How Much Does Link Building Cost in 2024

You must be curious about the price of link building in 2024. You could be wondering where to purchase backlinks and how much link building should cost. You’re more interested in learning the typical price of outsourcing SEO link creation. These are typical questions that webmasters and SEO beginners frequently ask. This is so because backlinks are a gauge of a website’s prominence.

With backlinks, it is possible to expect to improve your ranks and increase organic visitors. Because of this, SEO specialists frequently use purchased backlinks as part of their link-building strategy. Comprehensive advice on the price of link building has been written by us. You will understand the pricing variables and how to obtain more connections without having to pay more after reading this.

What is Paid Link Building?

Paid link building is the practice of websites paying other websites for backlinks pointing to their own domain. Although link building is a fundamental SEO strategy, buying links is absolutely prohibited by search engines and can incur severe penalties. The third-party domain will either provide no-follow or do-follow backlinks for you.

Although Google forbids the technique, if you are receiving contextual backlinks, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Purchasing backlinks has become essential for a startup or new website. To rank on SERPs, you can purchase enduring backlinks from high domain authority (DA) websites.

There are various kinds of backlinks you can obtain. These are the most typical among them:

- Editorial links

- Guest post links

- Blog comments

- Forum posts

What is Natural Link Building?

The term “natural link building” refers to backlinks that appear spontaneously without the website owner needing to actively seek them out through guest posting or other link-building techniques.

Natural links, as the name suggests, are created when other webmasters, bloggers, or website owners link to your content (blogs, photographs, products, videos, etc.) because they believe it will be valuable to their readers and enhance the content of their own websites or pages.

- Guest posting, link exchanges, or any other link-building techniques are not part of natural link-building.

Google and other search engines favor this method. However, creating natural links takes time and involves a lot of work. For new websites to receive natural links, it can take years. Because of this, SEO experts frequently purchase link-building packages to bolster their off-page efforts.

Check out the Marketing Lad Link Building Cost Calculator Here to find out pricing for your link building needs. Select the number link insertions and/or guest posts you require and find out your pricing:

Advantages of Paid Link Building

Depending on their marketing requirements, websites purchase backlinks for a variety of reasons. The following list includes the most notable of these.

1. Time-Saving

In the uncertain and time-consuming online market, starting from scratch is difficult. As a result, buying backlinks is a popular business practice.

Many business owners are impatient for it to happen spontaneously because link-building is simply one component of developing a great online presence. You can gain an advantage over other business owners who are simply waiting for organic link-building to occur by buying backlinks.

Developing links takes time as well. It could take time and effort away from creating original content, improving your offerings, or enhancing your social media presence. So, yeah! Paid links can help you save a tonne of time.

2. Boost Backlink Portfolio

You have the opportunity to improve your portfolio of backlinks when you pay for link building. You get to diversify your backlinks by creating a well-rounded backlink portfolio.

The many types of links that your website needs are listed below.

Niche-relevant links
Keyword-specific links
Blog links
Directories
Local links
Social links

3. Integrated Audience

Investing in backlinks on a popular website gives you access to an already-existing audience. As a result, more people are seeing your content and clicking through to learn more.

In addition, Google will reward you with a higher ranking. It directly benefits your company. You could gain access to some of that site’s audience if your links appear on the correct websites.

4. Variety of Options

Links can be purchased in more ways than ever before. You can select the right choice based on your financial requirements, the size of your business, and your target market.

It’s not necessary to purchase backlinks from a dubious, phony blog. It involves paying a blogger to produce high-quality content that promotes your website more effectively.

What Factors Affect Link Cost?

1. Content

People will be far more likely to want to link to your website if it has outstanding content.

We’ve worked with customers that had truly outstanding content teams that produced rich, visually appealing data-based material with flawless design and truly original insights.

The response is great, the receivers are impressed, and our “win rate” (the number of emails we need to send to get a link) soars when we initiate outreach efforts and show people the material.

On the other hand, we’ve worked with clients who barely provide any material. They rely on heavy commercial sales sites or landing pages. Finding websites that wish to connect to them at all is considerably more difficult, and earning each link takes much longer, raising the cost of links.

