If you’re searching for a quality review of the best SEO link building service providers, you have come to the right place.
In today’s cutthroat SEO environment building quality backlinks is as important as ever.
However, acquiring backlinks just for the sake of backlinks is is more than ill-advised. Relevance for your (or your client’s) industry vertical will be critical as you assess the various link building service providers on the market. In addition, as the search engine algorithms continue to become more advanced, they will better include the ability to recognize both the quality and relevance of the off-site content you (or your SEO agency) produces.
As link building services still remains one of the most heavily-weighted factors impacting your rankings in search engines, it is important to understand how you can procure backlinks in an ethical, economical and scalable way in order to have the best impact on your business and drive sustainable results for your business long term. In a former time, it was easy to buy inexpensive links at scale from fly-by-night outsourcing firms out of places like India. Today’s focus on quality and relevance means such days are far behind us.
And while this has increased the overall cost of garnering high-quality backlinks, it also ensures that only the most professional sites show up higher in the search rankings than their competitors.
Google’s algorithms continue to give credence and credibility to sites that demonstrate high levels of trust and authority. One of the greatest ways your website can demonstrate such authority is by having large numbers of similar sites relevantly link to your site. This acts as a signal of authority, further increasing your site’s overall relevance in search rankings. Demonstrate your expertise, earn links and your site is sure to rank higher in search.
However, quality link building is not done so easily. Quality and scale are almost diametrically opposed. Maintaining both concurrently can be extremely difficult. However, if procured properly links can be one of the best tools in increasing your search presence over time.
As such, it supplementing and complementing your own internal link building campaigns with the help of knowledgeable link building services can be extremely beneficial for long-term SEO success.
The Top 10 Link Building Service Providers
As you look to supplement your own efforts in building quality backlinks back to your website, it will be important to note the following service providers as you look to build quality backlinks for your online business. It is always advised that when building out your own link building campaign with a link building partner that you perform your own ample due diligence, ensuring the company you hire meets the standards of professionalism that matter to you.
In making my assessment of the best link building companies, I kept several key considerations in mind. First, how long has the link building agency been in business? What are the company’s minimums in terms of engagement cost? What types of case studies can the company show and how has the company performed overall in field testing for various industries?
1. SEO.co
In operation since 2008, SEO.co has been providing high quality link building for over a decade. The company’s mantra is quality. They cater to higher-end clients and agency resellers looking to white label the company’s SEO services, allowing smaller SEO agencies to scale their link building without putting in efforts on their own. The firm employs writers in-house who produce the content that then is published (with links fully intact) to high (DA 50-90) Domain Authority (DA) websites. The company maintains direct relationships with thousands of high quality site publishers, allowing their clients to procure extremely relevant links from very high quality websites. Per the company’s site, they guarantee placement or your money back. In addition, the company has a nice purchasing dashboard, allowing users to easily buy links based on DA and destination URLs.
The company is based in Seattle, WA and continues to provide outstanding service to both direct website owners and SEO agency partners & resellers. They come highly recommended for their work. As part of the 2023 update, the company also now operates Link.Build
2. Stellar SEO
As a top-tier link building service provider Stellar SEO provides a suite of solutions to its clients for acquiring backlinks for SEO that are both relevant and high quality. The firm’s concierge service provides clients with a unique strategic approach to building links, not typically had (e.g. broken link building) by other SEO link building agencies. Stellar SEO is very disciplined in how they approach the link building, gaining links for their clients that are niche-specific and industry-relevant. Unfortunately, that sometimes means that Domain Authority is not as much of a focus.
Like the other link building service firms listed above Stellar SEO is based in the United States with a staff that speaks English and a service that bespeaks of high quality.
3. FatJoe
Based in the UK, FatJoe has been in the business of link building and content marketing for years. One of the areas that sets FatJoe apart from the competition, is an easy-to-use customer dashboard. Their custom dashboard allows clients to search and purchase among a myriad of the company’s services, which includes direct link building and even higher-end Blogger Outreach. Blogger Outreach is billed by the hour and gives your business relevant links via direct outreach from the FatJoe team. While this service is billed hourly for the hours worked, it is one of the better means of sourcing backlinks from the most relevant sources on the web.
The company also includes press release and blog writing services for other on and off-site content marketing needs. With an entire team of content writers, their turn-around time is relatively quick and their quality is “good enough” for most websites.
4. LinkFish
By focusing on link building for highly competitive niche websites, LinkFish has built a name for themselves for focusing on the human aspects of building quality content and quality backlinks. As a company LinkFish focuses on old fashioned techniques for procuring placements for client campaigns. That is, the company takes a hands-on outreach approach to finding the most relevant websites for building quality links. The company does not require on-going contracts and they provide link analysis, SEO audits and backlink profile clean-up services.
