10 Factors to Consider When Outsourcing Your Backlink Outreach
If you’re a small business owner trying to grow your website traffic, you’ve probably heard that backlinks are a big deal for SEO. And it’s true: good links from trusted websites can help your site rank higher, get more clicks, and earn more customers.
But let’s be honest. Link building is slow, technical, and time-consuming. That’s why many business owners look to outsource backlink building to pros who can handle the hard stuff.
The challenge? Knowing how to outsource link building and who to trust, what to look for, as well as how to avoid wasting your money on low-quality or shady services.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know before you outsource link building—from setting your budget to checking their outreach strategy and tools.
In this article:
- Your Website’s Readiness for Link Building
- Your Budget (Hourly vs. Project-Based Pricing)
- Time Zone and Communication
- Experience With Your Industry or Niche
- Their Outreach Tools
- Their Outreach Strategy
- Link Quality Standards and Filters
- Content Creation Included or Extra?
- Link Guarantees, Volume, and Timelines
- Reporting
1. Your Website’s Readiness for Link Building
Before you outsource backlink building, you want to make sure everything is clean, organized, and ready. A messy site with slow loading, broken pages, or poor content won’t impress Google or visitors. Worse, it could waste your money if you invest in link building outsourcing before your site is ready.
Before trying outsourced link building, check if your pages offer value. That means your pages should answer questions or solve problems. They should also be useful, interesting and easy to read, making someone outside of your business actually want to share them.
Additionally, check the loading speed. Over 50% of visitors leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, according to Google. If your site loads slowly, doesn’t work well on phones, or has broken links, no amount of backlinks will help your SEO in the long run.
Use Google Search Console to see how your site is doing on search. If you’re new to this, ask an outsourced webmaster or a link building manager to audit your site before starting backlink outreach, so you can reap link building benefits properly.
2. Your Budget (Hourly vs. Project-Based Pricing)
When you’re ready to outsource backlink building, one of the first things to figure out is how much you want to spend and how you’ll be charged. There are two common pricing models when it comes to link building outsourcing: hourly and project-based or per link pricing.
| Type of Service | Price Range |
| Hourly (Freelancer) | $25–$100/hr |
| Per-Link (DA 30–50) | $150–$300 |
| Per-Link (DA 60+) | $400–$1,000+ |
| Monthly Packages (Agency) | $500–$5,000+ |
Hourly Pricing: Best for Small Tasks or Audits
If you just need a link building freelancer to review your current backlinks or do a short-term outreach test, paying by the hour makes sense. Rates typically range from $25 to $100 per hour, depending on experience and location. Some link building services in the Philippines may charge on the lower end, offering solid work if you’re on a budget.
Project-Based or Per-Link Pricing: Great for Long-Term Growth
Most link building agencies or pros charge per link or by campaign. This is helpful when you want full service: research, outreach, writing, and getting a backlink placed. Expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $500+ per link, depending on the Domain Authority (DA) and quality of the website linking to you.
Where to Hire: Trusted Platforms & Agencies
To find reliable paid link building help, start with these options:
- Upwork – Flexible, with both hourly and project rates. Affordable link building price that’s great for small budgets. You also see link building service reviews for verification.
- Fiverr Pro – Pre-vetted freelancers who specialize in SEO link building outsource services.
- Specialized Agencies – Look for ones with experience in your industry and case studies to prove it. Some agencies even offer link building coaching if you want to learn the basics yourself.
Whether you go hourly or project-based, make sure you understand the cost of link building services. Don’t be afraid to probe deeper during link building specialist job interviews, asking about where they find their links and how they do campaigns.
3. Time Zone and Communication
One of the easiest things to overlook, but most important, is the time zone difference between you and link building contractors you hire. If they’re on the other side of the world and you’re not in sync, even simple tasks like reviewing a report or approving an email can take days instead of hours. That means slower results for your SEO campaign.
The best solution? Choose a link building freelancer, agency, or outsourced webmaster in a complementary time zone. This doesn’t mean they have to be in your city, but a 2–5 hour difference is much easier to manage than 12+.
For example, if you’re in the U.S., many link building services in the Philippines offer affordable pricing and some overlap in working hours.
Some link building outsourcing teams even offer 24-hour support or have flexible working hours to match your schedule. That’s worth asking about upfront.
You don’t need to be in the same room or even the same continent to work smoothly. Use free tools to stay on track:
- Slack – Live chat for quick questions or feedback
- Loom – Record short videos to explain things instead of writing long emails
- Calendly – Let others book calls with you based on your availability (adjusted for their time zone)
- ClickUp – A project management tool that helps teams plan, track, and manage tasks, docs, goals, and workflows in one place
With these, you can avoid endless back-and-forth and move your backlink outsourcing projects forward faster.
4. Experience With Your Industry or Niche
Not all backlinks are created equal. Imagine you own a bakery. Would you rather be mentioned on a popular food blog or a general business site about stocks and startups?
The food blog wins every time. Why? Because Google cares about relevance.
A backlink from a website in your field is more valuable than one from a random blog. That’s why, when you outsource backlink building, you should look for someone who has experience getting links in your specific niche, like SaaS, e-commerce, or local services, so you can get the most benefits of link building.
When you’re talking to a link building freelancer or outsourced link building agency, ask for examples. Have they worked with businesses like yours? Can they show links placed on industry blogs, trade sites, or trusted directories?
If all their backlinks come from generic business blogs, or worse, from sketchy websites built just to sell links (called PBNs, or Private Blog Networks)—run. These are the kinds of sites people complain about in forums like “what is link farming reddit” and similar link building reddit forums. They can hurt your rankings, not help them.
