I have seen small business owners who have wrecked their Google rankings by getting penalized for using “SEO services” to build links for them. More so with foreign “SEO services,” and I use that title lightly, but even many stateside companies offer these.
The problem is that so much can go wrong with artificially created backlinks, whether comment posts on .gov and .edu type sites or especially with backlinks from private blog networks (PBNs); it’s just not worth the risk. And these are the best types of links “link services” offer. The minute Google identifies that they are artificially created (i.e., spammy) backlinks, your website gets penalized.
I have seen comment backlinks on .gov and .edu sites help a little if done in a very limited way from a particular i.p. address. Also PBNs can be amazingly effective if done correctly. The key is you have to do this yourself so that you control the whole process.
In this article, I will break down more about the risks of using a link-building service of any kind, as well as why building links yourself is much safer and more powerful. You might also be interested in reading my related articles: “What Matters More, Backlink Quality or Quantity?” and “What Are The Most Important Backlinks To Have in Local SEO?“.
The Risks Of Using A Link Building Service
Even the best stateside SEO company committed to doing things right makes their money based on how many of these links they sell. The more they sell, the more chances there is that too many links are done from the same article or domain or too much of one form of anchor text.
In other words, it is just a matter of time before their methods get recognized for what they are.
On the other hand, hiring a real SEO professional who knows how to build quality links correctly is a lot more rare. These do not market themselves as “link-building services.” And they cost you a lot more because they are doing it correctly just for you.
It is very tough as a small business owner to know if the company you hire is doing things correctly or just charging like it.
The Benefits Of Building Your Own Backlinks
In a word, the benefits are control. If you build them yourself, you can control the hosting service the websites you link from come from, as well as the IP address you work on them from.
You can also control the quality of the PBNs that you create, as well as the content and interlinking of them.
But you give up the time it takes you to do all these. And since it is all new to you, it will take you longer than someone who knows how to do these things correctly and does them for a living.
The biggest benefit of building them your own, the sum of all of the benefits I have mentioned, is if you have done it all correctly, you will get powerful backlinks to your website, causing you to outrank your competitors with the peace of mind knowing Google is not going to penalize you down the road.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, I have done a good job in this article outlining for you both the risks of hiring a link-building service versus the benefits of learning how to do it yourself and control the process. Your website is very valuable and can bring you a lot of revenue if it ranks well. You don’t want to risk that to spammy SEO tactics.
Thank you again for reading all the way to the end of this article. If you have benefited from this material, please consider sharing this article on your social media and emailing it to business owners who you believe might benefit from and enjoy it.