Link building is one of the few parts of SEO where you can literally receive an invoice per link. That makes the question “what does link building cost?” trickier than it looks: a link can be free or cost a fair amount. In this article we explain where that difference comes from, how to set a realistic budget and when you are better off keeping your money in your pocket.
Why link building cost varies so much
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Google treats such a link as a recommendation. The more trustworthy and relevant the site linking to you, the more weight that recommendation carries. The same principle determines the price.
Three factors account for most of the cost:
- The quality of the linking website. A site with real traffic, a good Domain Rating (DR) and a low spam score charges more than a website that exists only to sell links.
- The way you obtain the link. Buying a link through a link platform is relatively quick. A guest article or digital PR takes more time, but often delivers stronger and more natural links.
- The work around it. Competitor analysis, drawing up a link profile, assessing websites, writing content and checking the placement. Those are hours, and those hours make up a large share of the total link building cost.
Anyone who only looks at the price per link misses half the picture.
What does a backlink cost per type?
The exact amounts differ per market, per platform and per website. That is why we do not publish a fixed price list, but we can give you an honest idea of what to expect.
| Link building method | Price per link | Time | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Own network (suppliers, partners, customers) | Free | Low to medium | Often high and relevant |
| Industry and business directories | Free to low | Low | Limited, but fine as a foundation |
| Link platforms (sponsored articles) | Varies, depending on the site | Low | Varies, selection is everything |
| Guest articles on relevant sites | Content plus sometimes a fee | Medium | High on the right site |
| Digital PR (news, research, data) | Mainly hours | High | High, hard to copy |
A few things stand out. Free links do exist, but they cost time and there is no endless supply. Paid links through platforms are the fastest, but that is also where you find the most chaff among the wheat. And the most expensive links per piece are often the best investment, because one strong link does more than a pile of weak ones.
How do you set a link building budget?
At Stijgt we never start with an amount. We start with two questions: what do you want to achieve, and how strong are your competitors?
Step 1: Competitor analysis. Using tools such as Semrush, we look at which websites link to your main competitors, how many links they have and how strong those links are. That tells you what the playing field looks like. If you are in a niche market with little competition, a small budget goes a long way. If you are in a market where big players have been collecting links for years, the gap is bigger.
Step 2: Draw up a link profile. Which pages need to become stronger? Which anchor texts fit them? Which types of websites should link to you so that it looks natural? A link profile is a plan, not a shopping list.
Step 3: Decide the mix. What share comes from your own network, what share from platforms, what share from guest articles and PR? Together with the number of links per month, that mix determines your monthly cost.
A useful rule of thumb: your link building pricing should be in proportion to what an extra customer is worth to you. If a new customer is worth hundreds or thousands of euros, a monthly link building budget quickly pays for itself. If you sell products with a small margin and few repeat purchases, you need to do the maths more carefully. To see how this relates to the rest of your SEO budget, also read how much does SEO cost.
Where you should not spend your money
Let’s be honest: a lot of money is wasted on link building. These are the classic pitfalls.
- Links from websites without traffic. A site nobody visits carries little weight with Google. We never place links there, however cheap.
- High spam score or very low DR. These links do not help and can even harm you.
- Packages with hundreds of links for a few tens of euros. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. These are almost always automated links from empty sites.
- Nothing but exact-match anchor text. If every link uses your main keyword as link text, it looks unnatural. A healthy link profile also contains brand-name links and plain sentences.
- Link building without good content. Links to a page that does not convince deliver little. Make sure the page itself is right first. You will find tips in SEO copywriting.
From our own experience: at our own company Djunes (photo booth and event hire), organic traffic grew by 187% in 12 months. Link building was part of that, but never the only part. The combination of good pages, a technical foundation and a targeted link profile made the difference. We follow the same order with clients.
Outsource link building or do it yourself?
You can perfectly well handle link building yourself, certainly the part that runs through your own network. Ask suppliers, partners and satisfied customers for a link. List your business in relevant industry directories. Write a piece for a trade publication in your sector. That costs time, not money.
Outsourcing becomes interesting when:
- you have no time to assess websites and negotiate;
- your competitors are clearly stronger and you want to close the gap;
- you want to know whether it works, with measurements instead of gut feeling.
When outsourcing, pay attention to how an agency builds up its costs. Do you pay per link, per month or per hour? Can you see which links have been placed and on which sites? And is an analysis done first, or do you get a standard package straight away? An agency that sells you a fixed number of links per month without a competitor analysis works from a template, not from your market.
How do you measure whether link building is worth the money?
Link building is only a success if it brings you more traffic and ultimately more customers. So you do not just measure the number of links, but:
- the rankings of the pages you built links to (Google Search Console);
- the organic traffic to those pages (GA4);
- the conversions from that traffic, such as enquiries or orders.
Do you see more links after a few months, but no movement in rankings or traffic? Then something is wrong in the selection or in the pages themselves. Do you see traffic, but no conversions? Then the problem lies with the website rather than the links, and conversion rate optimisation is the next step.
How Stijgt approaches link building
At Stijgt we start with a competitor analysis and a baseline measurement, so we know where you stand. Then we draw up a link profile and acquire links through link platforms, our own network, digital PR and guest articles. We never place links on sites without traffic, with a high spam score or a very low Domain Rating. We set the budget together, based on your goals and your market. Curious what that means for your website? See our link building approach or get in touch.