Do SEO companies outsource link-building?

[I, Brian]

Our own SEO company is relatively new - after over a year doing "hobbyist SEO" we turned pro at the beginning of this year, and have a good starter set of private clients.

HOWEVER, one of the main services I'm trying to explore is general link-building services for other SEO companies.

Although we seem to be picking up companies here and there for our link-building campaigns, we can handle a much larger volume, and really want to look at the possibility of a couple of SEO firms outsourcing their link-building needs to us.

I'm curious as to what sort of criteria other SEO companies would judge our link-building services - and also as to whether SEO companies routinely outsource to other companies, or whether they try to keep everything "in-house".

Curious for feedback on the topic of out-sourcing - and this seemed like a relevant board for asking the question.

[seobook]

I can think of over a half dozen link brokers and "link building only" firms off the top of my head, so there is a market there.

There may even be submarkets that there is demand for.

directory registration, reciprocal link builders, bulk one way link builders, etc.

[Marcia]

To play devil's advocate, what safeguard is there if a link-building campaign is outsourced that the contracted company won't try to poach the clients?

And to further develop the thought with safety in mind, how can it be determined that an outsourced company won't use mass or bulk mailing techniques and end up getting the client's site either a bad reputation or the target of complaints?

The latter is assuming that the contracted company will be doing the requesting, not just the sleuthing. How is it generally done: just finding and passing the information on, or carrying on the actual correspondence with linking prospects?

[qwerty]

The trick is to find someone you trust and whose methods mesh well with your own. I've had a few small link building projects farmed out to me, and in all cases the SEO was someone who'd known me and my philosophy for more than a year. Even then, they asked for a written overview of my methods.

I get a lot of unsolicited email nowadays from SEO firms asking me to farm out work to them, but there's no way I'm going to bring someone in on a project if I don't know them. If it's my client and I'm responsible for their results I have to stick with the people I've grown to trust.

[wizardprincess]

i'm new to this forum,saw your topic on outsourcing link buliding campaign,....
so thought of writing my views..

as its all depends on how yu judge a person. as i'm working as SEO from past five years.. recently got some freelance project on link building campaign ... form the person i dont know , we know each other through some forums... and he approach me to work on that.. everything went well..

so it's sometime matter of how you decide to outsource your work what type of person you approach..and all...

[Incubator]

Since the internet and online marketing companies are expanding at a crazy rate right now, you must treat it as a business model regardless of how well you know the company. With the pace that SE's are changing now, non-disclosure agreements and service level agreements must be placed in to action. If the control is beyond the contractors process and SERP or link billing is not coming through for the client, it must be outlined with some time leverages put into place as well. We still have clients asking us "here is our 10 keyphrases..how long till them to be number 1 in google" Education or de-education, back to the client is part and parcel to the service level agreement

Managing and exceeding the clients expectations should be a given as long as the client is willing to listen and deal with terms of reality that faces us SEO companies.

Cheers WC

[I, Brian]

Comments about networking and trust are pretty fair considerations. Ultimately, I figure client referrals are going to be our main strength in attracting more business, but I'll still be turning to the local marketing model to drum up more business.

It's probably a good idea to ensure that we're comfortable with everything we're doing first, and ensure we have a good set of reliable clients. It should probably be a bad idea to suddenly be signed to a single SEO company with a lot of clients, as that would leave us with few options of varying income streams, and would leave us vulnerable to heavying market changes.

Overall, I'm actually enjoying the contact so far as the service builds up at a manageable rate - but as we get more and more busy, I would ideally prefer to deal with fewer clients, especailly via SEO's outsourcing to us. Something to work to, most probably.

[St0n3y]

We outsourced quite a number of link project but were dissappointed by the results. Quality was usually per set standard but the timeframe to achieve the links was poor at best. We then hired in-house to do the link building for our SEO clients and have since starting doing link-only projects as well. The cost per link achieved was higher by doing it in-house but the quality is superb and the time to complete a project was might better than any sub-contractor could provide.

We now have SEO companies contacting us to handle the link campaigns for their clients.

[Nacho]

Originally Posted by seobook

I can think of over a half dozen link brokers and "link building only" firms off the top of my head, so there is a market there.

Please do name them, might as well be posted on the thread.

Thanks!

[seobook]

Originally Posted by Nacho

Please do name them, might as well be posted on the thread.

Thanks!

I do not have strong business associations or preferences with most of the people I am listing. I have had some email or phone contact with many of them though. Some of the people I will be listing already participate in threads here, and I tend to think they would all be worth hiring to do what they do...

Link Brokers:
http://www.textlinkbrokers.com
http://www.patrickgavin.com/
Lots0 from http://www.searchguild.com

Link Builders:
http://www.alliance-link.com/
http://www.linkingmatters.com/
http://www.ericward.com/

there are a ton more people I could mention if I were less tired, but it is 2:30 am and I am not even sure why I am still awake...

sorry for leaving people out and please nobody want to beat me up.

