Looking for link building services? Sorry, I’m not your guy! I offer lots of different SEO services, from keyword research to UX optimization, but I don’t offer link building like some other SEO businesses do.
I sometimes get asked why I don’t focus on backlinks, so I thought I would dive into it here!
What is link building?
In case you don’t know what link building is, here’s a quick overview first.
Link building is the practice of getting backlinks to your website from another website. When one website links to another website, Google sees this as a kind of “endorsement.” You’re basically saying I trust this website that I’m linking to enough to encourage my own website visitors to go there.
So getting backlinks signals to Google that your site is trustworthy and authoritative, which can help your rankings.
Ever get a random email asking if someone can write a blog post for your site? That’s because they want a backlink.
And people figured out that you can also buy backlinks from shady sites in order to game the system.
Some scammy SEO agencies (there are some legit ones) will charge thousands of dollars a month for link building when they’re just buying backlinks from random sites in random countries. But getting tons of backlinks like this is working less and less for SEO because Google knows that people are trying to trick the system. Google is shifting to focus more on brand mentions than backlinks, and I think we’ll see more of that in the future.
I see more value and ROI from getting genuine backlinks
I don’t buy backlinks or cold pitch random businesses about putting articles on their site, but I do still see the benefits of backlinks! I genuinely get links from podcast features, interviews online, referral partners, and more.
But I’m not buying these features; they’re part of my marketing or people linked to my website without me asking them to because they trust me.
I’m getting way fewer backlinks this way, but I’m getting way more ROI from it because I go where my clients are.
Because I’m strategic with the podcast interviews I do or the articles I interview for, I get in front of my ideal clients and earn more business. I did an interview on a podcast for interior designers five months ago that’s already led to over $15k in client projects! And because I connected with that podcast audience, I got more visits to my website, which also helps my rankings on Google.
My ideal clients aren’t visiting a bot created website written in Russian, so why should I try to get a backlink from there?
My clients need more foundational SEO help
If your website is already optimized and you’re ready for more long-term strategies, then you could consider link building (but please never buy links). But the majority of my clients are starting from zero with SEO, so I focus on helping them with their SEO foundations first. Some of my clients are launching their site for the first time or have indexing issues so Google can’t even crawl their sites.
If your site hasn’t had any SEO work done yet, make sure you’re getting the foundations set up first! Because even if you start getting traffic to your site from backlinks, it isn’t going to help your rankings very much if Google doesn’t even know what keywords to rank you for.
Many clients want to focus their budget elsewhere
When link building is done well in a genuine way, it can get more expensive than many clients have the budget for. A lot of time and expertise goes into researching and relationship building with the right types of places to get links, which can cost a decent amount. I would be hesitant to hire someone for link building for a cheap amount!
Link building done well can be similar to hiring someone to do your PR, which a lot of small businesses just aren’t ready to invest in. So I don’t push selling link building services for my clients because the majority of them would rather spend that money building up other areas of their businesses.
It takes a lot of time
Genuine link building takes a lot of time and patience, and it’s just not something I personally want to do with my services ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I would rather focus my time on things like keyword research and optimizing websites’ user experience to get faster results with rankings and conversions for my clients than the time it would take to find a place to get a backlink. If you don’t have the budget for backlinking and PR and don’t have the time to spend cold pitching to lots of places, I would focus on building those genuine relationships I mentioned in the first point and the backlinks will come with time.
Need SEO help outside of link building?
If you need more foundational SEO help or need an expert to trouble issues on your site, I would love to help! On-page SEO for small businesses is my specialty, and I’m happy to help with SEO strategies that don’t involve link building 😉 You can check out my services to see how I can help your site grow on Google and get in touch with me if you’re ready to get started with SEO help!