2. Flexibility in creativity

Some businesses have incredibly specific criteria for how they want their firm to be regarded, and this can have an influence on link-building. They don’t want to make opinionated material, and they only want their firm to be mentioned in a specific way, on specific issues.

Other firms are eager to be innovative with outreach emails and to put themselves out there. For example, on some client projects, we’ll employ cheeky and hilarious emails or a provocative viewpoint to stimulate a reaction. Many companies choose to play it safe.

Because you’re restricting the individuals you can reach out to, the material you can offer them, and the creative angle you can take to convince them to link to you, these limitations unavoidably result in a rise in link cost. It’s an often-overlooked factor that can have a significant influence on your capacity to develop a large number of links.

3. Link Quality

The pricing is heavily influenced by the quality of the link. The simple reality is that obtaining connections from major magazines that have been operating for years is significantly more difficult. Trying to get a BBC or TechCrunch writer to connect to your website is a scary and difficult undertaking. We’re talking about hardened, internet-savvy individuals who are marketed on a daily basis.

In comparison, a writer/owner of a small, independent blog about learning the piano will be much more approachable and easy to earn a link from, and while hardworking and honest bloggers like this are a fantastic source of links, they will be less valuable in Google’s eyes than a TechCrunch link. There are several ways for obtaining backlinks, each of which will provide a distinct level of quality.

4. Industry

The industry we operate in can have a big impact on the average cost of link creation. There are other niches, like personal finance, where bloggers seldom ever connect on their own, and they almost never do so without charging a hefty price. On the other hand, other sectors allow bloggers to distribute links to anybody else who shares their enthusiasm with ease and tremendous freedom.

Paying $500 for each high-quality link pointing to your website could be an excellent deal if you operate in an area where most websites struggle to get connections naturally (such as payday loans or gambling) and other websites don’t normally appreciate connecting to you. However, if your sector (such as gaming or cars) has a high tendency for bloggers, journalists, and editors to link out, you’ll probably want to charge closer to $200 per link.

High Link Cost Industries

Casino & Gambling: Only other casino and poker blogs may link to you for free, and even then, only in the event that they have a business relationship with you (such as affiliates). Otherwise, you’ll have to pay more for connections.

Loans: The market for online loans has increased, making it very difficult to obtain connections quickly unless you have outstanding content assets.

Finance: Bloggers in this field are swamped with requests from financial businesses with large budgets. Consider insurance, lending services, and credit cards.

Real estate: This is a very competitive and difficult industry, especially if you are a small, locally-based real estate business with little content. In general, you’ll have to pay money for links, maybe in the form of sponsorship arrangements.

Middle Link Cost Industries

SaaS: There is definitely room to establish a lot of links because many SaaS businesses provide some of the greatest content available. Additionally, professionals in this field are typically receptive to email proposals for link development. The issue is that there are a lot of talented people vying for backlinks in a crowded market.

Technology: a very large industry with a huge number of sub-niches. This would include anything from web hosting to VPN services to cyber security. There are several prospects for links in this field, and the demand for information is very strong. However, there are also many knowledgeable individuals operating in this field, including bloggers, who are aware of the money they may make through collaborations with your company.

Nutrition & Food: You’ll see why it might be challenging to find appropriate pricing in this market when you take into account the rise of Instagram influencers. There are dozens of businesses operating successfully in the market, offering anything from protein powders to programs for reducing body fat. In the end, linking to commercial pages will frequently cost money and effort because you’re also competing with hundreds of other businesses pitching the same sorts of consumers. However, brands with great items and content can accomplish a respectable cost per link.

Legal: On the internet, there is certainly a need for excellent legal information and material, but this sector is also viewed, and rightly so, as a high-end one that is pricey for consumers.

Low Link Cost Industries

Video games: Video game material is in extremely high demand and is often shared on Reddit and other social media platforms. Earning links might be simple.

Education: Companies in the education sector have a chance to succeed and create links at scale since informative content has long been a key component of link building.

