Are you curious to know about link building pricing in the year 2023? 

What is the fair amount of deal when it comes to link building costs?

You must be wondering where you can purchase backlinks and much they will cost. 

These are some of the typical questions that come to the mind of website owners. 

Link building is an important part of a result-oriented SEO strategy in 2023. It has become important for an SEO specialist to understand different SEO pricing models in this evolving industry. 

Businesses these days are constantly finding new ways to enhance their link-building game. They are looking for high-quality backlinks from high-domain authority websites. 

You might be interested in outsourcing SEO services for the creation of backlinks. Backlinks are one of the important areas that are to be performed to rank a website higher in search engines. 

It is possible to get high-volume organic traffic and an increase in rankings by generating backlinks. SEO specialists generally use purchased backlinks in their link-building strategies to rank their web page high in search engine result pages and to get a large volume of traffic. 

Link building pricing may vary depending on your goals and services. Usually, a one-time project may cost companies somewhere around $500 to $5000, whereas monthly campaigns range from $1000 to $20,000. 

In this pricing guide, you will explore detailed information about different link building pricing methods that will be helpful for both small business owners and SEO professionals. 

What is Link Building?

Link building is a method of getting other different websites to link to the pages on your website. It is to strategically build hyperlinks that are pointing toward your website. Its main goal is to increase the “authority” of your web pages which is seen as popular and meaningful by search engines so that they rank higher and get huge traffic. 

This is essential from an SEO point as it improves the performance and visibility of your website. The more links you create, the better results you get but the quality of links does matter as not every link will give you value. 

Almost 42% of SEO professionals spend equal time on building both internal and external links.

Not all links are generated by SEO professionals or marketers for ranking purposes. 

For example – a blogger who loves a certain makeup product will provide a link on its blog of that makeup company not for the monitory purpose. 

Some of the popular link building strategies include – 

• Email outreach

• Guest blogging

• Performing broken link building

• Sharing content on forums

• Using social media

• Link reclamation

What is Link Building Pricing?

Link building pricing is the cost that is linked with the practice of getting hyperlinks from other external sites to one’s own website. Link building pricing may vary on the basis of various factors like the competitiveness of the industry, the website’s quality that is providing backlinks, and the number of links needed. 

The price of link building is charged by freelancers, digital marketing companies, or a company has an in-house team of SEO specialists. Link building pricing is charged as a one-time fee, depending on the project requirements, or a fixed monthly amount. 

Charges are generally designed to fulfill the unique needs of companies to strengthen their digital presence so that they can climb up the ranking in search engines. 

The Importance of Links For Your Business

According to online market research, almost 75% of users will never scroll beyond the first page of the Google search engine result page. This makes it necessary for you to rank your website on the 1st page of the search engine. Link building starts right from here. 

When your website obtains a position on the first page, then you will experience the following:

1. A high volume of organic traffic on your website

People have a particular search intent when they type their query on search engine platforms and will generally click on the top three pages that show on their screen. This is why most of the sites on the internet want to become visible to their potential audience and want to get maximum organic traffic. 

When you will generate high-quality backlinks on your website, then your content will be discoverable to users and there will be a higher chance that your website will appear on 1st page in SERP by leaving behind your competitors. 

You will also get referral traffic from your new leads as they will refer your website to others. With link building strategy, you will get the power to expose your brand to attract new audiences who are interested in your offerings. 

2. Upgrade your sales and income opportunities

During a link building process, a door of opportunities will be opened for your target audience to know more about your products and services. The more traffic, the more sales are key to a successful online business and the only way to achieve think is by generating backlinks for your site. 

With link building, you will get more sales and revenue opportunities as more audience will see your goods and will purchase them which will help you in long-term growth. 

When you combine lead generation and link building strategy, you can easily convert high-quality leads. 

3. Boost the website metrics of your site

Link building enables websites to increase their Domain Authority (DA), PageRank (PR), Domain Rating (DR), etc. These are some of the site metrics tools developed by the software company “Moz”. 

It measures a website’s potential and SERP rankings using various metrics like quality of backlinks, SEO performance, content, and more. Its domain authority ranges from 1 to 100. 

Websites that score 50 and above are considered good but the ones that score 60 and above are observed as excellent. This is why your website domain authority should be higher than your competitors for better SEO performance. 

Ahrefs found that your ranking in SERP is directly related to your site’s domain authority. Higher website metrics will increase the visibility and exposure of your brand. 

For this, you can get do-follow backlinks from high DA and PR websites which will help to improve your site’s ranking. Google generally doesn’t pay much attention to third-party SEO tools as the DA of your site is enough for it to understand where it ranks in search engines. 