5. VerticalMeasures
A results driven SEO firm, VerticalMeasures provides a myriad of digital marketing services to its clients, only one of which is direct link building via highly-relevant content marketing. Rather than being solely niche-focused on link building, the company takes a more holistic SEO agency approach, creating content that ultimately drives online results. As such, the company spends more time on strategy prior to implementing a plan of action that will deliver the needed results for client campaigns. VerticalMeasures is based in Phoenix, AZ and their team is U.S.-based and highly regarded for their work in digital marketing, link building tactics and SEO.
6. DigitalCurrent
Like several other link building services mentioned here, DigitalCurrent is a link building company that focuses on quality content, website relevance and Domain Authority. When it comes to building links in today’s market, these are table stakes for procuring the best possible links available.
The company looks to be proactive in measuring the impacts of changing search engine algorithms, giving them the ability to provide advice that is both timely and timeless as they provide sustainable link building services for client campaigns. They also perform direct publisher outreach, engage directly with influencers, create infographics and build links by creating online scholarship programs.
7. Linkology
Linkology differentiates themselves by measuring linking domains in several ways. First, they look at existing metrics provided by third-party firms like Moz and Ahrefs, but they also take into account relevance and linking publisher website traffic metrics. This holistic approach to procuring publishers for clients helps ensure some of the highest quality links are built. For instance, if you were a shoe manufacturer looking to rank for shoe-related terms, Linkology helps find shoe-specific websites that have high authority and existing organic traffic that would be willing to link back to your brand and website. The company also takes a very customized approach to how they build links for their clients, allowing clients to choose among a number of different link building packages. Linkology is based in the United Kingdom.
8. HigherVisibility
Like others in this list, HigherVisibility is a link building service provider that focuses on 1) websites with high authority, 2) websites with existing traffic and 3) websites whose content, theme and existing audience are relevant to your given niche. While this approach takes a bit more effort (which can sometimes translate into higher cost), it ultimately leads to better results for clients SEO link building campaigns. Apart from just link building, the company provides a host of other digital marketing solutions including PPC management and website design. They’re not simply building links for clients. They take a tailored approach to organic and inorganic website success.
9. TheHoth
As one of the larger players in the link building services market, TheHoth (“Hit Over The Head”) is one of the more well-known service providers in the space. They boast thousands of clients with mixed reviews in online forums. Given the nature of what they do and the scale with which they’ve reached, there is a high likelihood of having such feedback. I have personally used their service in the past, but the particular service offering worth noting when it comes to link building is Hoth Blitz. The company’s Blitz product utilizes the firm’s internal sales and marketing team to work email and phone to procure publication of your intended links on very high Domain Authority (DA) websites. Provide them with your target destination URLs, desired DA and your given keywords and the company’s army of outbound marketers will get to work at procuring the links you desire. TheHoth is located in sunny Florida.
10. PageOnePower
In operation in Idaho for over a decade, Page One Power is one of the most well-known firms in the link building services world. With engagement minimums of around $3,500 per month, PageOnePower isn’t an SEO agency for mom and pop local businesses. The firm takes a very relevant-first approach to link acquisition, procuring links based on specific client goals and objectives. They take great care in putting together specific link building strategies that match what their clients are looking to accomplish both short and long term.
The company doesn’t just use Domain Authority or Pagerank as a specific metric for obtaining high quality links. Instead, they look at numerous on and off-site factors, choosing to actively find links that best match a site’s current backlink profile and eventual goals. Before, during and after a link campaign is run, the company helps communicate why a given link, website or target URL was the strategy, allowing their expertise to trickle-down to the given landing pages in question. However, with the company’s minimums there are no guarantees and the links acquired sometimes may not move the needle fast enough, particularly if the budget doesn’t meet the company’s medium-sized engagement dollar threshold.
Choose Your Link Building Service Wisely
When choosing your agency, it is best to be picky.
You’ll want to avoid things like private blog networks and other scam and spam link farms that are not a form of white hat link building.
A private blog network (PBN) is a group of websites that are owned by a single entity and used to link back to your main website(s). PBNs are often used in SEO as a way to artificially increase the ranking of your website(s) on search engines.
The use of PBNs has become increasingly controversial in recent years, as Google has begun cracking down on websites that use them. As a result, it’s important to be careful when setting up and using a PBN, and to make sure that you’re not doing anything that could get your website penalized by Google.
While the above list of link building service providers is not meant to be exhaustive, it does include some of the most well-known and referred companies in the industry. In most cases, your link building campaigns will perform well with links acquired from any number of the companies on the above list. However, you should certainly seek out your own due diligence, asking the right questions of your would-be search engine optimization (SEO) agency, ensuring any links you acquire through their efforts are helpful and not hurtful to your overall website goals.