As all of us SEO professionals know, building links is one of the greatest ways to get your way to the top of the search results. Yes, while all links aren’t created equally, many of us find that building links can take a lot of time and effort. If you’d rather focus on your website and not the outside link building efforts, you may find yourself reaching out to a company to help you. If that’s the case, you may be finding yourself looking through hundreds of companies that want to build the links for you. To help you set the best above the rest, here are six ways to find the best link building companies out there:
#1 Get referrals
A great link building company will not be afraid to tell you who they have built links for. Why is that? They know that they have built links that they can stand by. Any company that won’t talk to you about clients or show you how they build links, you will probably want to shy away from them.
#2 Building links
Always be sure to ask the company how they are going to build your links. Remember that there are so many ways that don’t work today post-panda and penguin. Strategies such as blog networks, comments and article directories will no longer work. If they are going to build links the “lazy” way, it’s probably best to look elsewhere.
#3 Quiz them
Do you know a lot about link building? If so, you may want to see if your contractor will know the same. Write up a list of a few questions that you can ask them and see how they can answer. If you don’t know what to ask them, here are a few things that you may be able to ask:
- What is a good link in your eyes?
- How are you going to find links?
- What are your favorite link building strategies?
- When you set out to look for links, what exactly do you do?
- What is a bad link?
#4 Credentials
When you apply for a job, that potential employer will often look for criteria such as experience and a degree, right? Well, the same should go with a link building company. Be sure to know how much experience they have, why you should choose them and what they have done to get where they are today.
#5 Business length
A great link building company has usually been around the Internet for at least five years or so. Companies that usually swoop in and claim to have been in business for a few years, when in turn they have only been in business for a few days will only mean trouble. With that being said, try your best to find a company that has some history to them. That way, you will know that they have a track record.
#6 Contacts
As my last tip, always make sure that you choose a company that has a lot of contact options. These options should include a phone number, email or even chat. That way, when problems arise or you want to know the status of your link building campaign, you can ask them questions and receive answers immediately.
About Contributor: Hannah works for How Much Is It? A cost helping website that can help you get answers to price helping questions.