The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Link Building for Remote Teams

Link building is important for increasing the visibility of websites in search engines. With a great strategy in place, companies, even those who have just started out, can quickly ramp up their backlink profiles, increase domain authority, and significantly boost organic traffic.

But what do you do if you don’t have any expertise or experience in this area and running an in-house team of link builders is out of your budget limit? That’s where outsourcing link-building for remote teams can be helpful.

Let’s discover the pros and cons of outsourcing link building and how it can help businesses, so you can decide if it’s something you want to do.

The Importance of Link Building in SEO

Before we move to the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing link-building, let’s start by understanding why link-building is important and how it works. This will help you get a grasp of its key components and find the best vendor.

Put simply, link building is a practice of exchanging links between websites. However, it’s not just about getting links from any website. For link building to actually work, it is essential that:

• Links are high-quality, i.e., have a do follow tag;
• They are placed on websites that have high domain authority (DA);
• The websites are relevant to the company’s industry.
  

Only when these three approaches are observed can a company expect to improve its marketing activities. The trick is earning good links from trustworthy websites with a DA of 50 and higher requires considerable time and research which can be a challenge for many businesses. Thus, the role of link-building agencies lies in consistency in doing those research pieces and checking domain authority regularly to be prepared for future campaigns.

How Are Links Earned?

There are many tactics that link builders can use to obtain links, but we will focus on three of the most effective.

Guest Blogs

No link-building strategy is complete without guest blogging. It is the key part of SEO strategy that allows brands to:

• Expose themselves to new audiences;
• Build relationships with other businesses;
• Earn high-quality backlinks.
  

The concept of guest blogging is simple. Once a piece of content is created, a link builder reaches out to a host with a proposal to publish it on their website. If they find this piece valuable and informative, it will get published on their website.

What’s great about guest blogging is that it’s a win-win for both parties. Host websites get high-quality content for free, while businesses get a chance to promote themselves on authoritative resources.

Editorial Links

Another way to crush a link-building campaign is with editorial links. An editorial link is a link that a website earns naturally when other websites share it in their publications. It is not paid or requested and usually comes as a result of the website having valuable content.

Even though obtaining editorial links isn’t very easy, it can be done if you have information that can be of value to another company’s blog. However, in most cases, it’s best to outsource this job to SEO professionals who know how to acquire editorial links and have actionable tactics, like a team of experts from Editorial.Link, for example.

Prioritizing quality over quantity, they work to create editorial links on authoritative websites with DA of 70 and higher, such as g2.com, cloudways.com, clickup.com, monday.com, wordstream.com, similarweb.com, etc., which allows them to guarantee increased organic traffic and ensure excellent SEO results.

Link to Link

In addition, links can be received on a barter model when you ask someone to place your link on their website in exchange for placing their link on your resource. This strategy isn’t exactly a white hat technique, which means it carries the risk of a penalty, but it is still extensively used by link builders.

Pros of Outsourcing Link Building to Remote Teams

Now that we have covered the most common link-building techniques and explained how they work, it is time to look at the advantages of delegating link building to remote SEO teams.

It’s convenient

First and foremost, outsourcing to an external agency is convenient, which is especially true for companies that don’t have extensive experience in link building. Rather than learning the ropes of link building, which may take months – if not years – or hiring new staff, you can leave the job to professionals and focus on other things that matter in your business.

It usually gives better results

Unlike what many people think, link building isn’t easy. In fact, it can be really hard. It’s not for nothing that link-building agencies spend years experimenting with different techniques to figure out which one delivers the best outcome.

Ultimately, these years of work give them a competitive edge in the marketplace, as they not only know the best link-building practices but can also predict results.

If something goes wrong, it won’t be your fault

While this might not sound too reassuring, it’s certainly better than if it were you who was held accountable for mistakes and you didn’t know what way to turn. However, you wouldn’t be under such pressure with a remote team.

Moreover, if something didn’t go according to the plan, the external team would be more likely to come up with suggestions on how to improve the existing campaign and could even offer certain services free of charge to sort things out.

