Link Building Costs: How Much to Invest in 2024 (Data & Opinions) Favour Agari Jul 30, 2024 (Upd Aug 21, 2024) · 10 min read Table of contentsOur DataWhat It Costs to Build & Execute a Successful Link Building CampaignFactors that Affect Link Building PricingThe ROI of SaaS Link BuildingFinal Thoughts: Link Building Pricing Varies, Pay to Play Link building costs anywhere from $100 to over $20,000 per month. But in our experience, B2B SaaS startups, especially those with organic search as a primary growth channel, should budget a minimum of $1500. New startups need a solid backlink moat for a fighting chance at SERP real estate with established companies. With the right strategy, the more dollars you put out, the faster your returns pour in. Our Data We sent out a survey to SaaS marketing professionals. Out of 20 respondents, 40% spend between $500 to $999 per month building backlinks. That’s about 5 to 9 links per month, assuming the links cost $100. At the lowest end, SEOs spend $100 to $499 per month building backlinks. And the highest end was between $10,000 to $20,000 per month by Marie, an SEO manager in a Business to Consumer HR SaaS company. These findings buttress our overall stance on link building pricing; and that is, it is heavily dependent. Worthy of note is that a good percentage of the companies represented in this survey have an established online presence. You can afford to do fewer links per month when you’ve built a thoroughly-oiled content engine and tons of backlinks. In 2024, AI enablement is the rave of the marketing industry. Some companies are de-prioritizing search in favor of other channels, and the recent Google API leaks suggest branded searches influence SERP rankings. We asked some of our survey respondents to share their thoughts on these claims. Here’s what they said: Michael Hess, VP of marketing at ASP Monthly Spend: $400 to $999 Category: Business to Business “Some firms are now shifting resources from conventional search to social media and paid advertising. This trend may initially decrease link-building demand, leading to competitive pricing. However, enterprises that continue to focus on SEO can turn this to their advantage, obtaining authoritative links at reduced prices and opening up new opportunities.” Patty Radford Henderson, Founder and CMO at Annum Monthly Spend: $100 to $499 Category: Business to Business “We are an early stage startup handling everything in house. Our current SEO efforts are focused on purchase intent so the customers that find us through search are actively looking for a solution. We plan to expand our efforts to address other phases of intent as we grow.” Farhan Siraj, CEO at OSHA Outreach Monthly Spend: $1000 to $4999 Category: Business to Consumer “I don’t see a significant change in link-building budgeting by companies due to the AI wave or even the recent updates by Google. The only change I can see happening is more businesses prioritizing product pages when it comes to link-building instead of their blog pages.” Alina Samchenko, Content Marketing Manager at Hire Developers Monthly spend: $500 to $999 Category: Business to Business “If search is deprioritized, I foresee two extremes: a decrease in competition and cost of links or a price hike due to higher value created by difficulty to get quality links in scarcer conditions. Of course, incidents like the Google API leaks could give rise to stricter regulations and closer supervision around SEO practices, raising the cost of compliance and risk management.” Editorial Note: We appreciate our contributors and tend to find common ground with them, but their thoughts are theirs and do not necessarily reflect the exact views of AUQ and/or our clients. What It Costs to Build & Execute a Successful Link Building Campaign There are 3 standard routes to take with link building strategy and execution: Set up an in-house team Contract an agency Hire a freelancer Each of these options have associated costs, pros, and cons. But what are they? Let’s get into it. In-house Link building is hardly a single service on its own; the practice of earning reputable “endorsements” to your site requires several skills. It involves hiring professional help, from SEO outreach experts to content strategists and guest post writers. To set up a sufficient internal operation, you’ve got to bring on at least one full time hire. And going by Search Engine Journal’s 2021 global SEO salaries report, one full-time SEO professional can earn anywhere from under $34k to over $200k yearly. Source: Search Engine Journal Plus: Depending on your site’s monthly traffic, content output, finance, and other factors that prompt scaling SEO, you’ll need more than one person. Pros of Handling Link Building In-House Full control. With an in-house team, you get to monitor your link building performance from a close range. This leads to easier communication and collaboration with other departments, such as content and PR teams. Better understanding of your industry and audience nuances. Immediate access to data and analytics for real-time adjustments and optimizations. Cons Setting up a team is costly. You’ll put out $50k to $75k for one person on average, including benefits. The SEO ROI is not so much when links are that costly. (more on ROI later) Scaling is time consuming. Time spent sorting through applications and onboarding new team members could be better spent. Verdict: Go in-house if you have the funding and can manage the people operations it requires to scale. Or if you have a long term link building strategy mapped out, say 3 years or more. Link Building Agency Link building agencies cost between $500 to $20,000 per month. There’s a lot of variation with agency costs because no two agencies or client goals are the same. With agency partnerships, you’re leaning on proven experience so be sure to study relevant case studies. To the best that you can, ensure that they’re practicing safe link building so all your efforts don’t go up in smoke when the next algorithm update rolls out. Also, check the agency’s site to see how well they rank for their target keywords. Take AUQ for example, despite prioritizing client sites, we rank page #1 for a lot of our money keywords. Like “SaaS SEO Consultant” And “SaaS SEO Analytics”, for which we got AI Overview credits With Google doing away with infinite scroll and bringing back Pagination, a page #1 ranking has never been more valuable. This is why it’s worth interviewing, auditing and reviewing agency applications carefully. Link Building is a slow process so you can waste months with the wrong partner. 