4. Links help improve website ranking

Links play an important role in enhancing the rank of your web pages on search engine platforms. Generating more backlinks than your competitors will rank your website efficiently and quickly. 

Google will never find your site trustworthy if it doesn’t have any backlinks even if it has high-quality content in it. When you will create more links, web crawlers will easily be able to know the existence of your site. It is one of the vital search engine ranking methods that helps multiple websites to ramp up their ranking. 

5. Become an authoritative brand in your niche

If you want to establish authority for your brand, then link building is the best approach as it shows that you have trustworthy content which can be used by different credible websites. 

Good quality links are the backbone of SEO and will help you stand out in your field. Due to higher rankings, your site will generate more sales and revenue by increasing the authority of your website by which you can outrank your competitors. 

6. Build relationships with your niche

People generally don’t know that link building process is a two-way approach. Marketers use this technique to build relationships within their niche through reciprocal actions. 

For example – When online marketers from two brands will exchange links of their pages with one another, they both will get an advantage for better SEO. You will also experience personal networking advantages. You can both share opinions with each other and connect with more people. 

What is Manual Link Building?

Manual link building is a powerful SEO strategy for building a brand reputation and earning new traffic to your website. It is a type of link building technique that is performed by a human rather than a software. The emphasis here is on quality and not quantity. 

It’s all about building natural links rather than sending requests to multiple sites by creating high-quality content. Here you have complete control over how you choose websites and the type of link you want with them. 

It enables people to choose relevant sites according to their topics and also gives an opportunity to ass specific keywords which looks natural by search engines. 

The creation of links manually gives you consistent and measurable results along with referral traffic. Although it requires more time and effort when compared to other techniques but when done correctly, it gives you a profitable investment as your site will rank higher on SERPs. 

Some of the popular manual link building methods include – 

• Guest Posting

• Writing blog comments

• Writing testimonials

• Partnering with influencers

• High-quality press releases 

What are the Advantages of Manual Link Building?

Here are some of the benefits of manual link generation in SEO –

1. Long-term results

By generating high-quality backlinks from reputed websites, you can improve the relevance and authority of your website which ultimately result in higher search engine rankings. 

When an SEO professional continuously creates backlinks from high DA and PR websites, they will see improvements in the authority of their websites which are also appreciated by search engines. Your brand will be visible to new audiences every day and you will get high traffic on your site for the long term.

2. Avoid penalties by search engines 

Using automated link building methods can cause penalties from search engines. Your webpage can be deindexed or your ranking can also be affected by it. But with a manual link building technique, you will never face any penalty as you will follow the search engine guidelines of using ethical methods of creating links. 

3. Focusing on quality and not quantity

Using the manual link creation method, you have full control over the websites that you choose according to your niche and the quality of the content you create to get those links. This will ensure that your links are relevant and aligned properly with your brand which will create a credible online presence. 

You don’t have to waste much time creating too many links as you only choose those sites that have a good domain authority and reach out to them. Around 67% of marketers measure the quality of a link by looking towards their domain authority. It is important to create quality links to quickly build the relevance of your site. 

4. Building new relationships

You can easily build relationships with other websites under your niche using this method. It helps to build a connection with influencers, website owners, bloggers, and many more. This can lead to future collaborations, more organic link creation opportunities, building rapport, and increasing your exposure with other industries.

5. Boosts referral traffic

It helps to increase referral traffic on your website by generating links on websites that have huge traffic volume, you can catch the attention of their visitors who might be interested in your products and services. This can improve your conversion rates and sales and an improvement in the authority and values of your site. 

For example – If you write a guest post for a website under your niche, then its readers may read your content and can open your link from it. 

6. Improve the visibility of your brand

Manual link creation is a great way to improve your online visibility by taking links from reputed websites resulting in improved visibility and higher traffic. You can also build a positive digital reputation and boost the exposure of your brand. 

More people will know about your online business when they will land on your website from different links. 

What is Paid Link Building?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is just a game of numbers and they are essential to achieve higher positions. One of the most important numbers that point out your domain is the number of backlinks. 

One such type of link is paid backlinks that is to give others something of great value that are “dofollow”. In simple terms, it means that you are giving someone a certain amount to get a link to your page on another site that passes a certain SEO value to yours. 

According to Backlinko, only 2.2% of content gets links from different websites. 

It is a big sign of ‘no’ for Google. 

Note: All links are naturally dofollow until it is modified to nofollow. 