[seobook]

[quoted url snipped (from an auction site selling seo and other stuff - without explaining the type of snip the rest of the post doesnt make sense...)]

I would generally stick away from auction sites for seo services...doing good seo is about being willing to spend money to make something that hopefully works and lasts (unless of course you are setting up temporary sites)...the auction models for SEO services usually squeeze out not only the profit margin but also the ability to provide low to mid risk quality services.

[lionel]

spend money? How would SEO service need to have money invested upfront?

[seobook]

Originally Posted by lionel

spend money? How would SEO service need to have money invested upfront?

one way or another you need to get links.

if you are exclusively trading links then you are assuming much more risk than a person who could afford to buy a few links.

dir.yahoo.com = $299 / yr
business.com = $99 / yr
etc.

if you are not willing to spend enough to buy any quality links and you are not willing to invest enough to buy high quality seo services (which usually require buying a few links) odds are that either you are not that serious or the site is not that great and you wont be giving the seo much to work with either.

thus the seo will need to work for low wages and be limited in how effective they can be. it takes a ton of time and commitment to do good seo without spending any money at all. that time and commitment is not usually found by the lower bidders at an auction.

if you are at an auction for something other than price then why even limit yourself to an auction...why not hunt around the entire web until you find someone you think would fit you well?

[Adam C]

In answer to the original question, we've had bad experiences of out-sourced link building, and believe we're not alone.
Now we're preferring to do it ourselves whilst investigating individual opportunities for buying in.

[St0n3y]

You ARE NOT alone. We've gone to *almost* total in-house link building rather than ousourcing of links. its a bit more expensive per link but the quality is better and timeframe much faster!

[seojob]

"what sort of criteria other SEO companies would judge our link-building services "

Timeframe and quality of links are the two important things they look for. Also, the price. Since they are sub-contracting, they also burgain a lot. I had a client who dumped us for a $3 Per reciprocal link building offered by a freelancer and ultimately came back after few non-relevant, ffa links.

Some other interesting points that came-up:
"To play devil's advocate, what safeguard is there if a link-building campaign is outsourced that the contracted company won't try to poach the clients?"

I was involved with a SEOfirm who mainly gets sub-contracted assignments and they have an agreement that they will never contact the client / disclose the information anyway. Though evil-minded people can not be controlled thus, I think professionals would think twice before ruining their stream om business.

Trust is a big factor here, as Qwerty mentioned. Some of my clients gave me the ftp address to make the process speedy and we took care of their privacy, business etc.

IMO, you can get quality work by outsourcing but you need to find the right person.

[glengara]

FWIW, I was recently looking at a site that had obviously outsourced its linking, it was a Gift Basket site that only serviced North America, but the majority of the links were from India.

While probably being quality links, the whole thing looked so artificial, it was laughable.

My 2 C are, outsource to the ends of the world, but make sure the majority of links are parochial ;-)

[strategicrankings]

Originally Posted by seobook

it takes a ton of time and commitment to do good seo without spending any money at all. that time and commitment is not usually found by the lower bidders at an auction.

I've been doin seo for the past 5 years now and its only this year that i've started to exploit the freelance opportunities, unfortunately the only place that i could find seo jobs are the auction sites.

I can tell you that i've optimised sites for highly competitive terms succesfully for clients obtained at auction sites unfortunately for very low price, like they've been given tenfold what they paid for.

I'm now starting to realise that the quality of my service is worth more than what i'm being paid at the auction sites, but i don't know of other source where i can get quality clients to offer quality service.

Any idea?

[seobook]

Originally Posted by strategicrankings

I've been doin seo for the past 5 years now and its only this year that i've started to exploit the freelance opportunities, unfortunately the only place that i could find seo jobs are the auction sites.

I can tell you that i've optimised sites for highly competitive terms succesfully for clients obtained at auction sites unfortunately for very low price, like they've been given tenfold what they paid for.

I'm now starting to realise that the quality of my service is worth more than what i'm being paid at the auction sites, but i don't know of other source where i can get quality clients to offer quality service.

Any idea?

can you get any word of mouth marketing or see if clients need any more work.

also the single best thing I did for acquiring customers is write articles and post them on other sites such as lilengine, searchguild, and webpronews. it gets you in front of a large audience without you needing to foot the bill of bringing all the people together.

whenever I posted articles in webpronews on average I noticed a significant increase in both email and phone inqueries the following day or two.

articles are probably about the single cheapest and fastest way for an SEO to drive targeted leads to their SEO service site

[ferret77]

umm have you considered optimizing your own site for SEO terms?

It would seem like they way for an seo to get clients would be to optimize his own site.