Specialist SEO
Link Building Services That Earn Links You Could Show a Google Reviewer
I run link building as a campaign with a target list, a set of pages that need authority and a report of live links - not a monthly quota of placements bought from whoever is selling. Every link comes from a site with real readers, earned through outreach, PR or credit you are already owed.
- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- person doing the work
- 1
When link building is the right next step
My link building service is a hand-run campaign of vetted outreach, digital PR and reclaimed mentions, and it is the last lever I pull, not the first. If a site has crawl problems, thin pages or two URLs fighting over one query, new links mostly amplify those problems. So the businesses I take on for link work usually have the basics in place and a specific gap: their pages are as useful as the ones ranking above them, but those competitors have years of citations from trade press, associations and partners that the client does not.
The signs tend to look alike. Important pages sit between positions five and fifteen despite on-page work. A competitor with weaker content holds the top spot. A new site has good pages and almost no references. Or a previous agency built links that now look like a liability.
If you are not sure which of those describes you, start with an SEO audit. It will show whether authority is really the bottleneck or whether something cheaper is holding the site back.
Key takeaways
- Links still help pages rank in competitive markets, but only links from relevant sites with real audiences are worth the effort. Cheap placements are increasingly ignored, and some carry risk.
- The fastest links are usually ones you have already earned: unlinked mentions, memberships, partner pages and old links pointing at URLs that now return a 404.
- Every prospect is checked by hand for traffic, topical fit, audience location and editorial standards before anyone sends an email.
- Links mostly land on assets people genuinely cite, then internal links carry that authority to the service, category and product pages that earn revenue.
- I report live links, the pages they support and the referral visits they send. I do not sell link counts, domain-metric targets or guaranteed placements.
What's included in my link building services
Every campaign draws on the same seven parts, weighted by what the gap analysis shows and how much expert time your team can give.
Competitor gap analysis of the referring domains you are missing
I compare your referring domains with those of the sites outranking you for priority queries, then sort the difference by relevance and source type: trade press, associations, suppliers, resource pages. The output is the kinds of sources you lack, not a link count to chase.
- Referring domain gap sorted by source type
- The priority queries and the pages competing for them
- Sources worth pursuing and sources to ignore
Target pages, linkable assets and the internal links between them
People rarely link to a sales page. They link to a brand, a person, a useful tool or a source of data. So we agree which commercial pages are underpowered, which assets could attract links on their behalf, and how internal links will carry that authority across. The route is planned before outreach starts.
- Underpowered service, category or product pages
- Existing assets worth promoting
- Internal link plan from assets to money pages
Link reclamation - unlinked mentions, partner pages and broken inbound links
The fastest links are the ones you have already earned. I find articles, listings, memberships, suppliers and event pages that name you without linking, plus old URLs whose links now hit a 404, and fix those first. They are relevant, cheap and often enough to move a page on their own.
- Unlinked mentions in press and listings
- Memberships, accreditations and partner pages
- Redirects for old URLs that still attract links
Hand-vetted prospects that pass five checks before any email goes out
Third-party authority scores are a first filter, nothing more. Every site is checked by a person, most get dropped, and the reason each survivor passed is recorded beside it. A small, focused trade site usually beats a large general one that writes about everything.
- Steady organic traffic from related queries
- Topical fit with your industry or customers
- Readers in the markets you actually serve
- Outbound links that do not reveal a placement business
- A link a customer would plausibly click
Personal outreach and digital PR pitched to the editors who cover your field
Pitches come from me, or from your team where a relationship already exists, each with a specific angle and a specific page for that contact. PR work uses data stories, expert comment and reactive commentary for journalists in your sector. One polite follow-up, never a sequence of reminders.
- Outreach angles written for each prospect group
- Expert comment and data-led pitches
- Coordination with your PR agency or in-house team
Briefs for linkable assets worth citing - tools, data and reference guides
Some markets mostly link to sources. Where that is true I brief an asset built to be cited: a calculator, a reference table, an original survey or a definitive guide. Assets take months to pay back and then compound, so I only recommend one when editors and forums in your niche clearly need it.
