Comments on: Manual Link-Building is Still Cost-Effective and Realistic for Small Businesses

By: Wesley LeFebvre

Wesley LeFebvre — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:46:50 +0000

Hi Mark,
Yeah – I’d be wary of any company cold calling you making those guarantees. There is no set number of back links that will ensure you top rankings or traffic for that matter. It is possible they could do a good job for you, but I suspect at that price most of those backlinks will be questionable at best.

By: Mark Askew

Mark Askew — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 23:36:40 +0000

I had a company cold call and show me that currently we have only 8 links to our website and that they could up this to 400 plus which will get us to the first page on Google…blah blah blah. I did consider the £150 pm with the ‘guaranteed’ money back in profit until I read blogs such as this. Thanks for pointing out the pros & cons – I think I’ll just carry on with Adwords and look into a few manual links myself

By: SEOP.com

SEOP.com — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:13:41 +0000

I agree. Unless you have the money, stick to the free stuff and just work harder on it.

By: Wesley LeFebvre

Wesley LeFebvre — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:51:04 +0000

Hi Shawn!
Yeah, I don’t recommend someone go out and submit their website to a bunch of seemingly low-quality web directories. But I don’t think buying a few links from a a couple of high-quality web directories is going to get you in trouble.

best,

By: Shawn from Central Mass Chem Dry

Shawn from Central Mass Chem Dry — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 18:27:26 +0000

While I’m still trying to grow my small-business I do agree that paid links shouldn’t be looked down upon, however, I’m trying to create a much more natural SEO environment versus using tactics that can hurt your SERP position.

Great post nonetheless.

By: Wesley LeFebvre

Wesley LeFebvre — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:45:33 +0000

Sure they should get more traffic because of the advertising they have done. However, Google used to be the place where any business owner could compete naturally. But any good idea that helps the small business owner on a small budget compete naturally, just gets shut down quickly and labled black hat.
Like with anything that starts out good, the level playing field will continue to decrease. The latest hit being personalized search. Perhaps that is why the hordes of businesses are starting to look elsewhere. Sites like Twitter and Facebook or whatever else might be out there.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 18:27:59 +0000

I’m not sure I feel it’s a level playing field. I like how it seems that spending more time instead of money can give better quality results from link-building, but I’m not sure this is enough to compete with big businesses that mass hundreds-thousands of lower quality links per month. Even though I own a small company struggling to get rankings, isn’t it the natural order of things that big companies with big marketing budgets will should get more traffic than smaller ones with less money, even online?

By: Wesley LeFebvre

Wesley LeFebvre — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:51:30 +0000

Let’s hope. I just hope they don’t discount every directory link to zero. There are some free high-quality directory with strict approval processes. Getting listed in free directories should always pass “normal” link-juice, IMO. I think they are beneficial for site owners and the search engines.

Another reason I think strict directories – free or not – shouldn’t lose their link-value is because without them the web will get even more polluted with worthless articles and machine written content than it already is.

By: Niall Harbison

Niall Harbison — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:25:12 +0000

Yeah I have to agree that there needs to be a way for the small guys to get found. As you say there is no point an agency like us building a ton of links and great content for our brand and then small guys not appearing at all in the rankings beside them. The only good thing though in my opinion is that Google is very good at levelling the playing field which means most people will always have a chance at getting to the top of the rankings!