Every business has or is building a website to sell its products and services in the modern world. The businesses have realized that for them to make the most sales, their sites must rank on the first page of Google.
How do they get to the first page of Google?
Through having quality backlinks.
Now, backlinks refer to sites that link to your website. You generate more organic traffic when you have authoritative sites linking to your website. Ranking on the first page of Google means that you have the best and most relevant content, and you will get more traffic.
How important are the backlinks?
Google uses different SEO (Search Engine Optimization) metrics to rank pages, but backlinks are the most vital method. Backlinks show that your page has excellent content and offer a vote of authority and confidence for your website.
Again, you need to know that Google has developed web crawlers that check how your pages are connected to the backlinks. If the backlinks are connected and relevant, you occupy the first page.
Why you should buy backlinks
Higher ranking on Google
Research shows that websites with thehighest number of quality backlinks rank higher on Google. With the higher ranking, these sites generate more organic traffic.
Higher sales and leads
This means that the sites get more organic traffic which converts into higher sales and leads. The outcome is good revenue for businesses. It is difficult for anyone to check for a business service that is on the 10th page of Google. Most people end up purchasing services and products on the first page of Google.
Offers competitive advantage
Your competitors are purchasing the links and scaling up. You also need to throw in some money and buy the links and get more leads. Companies use white hat methods such as guest posting and blogger outreach to gain a competitive advantage.
Affordability
Buying backlinks is one of the best things that you can do. When you reach the top of the rankings, it is easy to make more money and maintain your space. Besides, with time, the links become more expensive. Therefore, you need to purchase them now.
Fast and easy outreach
You need time and resources to reach credible and authoritative websites. If you want to take a shortcut, use money to get high-quality links quickly. Your sites grow and take the first page with ease.
How do you get quality backlinks?
Purchasing backlinks can be done in the smartest ways which add value to your site. As you grow your page, you must understand that quality backlinks are critical. Google encourages sites to have relevant links. Buying links is the best way to grow a competitive business. For example, finance, insurance, casino, and other multi-million-dollar businesses are all buying backlinks.
When Google detects that many sites are connecting to your business, it shows that you have high-quality content that is link-worthy. As a reward, the search engine ensures that your website ranks highly and is visible to users.
Forms of backlinks that you can purchase
According to Google, if you use services, products, and money in exchange for getting a link, then that qualifies to be a “paid link”. You need to know the kind of links that you can purchase to boost organic traffic to your site. These paid links cost money, and they include the following:
- Paid directory listings
- Private Network Blogs (PBNs)
- Paid Guest Posts
- Press release distribution services
- Paid link insertions
Does Google allow businesses to buy links?
It is common knowledge that Google does not want businesses that purchase backlinks. The search engine discourages people from buying links. About five years ago, companies used the SkyScraper method to get tons of links. It was easy to use the system since few websites understood the value of backlinks.
According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, sites purchase links to manipulate PageRank. The process is known as a link scheme and violates the search engine’s rules and regulations.
What happens when you purchase links to manipulate your rankings?
When Google discovered the SkyScrapper method, the sites that had purchased backlinks faced punitive actions. These include a consistent devaluation of the purchased links, which lowers your site's ranking.
Can you get free links?
Yes, you can get free links, but they may cost your site’s credibility. Any high-quality link has a price. Google punishes websites that have spammy, irrelevant, and low-quality links.
Today, it is difficult to engage in the same practice because many site owners understand the importance of backlinks. Websites that have good content and rank highly on Google sell their links. Therefore, they earn a good amount of money from selling links. So you have to purchase these links if you need your site to rank highly on Google.
How much do backlinks cost?
High-quality backlinks are costly. You should also know that the cost of purchasing backlinks varies from one site to another. Therefore, you should be careful about the site selling links.
Before purchasing links, you should check if the agency sells links from webmasters, brokers, and PBNs. These links are spammy, and they subject your site to risk. It is better to take your time and purchase high-quality links that have been built manually.
The cost of the link depends on the Domain Authority or Domain Rating. An Ahrefs study was done on 450 websites. The findings showed that most sites charge between $50-2500 per link. The higher the domain rating, the more expensive the backlinks.
Therefore, you need to know the factors that affect the cost of backlinks.
Factors that affect the cost of backlinks
Getting high-quality backlinks depends on several factors. These include:
Website type
Depending on the type of websites that you need backlinks from, the price can either be higher or lower. If the website has high organic traffic, the price of the links will be at an all-time high. The money is spent on building quality links and connecting with other websites with good links.