12 Things to Look Out for When Contracting a Link Building Agency Always ask for references and case studies and make sure to reach out to references they’ve provided. We also like to check their own website rankings. Check if the agency offers high-quality niche edits on relevant, authoritative sites. Ensure the agency can secure guest posts on reputable websites within your industry. Verify if the agency engages in link exchanges and understand their approach to ensure it doesn’t violate Google’s guidelines. Ask about the qualifications and expertise of the content writers. Be certain they have a good understanding of SEO and content writing. Inquire about how their link building strategies have fared with recent Google updates. Check if they have a history of quickly adapting their strategies in response to algorithm changes. Understand the cost per link and what this includes (examples; content creation, placement, etc.). If they charge per hour, clarify what activities are covered and how many links you can expect from the hourly work. Ensure they use ethical, white-hat SEO practices to avoid penalties from search engines. Ensure they have experience in your specific industry or niche. If they’ve worked with sites in your industry before they’ll be able to move quicker and likely already have a list of websites to contact. What kind of links do they build? (examples; .edu links, .gov links, PR and forum links, etc.) Be sure to ask for a detailed description. Need more SEO agency hiring advice? Read this blog post on How to hire a B2B SEO agency. Pros of Going with a Link Building Agency Save time hiring. Link building agencies are businesses of their own. A good one will have a relatively short onboarding timeline. Also, they’ve done the grueling work of sifting through endless applications to assemble an A team so you don’t have to. Benefit from industry expertise. A good agency brings years of industry-specific experience to the table so you can get the right guidance you need to succeed. Scale with ease. Since agencies handle hiring and all the associated costs of acquiring your backlinks, your only constraint to scaling is financial. If funding is not a problem, you can increase your link velocity anytime. Simply sign up for a higher package, or request a custom service. Cons Lack of transparency. Some agencies will obscure their linkbuilding tacts and might mislead you on the strength and safety of their strategies. Always make sure to work with teams that can fully explain, report on and vouch for their strategies. Verdict: CFO’s love agencies for their cost-effectiveness, and CMOs, for their ease of scale. A pro tip is to avoid a strategy mismatch by not skipping any details on the agency’s proposal, and ensuring fluid communication throughout the process. Freelancers From $50 to $2000 per month, freelance link builders vary just as agencies do, and so do their pricing. If you’re on LinkedIn and you work in marketing, your connection requests are likely inundated with them. To state an early “Pro”, there’s definitely no shortage of freelancers. Messages like this are typically from freelance link builders: You may judge their credibility for different reasons. But in our experience, the good ones are hard to find and are generally found through referral. Besides LinkedIn, you can find freelance link builders on platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and PeoplePerHour. The cheaper service providers often provide less quality links. You’ll be fine as long as you stay away from really cheap services that promise “200 links for 50 dollars”. At best, they’re a waste of time. And at worst, a major risk for a penalty. 9 Things to Look Out for When Hiring Freelance Link Builders Clearly define your goals, focusing on expected outcomes rather than the number of backlinks. Generally ignore any pricing based on “DR” — for us, this is a red flag as it’s a highly misleading SEO metric. Verify that they will provide monthly reports with the links they have built, and that they can clearly explain the value and the logic of their link building strategy Check their strategy and ensure they can provide references and case studies. Assess their experience and expertise in your industry or niche by checking their history of previous links they’ve built. Set a plan based on performance + deliverables, ultimately they should be tied to your SEO goals. Confirm their understanding of your target audience and market. Look for excellent communication skills and responsiveness. Agree on a trial period or initial project to evaluate their performance. Pros of Going with a Freelance Link Builder Less expensive. Freelance link builders are the least pricey between all three link building routes. Performance-based accountability and clear deliverables. No overhead costs associated with hiring a full-time employee. You record significant savings on benefits, office space, and other associated expenses