Paid links can be in different forms like sponsored links, advertisements, and paid product placements. When used correctly, it will improve your site’s rankings otherwise will harm your efforts in SEO.

Paid link building is of 2 types: Direct and Indirect 

1. Direct link building – It is when you pay an amount for a link that will be placed on another website.

2. Indirect link building – It is when you pay an amount for a link that will be placed on your website. 

Here, the quality of a link is much more important than the quantity of links and if you exceed the limit of paid link exchange process then your ranking can also be hurt. Some high-quality paid links will be much more beneficial than low-quality links. 

The key element here is to only find some relevant websites with high DA and PR and then contact them for link exchange. 

What are the Advantages of Paid Link Building?

Here are some of the benefits of paid link generation in SEO – 

1. Faster brand recognition and exposure

If a company is launching a new service, product, or campaign, then paid linking is the best approach to generate visibility and awareness among the potential audience.

2. Gain competitive advantage

It can help your website stand out among your competitors who completely rely on organic link building methods. 

3. Build new connections and networks

Paid link building helps to build connections with new businesses. These new relationships can extend from link building to business collaborations and both parties co-marketing efforts.

4. Save your valuable time

If you try to build backlinks with the organic method, then it can sometimes be time-taking and a lengthy process. But with paid link building, you can acquire links from reputable sites and save your time and energy searching manually for links. 

5. Make your content accessible to new audiences

It helps to boost the reach of your content as by placing links on authoritative websites, your content will become more discoverable and sharable to new audiences. 

6 Factors That Determine Link Building Pricing

Link building pricing of a single link for your SEO campaign depends on several factors – 

1. Quality of links

Link building pricing factor is highly influenced by the quality of the backlinks. Approaching well-established websites of companies can be a challenging task, whereas a small website owner with a good DA will be more easily approachable and one can get links from them effortlessly. 

The quality of the link may vary according to the authority of the website. Getting high-quality backlinks from reputed websites will result in more costs along with time and effort. 

This is why, companies should always strive hard to get bigger website links as they will play a major role in improving your search engine rankings. Semrush’s link building tool will help to find new prospects for the backlinks. You should never go for a low-quality backlink as it may affect your website in a negative way and search engines may even penalize them. 

2. Standard of content

If you have a great piece of content present on your website, then people will be willing to take a link from it. The content of your site should be designed flawlessly providing visually effective designs and appealing data-based material to the audience. 

You can use tools like Google Trends to find trending topics on which you can write guest posting content.

Content plays an important role in getting links under the budget of the client.

For example – A website that shows some content in its campaign will get positive feedback along with more backlinks. On the other hand, websites acquiring links from websites that are only dependent on landing pages or sales pages will be a daunting task which will lead to an increase in the price of links.

3. Your industry or niche

An average link building price depends greatly on the industry you are working in. 

For example – There are industries like personal finance to which bloggers will rarely want to place their links as they charge an inflated amount of fees to them. Whereas, websites belonging to other sectors will provide links to anybody as they will share their enthusiasm with them. 

If you are in an industry where your website is struggling to generate links organically and other websites generally don’t like you, then you can pay a maximum amount of $500 for all the high-quality backlinks that are coming on your website. 

However, if you are in an industry where you can easily get backlinks, then you can charge $200 for each link. 

4. Strength of a brand

If you are running a link building campaign for a brand with household brand names, then the response rate from people will be increased drastically. People will naturally respond to that organization as they will find them trustworthy. 

Here, the price of the link will fail as more people would want to link to them. But there can sometimes be bloggers who will see that they are pitched from a well-known brand and will charge a higher sum of amount to them for the exchange of the links which will increase the price of backlinks.

5. Number of backlinks matters

You should have a clear idea of how many links you want to purchase if you want more then, you might have to spend thousands of dollars to achieve them. This will also lead to a profitable investment when performed correctly. The number of backlinks you need directly relates to the competitiveness of the keyword. 

Around to a survey,  83% of companies use paid SEO tools. 

A highly competitive keyword will need more amount of backlinks and to achieve this goal, you have to buy hundreds and thousands of links. This should be done carefully as you should priorly know your return on investment.

6. Technique used for link creation

The method you are using to generate links correlates with the price of links. Some of the link building services include guest blogging, directory submissions, outreach, or creation of content. At the same time, some of the techniques require less time and manual effort such as blog commenting.

Link Building Pricing Scale For Businesses

When it comes to link building pricing, businesses have generally two options – hiring an in-house link building team or outsourcing link building with the agency. 

Let’s deeply understand these two pricing models – 

1. In-house Link Building

Here, you will have dedicated team members in your company who will constantly work on link building strategies by generating high-quality content by preparing prospect lists and then performing email outreach methods to get more opportunities. 