Alternatively, as a website owner, if you want to get backlinks from a site with other SEO metrics, then the pricing relies on the metric you prioritize.
Brand strength
A strong brand will always speak for itself. So you will spend less money on link-buying and link-building procedures. If you have quality content on your website with other SEO metrics, you easily get responses from other sites. Your messages, emails, and calls will easily get answered. Even your partners will easily advertise for you, boosting your sales.
The quality of the link
Sites that have high organic traffic are picky about the content they post. For example, a Forbes link on personal savings and investment is costly. This is attributed to the fact that the content is expensive. If the content is written by native English writers, the link's cost goes higher.
Creative control
The link-purchasing process is affected by your brand’s creative control. This means you must ensure that you protect the integrity of your brand. When a brand is the best in the market, its integrity is always protected, and the backlinks are always expensive.
Agency and in-house costs
The links will not be cheap when a website uses an SEO agency for an SEO campaign. The agency will charge money for the links plus add a fee. Your company must pay more than it would if it hired in-house resources.
Link quality
The already-established brands have smart link metrics. It is difficult to pitch these firms, making their links even more expensive. In addition, these companies have limited the number of outbound links they can give in a month. The sites also have a backlog of brands that are waiting for backlinks. Therefore, if you get one link, then it will be expensive.
Industry
Industries that are not yet well-established sell their backlinks at a high cost. For example, top-rated finance bloggers and cryptocurrency companies sell their links for top dollar. Less competitive industries sell their links cheaply, such as roofing and cooking. Therefore, the more competitive the industry, the more you spend on backlinks.
What you need to know before purchasing links
High-quality and relevant links
As technology advances, Google has invested in algorithms that check the quality of backlinks. The algorithms figure out and differentiate between relevant and irrelevant backlinks.
As you purchase your backlinks, you need to know more about the links that will help rank your site. You will not purchase all the links you come across and expect your site to rank well. Low-quality links have associated penalties.
There are specific links that intrude upon the Google Webmaster Guidelines. As you plan to purchase links, you should watch out for the following:
- Exchanging products or services or money for links that pass PageRank
- Using automatic programs to create links that are directed to your site
- Vast guest posting campaigns full of anchor text links
- Excess link exchanges between two sites
- Demanding links as part of a contractual agreement or Terms of Service
Identify Safe Links
Google allows you to purchase links for advertising purposes. These links have the following main attributes.
- rel=sponsored
- rel=nofollow
The “rel=nofollow” shows Google that the link was designed for reference only. The link’s author does not approve any links to the website.
“Rel=sponsored" means that the search engine link was done as part of a sponsorship campaign or advertising, and that does not mean that the link should be used.
Therefore, these two links do not pass Pagerank and should not be used. You should not purchase the “rel=nofollow” or “rel=sponsored links” since they have little or no value to your page.
However, Google has exempted sites such as Forbes and Entrepreneur that have used a “no-follow” to all the outbound backlinks by default.
For example, if you do an article for Forbes, then you use backlinks; by default, the links get a “no-follow” meaning that no reader will follow the link.
It is important to look for sites that give do-follow links. No-follow links may not help your site to generate organic traffic.
Work with bloggers with high standards
Google can't differentiate between paid placements and non-paid links. Therefore, you should critically examine the sites you are buying links from if they have the following standards.
- The sites have consistent and high-quality content. The content speaks for the brand and has a uniform voice.
- The site space out the placement of paid outbound links with natural editorial links. The site blends both links, so you cannot differentiate between the paid and non-paid links.
- They do not advertise for links. Most sites that advertise that they sell links are often spammy.
- The sites sell links to relevant sites with the same niche, enabling them to maintain a natural outbound link profile. For example, if the site is for pets, they only offer links to sites with pet-related stuff.
- The sites that sell high-quality links are always looking natural.
Several processes are involved in building the best links
Link building involves an intricate web of partners and resources. Some links are built using various publishers, writers, and outreach experts. Other links are built from several sources, so they are vast and spread across the internet.
You should also know that the links take time to build. Most agencies recommend that they will take three weeks to give you the number of links you need. Therefore, you need to be patient and give the agency time. If you find an agency that sends links immediately, you are about to be scammed.
Follow your competitor and check their backlinks
As a business, you know your competitors. To have the best links, you should examine your competitors’ websites and the kind of links that they use. You should consider identifying their resource page links and the websites you can add to your connections.