- An asset brief written around its audience and outlets
- Promotion to resource and curation pages
- Publishing notes for your developer or CMS
Monthly live-link reports and a risk review of your existing profile
Each live link is checked for placement, attributes and indexing, then reported with its context, the page it supports and any referral visits. I also review the links you already have by hand and recommend a disavow only where there is clear evidence of manipulation.
- Live links with context, target page and attributes
- Referral visits per link
- Disavow advice only where it is justified
Experience
Link Building from someone who has done it many times
You work with me from the first call to the last report. No account managers, no hand-offs to a junior team.
Book a free call- years in SEO
- 6+
- client websites worked on
- 60+
- documented case studies
- 35
The tactics I use, and when each one earns its place
No campaign uses all of these. The mix depends on what you already have, what your market's journalists and editors need, and how much expert time your team can give.
| Tactic | What the work involves | Suits | How soon links appear |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlinked mention reclamation | Finding articles, listings and partner pages that name you without linking, then asking for the link | Any business with press, awards or partners | Days to weeks |
| Lost and broken link recovery | Redirecting old URLs that still attract links, and offering your page in place of dead resources on other sites | Sites that have migrated, rebranded or pruned content | Weeks |
| Relationship links | Memberships, accreditations, suppliers, distributors, clients and event organisers you already work with | Firms with real-world networks, which is most of them | Weeks |
| Digital PR for links | Data stories, expert comment and reactive commentary pitched to journalists who cover your field | Businesses with data or people worth quoting | One to three months per campaign |
| Linkable assets | Calculators, reference tables, original surveys or definitive guides built to be cited | Markets where editors and forums need a source | Months, then compounding |
| Resource and curation pages | Pitching a genuinely useful page to the people who maintain lists of resources in your niche | Sites with an asset that fills a gap on those lists | Weeks to months |
Sponsored placements are not on this list. If you pay for one, it should carry rel="sponsored" and be judged as advertising, on the visitors it sends.
A typical link package compared with a campaign I run
Most link building sold online is a product: a number of placements per month at a price per link. What I offer is closer to a PR and partnerships project with an SEO brief.
Typical link package
- A fixed number of links per month, whatever the market needs
- Placements on sites chosen by a domain score threshold
- Guest posts on blogs that publish for anyone who pays
- Exact-match anchors requested to hit a keyword
- A spreadsheet of URLs with no context or traffic data
How I run a campaign
- A target set by comparing you with the pages that outrank you
- Prospects checked by a person for readers, relevance and geography
- Outreach and pitches written for each editor or partner
- Anchors left to the publisher, mostly branded or descriptive
- A report showing each link, its context, its target page and its referrals
Free review
Get a free Link Building review
Send me your site. Before the call I look at your rankings and pages, then tell you what I would fix first and what it is likely worth.
How a link building engagement runs
A first campaign usually runs for three months.
- 1
Gap analysis
The first fortnight. It sets the target for the whole campaign, so nothing gets pitched before it is finished.
- 2
Choose the pages that need authority
Agreed with you on one call once the gap analysis is in, and revisited if a new asset changes the picture.
- 3
Claim what is already yours
Worked through in the first weeks, because these are the cheapest and most relevant links you will get.
- 4
Prospect and vet
Runs throughout: the list grows as new angles and journalists appear, and shrinks as sites fail the checks.
- 5
Pitch and follow up
From the second month, once the reclamation list is cleared and the angles are signed off.
- 6
Verify and report
Monthly, with a review that drops any tactic not producing and moves the effort to what is.
How I handle anchor text and nofollow links
Anchor text follows the same logic. I keep the anchor profile deliberately natural: mostly the brand name, the URL or a plain description written by the publisher. A profile full of exact-match commercial phrases is one of the clearest footprints of placed links, and requesting those anchors adds risk for very little gain. Where you control the anchor fully - in your own internal links - is where descriptive keyword anchors belong. A nofollow link from a well-read publication still counts in my reports, as a referral and visibility win rather than a ranking link.