Almost 64% of in-house SEO experts say that they don’t use any external resources for generating links. 

It is generally a full-time job that needs complete setup. SEO experts will need additional resources, tools, training, and time to acquire knowledge and skills. 

Pros. – 

• Communicate effectively and easily with your SEO team members

• Achieve results quickly and on time as your in-house team will be solely dedicated to working on your project and company’s goals

• Lower your overall link building costs and save your money on giving fees to agencies

• Get constant detailed updates as freelancers or agencies will only provide weekly and monthly reports of your project

• Connect directly with your team members and collaborate with them for link building campaigns 

Cons. – 

• If you don’t have experienced team of in-house SEO professionals who have complete knowledge of link building, then you will not be able to get the same results as that of freelancers or agencies

• You need to invest your time and money to train your employees all the necessary skills

• The results and performance can be less effective if you don’t buy additional tools and resources for your in-house team

• Your team can sometimes struggle to come up with finding innovative link building ideas

• Workload can also be increased as your full-time staff has to balance link building along with other tasks and responsibilities 

Costs – 

Here is an estimated annual cost of running and managing an in-house link building team – 

• Link building assistant (X2) – $30,000

You will need assistants for outreach tasks, customization, and personalization services. The minimum cost of a single assistant will be around $15,000. 

• Link building manager – $30,000 – $80,000

You will need a highly experienced link building manager to lead and monitor all your tasks. Hiring a US member will cost somewhere around $50,000 per year whereas if you manage to hire someone from overseas, then it will cost you around $30,000 per year.

• Guest post writer – $50,000

You will need a talented team of writers for guest blogs who write quality content by spending on them around $4,000 per month. 

• Backlinks costs – $25.000

If you want to run a proper link creation campaign, then you will need to keep a budget of at least $2,000 per month for purchasing and exchanging links. 

• Link building tools – $6,000

You will need tools for link creation which will cost somewhere around $500 per month. You might need outreach software, link-monitoring software, and email-finding software. 

The grand total of an in-house link building team will roughly cost you $180,000 – $200,000 per year.

2. Agency Link Building

Majority of companies out there choose link building companies by hiring an SEO company that can handle all the tasks efficiently. Their knowledgeable professionals specialize in link building services and handle all the tasks in a less expensive, simpler, and more accessible manner. 

They first understand your requirements and then with their in-depth knowledge, they work accordingly on your project. 

Around 70% of SEO professionals send SEO data and reports to their clients on a monthly basis. 

Pros. – 

• Work with SEO marketing agencies that have a proven track record of best performance and results 

• Agencies use different types of tools and resources to work more effectively

• Since link building is a time-taking process, you can outsource this part so that you can save your time to focus on other business objectives 

• If you have don’t have any knowledge and experience in SEO, then hiring an agency would be a profitable option for your company

• Get faster results every month and get what you need under your budget

Cons. – 

• Due to different languages and time zones, there can be delays or misunderstandings in a project

• Agencies work on multiple projects at the same time due to which they may not give priority to your project

• You don’t have any control over your project as agencies handle all the tasks which can result in less transparency

• If you don’t hire a reputed agency, then it can lead to a low-quality work

Costs – 

Here is an estimated cost of running and managing an in-house link building team – 

• Content marketing agencies 

The average link will cost somewhere around $300 to $1500 but with no-guarantee of link-quality. In the USA, hiring an agency will cost around $15,000 to $30,000 for every single campaign.

• Link building specialist agencies

Here, you can expect to pay around $3000 – $15,000 every month depending on your needs. 

• Freelancers’ costs

They charge on an hourly rate basis between $50 – $100.

Is Link Building Pricing Expensive Rates Worth It?

Link building pricing expensive rates depend on various factors. If the link is taken from a reputed and relevant website, then your search engine rankings and authority of the website will improve, which will be a beneficial decision to pay more for links. 

Costs are generally balanced with long-term profits depending on the marketing strategies and competition in the industry. You should follow ethical norms for a positive return on investment.

Wrapping Up: Make an Informed Link Building Pricing Decision

Link building is an important part of a successful SEO strategy and a company need to carefully understand the costs involved in it so that they can make a proper decision according to their budget. 

In the year 2023, link building pricing depends on various factors like content quality, the targeted website’s DA and PA, and outreach methods used. A company needs to find the right link building provider to have a profitable link building investment and to achieve the desired results. 

By properly understanding different link building strategies and the cost associated with them, you can maximize the benefits from them.