Cons Scaling difficulties. Similar to internal operations, it’s a bit tricky to scale with freelance support. You have to think of looking for new freelancers, getting them up to speed with operations. And who does the strategy? Likely you, as there’s no one to head it. Less control. You don’t have much control when it comes to ensuring quality with freelancers. You can create SOP’s, but you’ll have to monitor them closely. Verdict: Freelancers are affordable and great for trying out link building without a fully-fledged strategy. Vet properly for the best results. Factors that Affect Link Building Pricing Certain factors influence link building costs. They include website authority, SaaS vertical, brand authority, content creation, your domain rating, and other factors. Website Authority The convention is to pay more for high DA/DR sites, and we support this to an extent. But at AUQ, we go a step further by focusing on the strength of the individual page on which the link is placed. This is determined by the links’ proximity to the homepage and the number of internal links pointing to the individual page. For already existing pages, we evaluate a pages’ authority by how many keywords it already ranks for, and which. AUQ’s Founder & Lead SEO, Kirill Sajaev says: “Generally I think pricing on strength of domain is a bit of a scam because you can have a strong domain with 10,000 URLs so the strength of your link gets severely diluted.”Brian Dean also talked about how much PageRank matters: SaaS Vertical Some industries produce a lot of content which makes cheaper link building strategies like link exchanges more feasible. A few examples are home services, software development, and fashion. Some others have lesser link building opportunities. In our experience, Fintech, health, and travel have higher link costs. These topics are branded Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) by Google. YMYL topics are those that affect a person’s well being. Due to their critical nature, Google is harder on sites in these verticals. And so, link building is tough and costly. In the same boat are enterprise SaaS offerings. We spoke to SEO agency CEO, Magee Clegg and she disclosed that Enterprise clients spend an average of $10k to $15k per month for backlinks. The stakes are higher for enterprise clients and so are their budgets. Brand Authority High brand authority sites in your niche linking to you is pure SEO gold. Think of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Content Marketing Institute, and Forbes. These brands are household names with reputations earned by decades of thought leadership. But with the recent commoditization of online content, a lot of these platforms that previously accepted guest post submissions are invite-only. Without a solid relationship with an editor, getting a link from these sites would be expensive. Content Creation Writing guest posts and creating linkable assets incurs costs that run into thousands of dollars for fast-growing SaaS companies. Linkable assets include research reports, thought leadership blog posts, infographics, whitepapers, and case studies. You can use AI tools to create content, but 9 times out of 10, you’ll have to edit for hours to get a final product worth attracting backlinks. We suggest creating and refreshing evergreen content that naturally attracts links like statistics or surveys. We find that other authors are more likely to link to them to improve their own articles.” Your Domain Rating The quality of your domain affects which sites you can get a backlink from. In certain cases, we had to boost our clients’ domain rating with smaller sites before going after high DR backlinks. DR’s less than 30 and with no brand reputation will have a harder time getting a link from top-quality sites. Honorable mentions Link velocity. How many links do you want to acquire per time? The higher the target, the pricier it gets. Outreach tools. Cost of outreach tools like Hunter and Pitchbox bump up pricing for link building services. Link placement costs. For niche edits, you pay for placement on an existing article only. Domain traffic. Websites with a high number of organic visitors will be costlier to get into than sites with low traffic. This is because the ROI is much higher. Which brings us to the next section: The ROI of SaaS Link Building Many SEOs have a hard time estimating the return on investment of link building. This is because when you look up case studies from different SEO agencies, the one common thread you’ll notice is that it all depends. Before we get into metrics to measure, read up our thinking of link building ROI Done? Great. Let’s get to the meat of the matter. The ROI of link building can be measured in: A Boost in Backlink Profile. Backlink profile is the total number of links pointing to your website. Your backlink profile should be more robust as you invest in fleshing out a link building team or buying a service. An Increase in Keyword Rankings. A content-focused link building strategy will result in ranking improvements across your content assets. More rankings, more traffic. An Uplift in Website Authority. Your Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) or Moz Domain Authority (DA) should increase with time as you build your backlink profile. Kirill’s Note: “Your ROI depends on how competitive your niche is and how many links your competitors have and for which keywords. Competitor analysis is a must if you want maximal returns.” Final Thoughts: Link Building Pricing Varies, Pay to Play Despite varying link building costs, backlinks continue to serve as a major marker of organic search authority. At AUQ, we offer end-to-end link building. Contact us to learn more about our process, expected results, and timelines.