Charities: People enjoy feeling as though they are giving back to the community and those in need.

Anything to do with childcare or assisting people in need: It is pretty simply explanatory. Even in this technologically advanced day, most individuals are kind-hearted and will connect to resources, essays, or movements that they perceive to be really working to benefit society.

How is the cost of link building determined?

There are important elements you need to be aware of before choosing to buy backlinks:

1. It Matters How Many Links You Need

To begin with, you must determine how many backlinks you will need to buy. You will need more linkages to get what you need, which will cost you thousands of dollars.

In order to help you understand how the number of backlinks you want to build could correlate with how competitive your phrase is, I purposefully snuck the term “keyword difficulty” in here.

As I previously stated, you will undoubtedly need additional backlinks pointing to the content you have generated if the term is really competitive. You will need to buy hundreds or perhaps thousands of backlinks to accomplish the required goals. But tremendous caution should also be exercised when doing this. Without knowing how much of a return on investment links can provide, you don’t want to waste your money on them.

Be prepared to invest if you want to get links of the highest caliber. High-quality links are by definition those coming from reliable websites that receive a lot of traffic. Pricing for link creation from a reliable, credible source would probably range from $100 to $1000 or more.

2. The sector in which you operate

Undoubtedly, it costs a lot of money to operate in a highly competitive area. To put it plainly, it is expensive to discover a desirable traffic breakthrough for your website and to optimize your website for search engines.

The business, SaaS, finance, development, and eCommerce niches are more competitive than those in real estate, fashion, and retail. Since many established companies already compete in these markets, if you’re just starting out, you’ll need to put in more effort to outperform them.

Now, supposing you want to build some backlinks utilizing ethical techniques, you will require additional venues that permit activities like guest posting. If you work in the technological niche, you will need to contact other websites with high authority. However, you should be aware that a lot of these platforms will charge you a significant sum of money for merely publishing. For such guest posts, link-building costs could range from $100 to more than $600.

3. The Standards Of Links

Building links that may truly benefit your website in terms of improving your search engine rankings is crucial if you want to receive the most return on your investment. There won’t be much of a price for low-quality link building. They range from a few dollars to more than $100.

Always keep in mind that bargains aren’t always what they seem. As you continue to establish links, the cost of cheap backlinks would rise, but over time, you’d probably recognize that they weren’t yielding the desired effects. Therefore, it’s crucial that you pick backlinks of good calibre.

Although the option to buy pricey backlinks may initially appear impractical, you will eventually be able to appreciate the return on investment you receive. Backlinks from high-authority domains, which Google considers to have high-authority content, are considered to be of high quality. These days, you can obtain these links through guest posts, niche edits, link exchanges, etc.

Pricing Scale for Link Building

Depending on quality and volume, link building costs anything from $100 to $20,000 each month. When estimating your costs for link building, it will be wiser to try to establish a pricing point per link.

If you’re thinking about running an outsourced link building campaign, below is a very typical pricing scale for overall link-building fees.

1. Link Building Costs Based on Link Value

An inferior backlink can cost between $60 and $100.
A backlink of average quality might cost between $100 and $200.
A good backlink can cost anything from $200 to $20,000.

2. Pricing for Link Building By Industry or Niche

It will probably cost you between $100 and $50,000 to obtain links from high-performing niches. The duration of the link and the traffic the referring site can provide may also be factors.

DR and DA Dependent Pricing Model

While the cost per link is one model you can evaluate, you might find that many vendors and organizations base their prices on DR (domain rating) or DA (domain authority). This system isn’t perfect because the scores are based on external measurements that don’t accurately reflect the genuine value of a website. Nevertheless, in addition to other indicators like organic traffic, these scores are frequently used as a benchmark system to assess a website’s quality.

Depending on the quality of the links, the cost of link development under this scheme could range from $80 to $600 or more.