Creating Google alerts to notify you when your competitors post new content is important. It helps you to monitor their new steps and backlinks. The information will help you learn about the suitable backlinks you should purchase to boost your site.
Steps for purchasing high-quality backlinks
Link Checklist
You need to know how you will determine a high-quality link. Here are various ways you can go about that process.
Check the link quality
The best SEO agencies offer choices on the quality of links. You can choose links according to various packages. A good SEO agency will recommend links from an authoritative site.
Ask the right questions
How is your brand related to the backlinks? Are they relevant? Do they have a refund if the links fail to generate any traffic? What is their turnaround time? Can they share recent companies they have worked for? Are there link guarantees? Can they share some of their recent works?
Run a backlink quality test
You should check for domains that use negative language or lousy wording. You should also check out DNS (Domain Name Servers) that do not have A records, English TLDs (Top Level Domains), and language. Always follow the product, people, and position strategy. If the link shows a URL during the search, the domain name should not have any hyphens.
Do not purchase sitewide links
You should put links in strategic places where they are easily noticeable. Avoid placing links in the navigation, sidebars, or footers. The best SEO agencies ensure that your links are well-placed in the context of highly ranked sites.
Check out the quantitative and qualitative criteria
You should check the content of every website that you plan to buy links from. Avoid sites that have poor quality content, unnatural links, spammy links, lack the details of the authors, and use free stock photographs. Quality content is costly, and the authors will always list their details.
Avoid red-flag sites
As you look for the right links, check the internet and look for clean sites. You should go for niche-specific links and sites with high authority. Remember that getting a link from a high authority site sends the same energy to your site.
It is better if you avoid sites that have been penalized by Google. Sites that rely on ads and have poor-quality content are red flags. After Google penalizes a site, they monitor it, ready to close it. You may suffer the same fate if you purchase links from such sites: Google penalties and suspension.
Four major ways of buying links
You can use cash, products, or services to purchase links. A link is like an investment, costing time, money, and other resources. Therefore, you should be aware of how you can purchase backlinks.
Middleman link buying
Do you want to save time and lower risk? Purchase links from a marketplace. Link-building marketplaces sell various kinds of links, and they serve the seller and link-builder. They resell the links for profit, but the risk is lower.
Link-selling marketplaces need you to send a message or mail to one of the account managers, who will acquire the link and place it on your behalf. The marketplaces provide free content to website owners and bloggers in exchange for linking the content to various customer websites.
One quality link from a high domain authority can cost between $100-$250. Therefore, you need good money to purchase these backlinks. The advantage of marketplaces is that they do all the work for you.
Agency link buying
You are busy and most probably cannot get time to purchase links. An SEO agency is the best solution if you are looking for lower link volumes. The agency enables you to acquire links faster. It eliminates the stress of hiring and training an expert to do the job. You can pay a monthly retainer and ensure that your site takes the first page on Google.
Some SEO agencies request a retainer fee and monitor your site. However, the amount of money you pay depends on the quality of the links and the link-selling agency, among others. Credible link-building services can charge about $2000-$20,000 per month.
In-house link purchasing
In-house link building needs time, human resources, learning, and expertise. As a company, you should hire experts with proven worth. But you should also look at the expenses. For example, paying a small team for link-building salaries will not cost you less than $50,000 annually. In addition, you need tools such as Mailshake and Ahrefs Lite Plan, which cost about $800 annually. Finally, you need to train your team, which will cost more money.
Private link purchasing
Private link sellers do not advertise their services. They sell their links “inbox” and are also known as backlink vendors. According to an Ahrefs study, these private companies or individuals that sell links charge between $100-$2000.
You should also know that you have to pay an outreach cost added to the link's cost. Therefore, if an outreach cost is $150, and the content is $100, plus the link is $200, then you will pay a total of $450 to the private backlink seller.
The pros of purchasing links from a private seller are that you get high-quality links. It is easy to get live links, and you do not need to pay a retainer fee to an agency. The method is cheaper than using in-house staff. The cons involve risk.
Conclusion
Buying backlinks is vital since it helps you to generate traffic to your site. It saves time and resources and allows you to rank highly on Google. However, when purchasing backlinks, you should look for high-quality links from high-domain sites. You can use SEO agencies, marketplace link sellers, private link sellers, or in-house link builders.
The links should be from a legitimate website in a good and reputable neighborhood. It should have valuable and relevant content for your site. It is critical to check out websites that Google values, and it should not mention selling links. Finding high-quality links is tedious, and you should choose the method that serves you well.
