How to choose a link building agency
Search for the best link building agencies and you will find dozens of lists, most of them written by link building agencies. They tell you who is selling, not who is right for you.
This guide takes a different approach: the questions that reveal how an agency actually works, how to check its examples in minutes, what a good proposal contains and how to run a fair trial before committing.
Key takeaways
- Ask to see real placements from the last few months, and check them yourself.
- Demand transparency on site quality, fees and who writes the content.
- Prefer agencies that plan links around your pages, not link counts.
- Start with a short trial and judge quality before rankings.
Why most “best agency” lists do not help
Rankings of top link building companies rarely explain their criteria, and many are published by the companies that appear at the top. Even honest lists cannot tell you whether an agency suits your niche, your pages and your risk appetite. The questions below can.
12 questions to ask
- Can we see live examples from the last three months?
- How do you vet sites for traffic and relevance?
- Which placements are paid, and is the fee shown?
- Can we approve every site before publishing?
- Who writes the content, and can we review it?
- Which of our pages will you build links to, and why?
- How do you choose anchor text?
- What happens if a link disappears?
- How do you report results?
- Do you also earn links through PR?
- What is the minimum commitment?
- What would make you say no to a client?
The last question is revealing. Agencies with standards can name things they refuse to do; agencies without them cannot.
How to check an agency’s examples
- Open each example URL and read the article.
- Check the site’s organic traffic trend in an SEO tool.
- Look at other outbound links on the page and site.
- Check whether the article is labelled sponsored.
- Search the article title to confirm it is indexed.
Ten minutes of checking tells you more than any sales call. If an agency will not share examples, treat that as an answer.
Red flags
- Guaranteed numbers on sites with no real traffic
- Refusal to share site lists in advance
- Packages priced only by domain scores
- Vague answers about who writes the content
- Links from sites the agency owns
- Long lock-in contracts before any results
What a good proposal includes
- A short audit of your current links and competitors
- Named target pages and why each needs links
- The mix of tactics, earned and placed
- Monthly volume, price and any publisher fees
- Reporting format and frequency
- Contract length and exit terms
A proposal that only lists a number of links per month is a price list, not a plan.
A worked comparison
Imagine three illustrative proposals at similar prices. Agency A promises the most links but will not show sites in advance. Agency B shares some sites on request and targets mostly the homepage. Agency C promises fewer links, shows every site for approval, lists fees per URL and maps each link to a specific page.
On paper A looks like the best deal. In practice C is the one most likely to move rankings without creating a mess to clean up later, because every link is visible, relevant and pointed at a page that needs it.
Anchor text and target pages
Ask every agency how it chooses anchor text. Good answers mention mostly branded and natural phrases, with descriptive anchors used sparingly where they read naturally. A plan built around exact-match commercial anchors on every link is a risk to your site, however good the sites look.
Ask the same about target pages. Links should be spread across pages that genuinely need authority, including guides and category pages, not concentrated on one money page.
What good reporting looks like
- Every live URL, with the date it went live
- The target page and anchor text for each link
- Whether the link is followed, sponsored or nofollow
- Any publisher fee, listed per placement
- Notes on removed or changed links and what was done
- A short summary of what changed for the target pages
If an agency’s sample report shows only totals and domain scores, ask for a real one with URLs. If it will not provide one, you have learned what you needed to know.
Running a fair trial
Start with one to three months focused on a few pages. Judge the trial on site quality, relevance and transparency first, then on ranking movement as it appears. A good agency will welcome a trial because its work stands up to scrutiny.
If you would like to compare us with other agencies, send us the pages you need to rank. We will show you the sites we would target before you commit to anything.
Frequently asked questions
Should we choose the agency with the most links per month?
No. Choose the one whose links come from relevant sites with real readers.
How long before we judge results?
Give it a few months for rankings, but judge placement quality from the first report.
Do agencies need access to our site?
Search Console access helps; full CMS access is rarely needed.
Should the agency also write content?
For guest posts, yes. Make sure you can review it before publishing.
What if the agency uses links from its own sites?
Ask directly. Links from networks owned by the agency are a red flag.