1. Ahrefs Case Study

Ahrefs conducted a study on the cost of buying a link outright in 2018 and as per their study:

The cost of purchasing the linkages varied greatly.
The lowest estimate was $50. The domain rating (DR) for the link was 32, and it came from a parenting blog.
The highest quote was for £2,500 ($3,312) a year.
That was taken from a DR56 travel website.
The average price of acquiring a connection across all 54 sites was $361.44.For those of you keeping track, that represents an average 2.4% ($8.51) increase from 2016.

In-House And Agency Pricing

In-house marketing relies on a team of internal marketers that your company keeps on staff to promote your enterprise. In contrast, agency marketing employs a paid external or outsourced marketing staff to promote your company.

1. In-house Costs

A strong in-house SEO team may consist of 5 to 100+ individuals. And they must all be fairly compensated so they can perform their duties as required.

At the end of the month, you’ll realize that paying the salaries of your SEO crew alone is costing you tens of thousands of dollars.
Relying solely on a team without the proper resources and platforms won’t yield the desired outcomes.
This basically means that you will have to provide for your teams in addition to designing the proper steps to create the linkages you require.

We highlight below the estimated annual cost of managing an internal link-building team.

a. Link Building Manager – $40,000–$80,000 – If you want to do this correctly, you’ll need a full-time, seasoned link-building manager to manage and direct the business. Even if you are successful in luring top people from abroad, this will still cost you at least $30,000 per year in big US locations.

b. Link Building Assistant ✕ 2 – $ 30,000 – Prospecting, customization, and other outreach duties will require the assistance of assistants. Even if you are able to hire someone from a country with a cheaper cost of living, such as South East Asia, a quality employee will still cost you about $15,000. Therefore, that amounts to $30,000.

c. Guest Post Writer – $50,000– I am not aware of any effective link builders who have not had a considerable amount of assistance from outside writers. You’re going to need a gifted writer on board who passes the sniff test of any editor if you want to secure any contributions on top sites (like HubSpot, for example).

If you don’t invest enough in quality, no one will accept your stuff. If a skilled and reliable writer from the US charges $0.20 per word (including planning, editing, and graphics), a 2,000-word guest article will cost you $400. Ten of those in a month would cost $4,000 per month. Because of this, I consider a monthly content budget of $4,000 to be realistic.

2. Agency Costs

The majority of publishers can decide to simply employ a link-building company to handle everything for them. Comparing this to putting together a link-building team, it might be far simpler, less expensive, and more accessible.

To put it simply, you need to locate a reliable SaaS digital marketing company to assist you in creating the finest strategy for acquiring high-quality backlinks without spending a fortune. The fact is that you need to consult with knowledgeable professionals to help you understand what you want.

Major Content Marketing Agencies-For a single campaign, offering an end-to-end service may cost anything between $15,000 and $30,000, especially for top-tier businesses in places like New York.The usual link price ranges from $400 to $1500, and we cannot guarantee the quality of the link.

Specialist Link Building Agencies – Depending on the service quality and the link quality, these can vary greatly. But depending on the scope of your needs, budget between $3,000 and $15,000+ every month.

Freelancers – They’ll often charge you $50 to $100 per hour, but they’ll also demand you to pay for things like software, writers, and link fees. Additionally, the majority of independent contractors lack the resources necessary for long-term success, particularly if you’re only paying them for 10–20 hours per week. This isn’t enough time to conduct an effective campaign and acquire quality links.

How Much Does Link Building Cost in General?

The below screenshot gives an overview of the link-building costs at Marketing Lad.

Conclusion

Everyone is aware of how crucial link building is to SEO. However, it is a significant investment for any firm and may be rather expensive.

Therefore, it is crucial to develop an action plan before moving forward with purchased link building. This plan may include selecting the pages and keywords you want to target, establishing a prioritized list, and studying the competition.

Recall that not all backlinks are created equal. Even if Google frequently disapproves of the practice, a settlement can be reached, benefiting everyone, as long as link purchases are not made with the intention of gaming the Google algorithm.

Therefore, it is safe to claim that purchasing backlinks is definitely advantageous if you follow a careful link selection procedure and set of standards. Intelligent link building makes it impossible to tell the difference between a sponsored and a natural link.

How Much Does Link Building Cost in 2024