are detrimental to our business in the long run. Avoid the trap of shortcuts and quick results, they often involve deceptive and black-hat practices.

When you look for link building agencies, check out their services and solutions. There are major types of links most agencies would offer:

Make sure to work with specialists who could help in getting winning results fast.

MagFellow – Your Partner in SEO Success

At MagFellow, we are excited to extend our helping hand to clients across various niches and industries. Over the past few years, we have earned the trust of hundreds of clients who are still with us.

If you do not have an in-house team or have some other priorities, rely on our experienced SEO and outreach professionals’ expertise.

While we hope that the listed tips and ideas within the article offer sufficient advice, we are happy to provide in-person advice on the challenges you are facing. Whether you are looking to outsource link building, a tailored content strategy, or a comprehensive link building plan, feel free to reach out. Our experts can offer you a FREE consultancy session to understand your challenge and offer advice.

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