Mistakes I find in most link profiles
These turn up whether the site has had no link work at all or several years of it.
| What I find | Why it costs you | What I do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Paid guest posts on sites that sell to anyone | Search engines are good at discounting these, so the budget bought little, and a clear pattern can attract a manual action | Stop buying, assess the pattern, and only consider a disavow if the evidence is strong |
| Every link pointing at the homepage | Deeper pages that compete for commercial queries get no help | Agree better target pages with partners and strengthen internal links |
| A panicked disavow file built from a tool's toxicity score | Good links can end up disavowed along with the bad | Review links by hand and disavow only clear manipulation |
What this is not
Link building is one part of off-page SEO, not all of it
This page is about running link campaigns. Reviews and reputation, brand mentions, directory listings, entity consistency and being cited in AI answers sit under off-page SEO services, where links are one signal among several. Business Profile and local citation work belongs to local SEO, and visibility in AI Overviews and chat assistants has its own page on AI search optimisation.
Timescales, and what I need from you
Reclaimed links often go live within the first few weeks. PR and asset-led links take longer: an asset has to be built, pitched and picked up, and search engines take time to crawl new links and reflect them in rankings. Expect several months before the effect on rankings is clear, and judge the early months on links earned and referral visits rather than positions.
From your side I need Search Console access, a list of the organisations and partners you work with, and someone who can approve pitches quickly. For PR, one or two people willing to be named as experts make the biggest difference.
Referral value
Referral visitors from good links often convert better than search visitors
Someone who arrives from a trade association listing or a journalist's article has already been told you are worth a look. I tag referral traffic by source and check where those visitors land. If a link sends people to a page with no clear next step, it gets a better target or the page gets one.
How link building fits with the rest of your SEO
Links amplify the pages they point at, so the order matters. Technical SEO makes sure redirects and internal links let authority flow where it should, and a site migration is the moment most old links get lost if nobody maps them. The assets worth promoting usually come from your content strategy.
For how link sources differ by sector, see the industry pages, such as off-page SEO for law firms, off-page SEO for online stores and off-page SEO for B2B firms. Everything else is on the SEO services hub.
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Link Building Services FAQs
Is link building still worth doing?
In competitive markets, yes. Relevant links from trusted sites remain one of the ways search engines judge which pages deserve to rank. What has changed is how good they have become at ignoring links that were obviously placed. A smaller number of links from sites your customers actually read now does more than a large number of cheap ones, and carries none of the risk.
Do you buy links or guest posts?
No. Buying links that pass ranking signals breaks Google's spam policies, and the sites that sell them usually sell to everyone, which is why their links are discounted. If you choose to pay for a sponsored article as advertising, it should carry a sponsored attribute, and I would judge it on the visitors it sends rather than on rankings.
How many links will I get each month?
I do not promise a number, because a monthly quota is how campaigns end up on low-quality sites. Reclamation work can produce several links quickly, while a PR campaign might produce a handful of strong ones after a few weeks of pitching. The report shows every live link, so you can judge the quality yourself rather than trusting a count.
What metrics do you use to judge a site?
Third-party scores such as domain rating are a first filter only. The decision rests on real organic traffic, topical relevance, where the readers are, what else the site links to and whether a customer would click. A small trade publication with a loyal audience in your field often beats a large general site with a higher score.
Should we disavow our bad links?
Usually not. Google says it ignores most low-quality links automatically. A disavow makes sense when there is a clear history of paid or manipulative links, or a manual action for unnatural links in Search Console. I review the profile by hand first, because disavow files built from tool scores often remove links that were helping.
Can you work alongside our PR agency or in-house team?
Yes, and it often works well. PR teams earn coverage that frequently mentions a business without linking, or links to the homepage when a deeper page would serve readers better. I can feed them data angles and target pages, reclaim the links their coverage should have carried, and keep the two efforts from pitching the same journalists.
Find out where your link building gaps are
Send me your domain and the two or three competitors that outrank you. On a free 30-minute call I will show you the sources they have that you lack, the links you have already earned but never claimed, and how I would run a first campaign.