Outsourcing is generally cheaper

The cost of hiring a remote SEO team may seem quite expensive at first, but that’s only until you estimate the potential risk of losing money trying to do it all on your own. Besides, it is not exactly cheap to hire a link builder to work internally, too. What’s worse is that the results are not guaranteed in the latter case, and you may waste months before it becomes clear. Consider using an outsourcing calculator to accurately assess your potential savings and benefits.

It can help you scale up

Even if you have an in-house team of link builders, you are most likely not using all the available resources to scale up your link building campaign. The more people involved, the more inbound connections you get, and the wider the reach of your link building, as simple as that.

The Risks of Outsourcing Link Building

Of course, outsourcing any work, including link building, comes with certain risks. But if you can recognize them, it will help you deal with them quickly and efficiently. Let’s take a closer look at them.

Sticking with low-quality publishers

It goes without saying that when selecting a company to outsource, price is often the decisive factor in making a choice. However, in link building, as in everything, you get what you pay for. If you go for an agency with a low-price label, there are two main risks:

• The quality of work may not be up to the high standards;
• The consistency will suffer.
  

In addition, most likely than not, they won’t be able to provide you with a wide range of tools and services needed for optimizing your link-building strategy due to the cost of these tools.

Choosing quantity over quality

After price, the quantity of links you get in a package is the second most popular reason for companies to stick with a particular agency. That’s where it’s important to remember that links aren’t created equal, and more doesn’t always mean better.

You can have one link generating 1,500 visits a month or 400 links leading nowhere. So, it’s important to take your time to research the company and see how its links are generally built. This will help you understand if it fits your business concept.

Using shady link building schemes

Another common risk of outsourcing is stumbling upon a company that doesn’t shame away from using black hat link-building tactics. Even though many of the schemes are still being used despite the fact that Google simply doesn’t take them seriously, there are also those that can decrease a website’s rankings and even be penalized.

How to Choose a Reliable Outsource Link Building Team

Despite the risks of outsourcing to remote teams, it’s become a popular practice in recent years.

First of all, after the pandemic, many companies who have estimated the advantages of hybrid working models are simply not ready to move to the office and would rather work with remote teams. And secondly, outsourcing offers indisputable benefits for businesses, such as cost savings and access to specialized expertise.

With this in mind, let’s talk about choosing a reliable link-building team and minimizing the risks associated with outsourcing.

Check case studies

The first thing to do is research the agency you want to hire. Of course, the company may tell you many things and sound like they know what they are doing, but only real studies can give you the big picture. So, be sure to analyze the following:

• What they have done in the past;
• What difficulties have they stumbled upon;
• How they handled them;
• What link-building tactics they have used.

Check ratings and testimonials

Besides case studies, it is important to check a company's ratings. For example, you can visit websites like G2 or Glassdoor, where clients rate and review agencies.

Alternatively, you can simply google reviews. If you find that a company has good ratings and others recommend it as a reliable vendor, it will give you confidence that you can move forward with them.

Request transparency

Link building isn’t straightforward, and different agencies approach it differently. While this isn’t a bad thing on the whole, it can be bad if you are not aware of what strategies and tactics exactly the company is using, and they are not telling you.

To avoid this situation, ask for transparency from the outset and ensure no information is being concealed.

Choose Quality Over Quantity

Resist the urge to go for a company simply because they offer more links. As we’ve stated earlier, more doesn’t mean better. Moreover, when a company promises to get 1,000 links per month, it should raise your suspicion. How are they doing it? Are they relying on shady link-building schemes?

Either way, quantity shouldn’t be your goal. It’s consistency and predictability that can guarantee you good results in the long run, so be sure to focus on these metrics when selecting a company for outsourcing link building.

Conclusion

To bring it to an end, outsourcing link building for remote teams can be a viable strategy for businesses looking to increase their online presence and drive more traffic to their websites. The benefits of outsourcing, such as cost savings, access to specialized expertise, and scalability, make it an attractive option for both startups and large businesses.

However, there are also potential drawbacks to consider, including quality control issues and the risk of negative SEO practices. Thus, the decision to outsource link building should be based on a careful evaluation of the pros and cons, as well as an assessment of the specific needs and goals of your business.

With our guide at hand, you can make an informed decision about whether to outsource link building for remote teams and, if so, how to do it effectively.