You should also ask how they choose which websites to target. A professional link building service will have a clear plan. They’ll use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to find relevant sites and check their domain authority, traffic, and topic. This is a key part of link building quality control.
5. Their Outreach Tools
A professional link building service should have a proper toolbox to do the job right—tools for research, outreach, and tracking. Here are a few common tools serious link building freelancers and agencies use:
- Hunter.io or Apollo.io – These tools help find email addresses of the right people at the websites you want links from.
- BuzzStream, Pitchbox, or LinkGenius – These outreach automation platforms let you send personalized emails in bulk and follow up automatically.
- Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush – These are SEO tools that help find websites worth reaching out to, checking site traffic and domain authority.
- Link Genius – This all-in-one tool finds relevant sites based on your niche and helps you send personalized pitches faster.
When you’re talking to someone offering to outsource backlinks, ask them what tools they use. If they give you real names like the ones above and explain how they use them, that’s a good sign.
6. Their Outreach Strategy
When you outsource backlink building, one of the most important questions to ask is: “How do you actually get these links?” Good link building freelancers or agencies have a clear, focused outreach strategy. It’s like building friendships in real life.
Would you rather connect with someone who takes the time to learn about your business or someone who sends the same message to 1,000 people? That’s the difference between relationship-building and email blasting.
Here are a few common strategies that experienced providers may use:
- Guest posting – Writing helpful blog posts for websites in your niche and including a link back to your site.
- Niche edits – Reaching out to sites that already have relevant articles and ask to add your link in a natural way.
- HARO (Help a Reporter Out) – Monitoring journalist requests and replying with expert input.
- Link exchanges – Sometimes, two website owners agree to link to each other’s content if it fits naturally.
When you’re hiring someone, ask them to explain exactly how they get backlinks. If they avoid the question or say things like, “We just get it done,” that’s a red flag. You deserve transparency.
A real link building outsourcing expert should be open about their process. You’re trusting them to represent your brand online, so their strategy should match your goals and values. Always ask, listen closely, and if something feels off, keep looking.
7. Link Quality Standards and Filters
A few high-quality backlinks can do more for your rankings than dozens of weak or spammy ones. That’s why you need to ask any link building freelancer or agency about their link quality standards—basically, how they decide which sites are worth getting links from.
Here are a few things they should be checking:
- Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR) – Scores (from Moz and Ahrefs) that show how strong a website is. Look for backlinks from sites with DA or DR above 30 at least, but higher is better.
- Organic Traffic – Ask how much real traffic the linking site gets each month. You want links from websites that real people actually visit.
- Spam Score or Trust Metrics – Some SEO tools can help spot spammy sites. Moz Spam Score tells you how risky a site might be, while Majestic’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow help measure the site’s quality vs. quantity of backlinks.
- Relevance – The site linking to you should be related to your business. If you sell pet supplies, you shouldn’t be getting links from a gambling blog.
8. Content Creation Included or Extra?
Not all oursource SEO link building is about finding websites to link to yours. It often involves writing blog posts, guest articles, or short paragraphs (called “niche edits”) that include your link.
Some vendors will handle all of this for you. Others will expect you to provide the content yourself. That’s a big difference, and it can affect both your budget and your SEO results.
A good link building freelancer or agency should have a content team. You want someone who understands SEO, your niche, and how to write in a way that feels natural; not just dropping in your link. If they ask you to provide the content, be ready to hire a writer or spend time doing it yourself.
Ask for samples. You don’t want content that’s been copied or “spun.” This kind of junk content won’t help your SEO and can even lead to penalties from Google. A professional link building contractor will create original, useful content that fits naturally with the linking site.
💡💡💡
Link Genius offers a Done-For-You outreach service built for agencies and solopreneurs who want more authority, more traffic, and zero hassle.
Whether it’s guest posts, niche edits, or linkable resources, our team writes original, relevant, and well-researched articles tailored to your niche. Our software also helps you identify content gaps and suggest topics that attract links.
9. Link Guarantees, Volume, and Timelines
As you choose a link-building service, be clear on what you’re getting—and how fast. Start by asking, “How many links will I get each month?” Most solid services will give you a fixed number, like 5 to 10 high-quality backlinks.
Then ask, “What’s the average Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR) of those links?” You want links from sites with a DA of 40+, ideally 50+, because those carry more weight with search engines.
Services that offer “100 links in 10 days” often deliver low-quality links from spammy or unrelated sites—and that can hurt your SEO more than help it.
Also, ask about turnaround time—how long before you see the first link go live? A realistic timeline for most outreach-based services is 2 to 4 weeks for reaping backlinks benefits.
Link building is about quality and relationship-building, not speed. Look for providers who focus on securing links from relevant, trustworthy websites over time—ones that actually improve your SEO, not just inflate your backlink count.
10. Reporting
A good vendor should keep you in the loop with real-time updates on what’s happening. They should know how to report link building, which usually comes in the form of a live spreadsheet or dashboard.
You should be able to see who they’ve contacted, who replied, and which links have already been published. It’s like a project tracker that shows your campaign’s progress without needing to email them every week.
Make sure the report includes key details like the URL of each link, the anchor text used, the Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR) of the site, and basic traffic numbers. These help you judge if the link is high quality or not.
Before hiring any service, ask to see a sample report. A solid report should tell you exactly what’s been done and what’s planned next. Tools like Link Genius, BuzzStream, or Pitchbox often come with built-in reporting dashboards that show performance data clearly.
Transparent reporting helps with link building quality control and makes it easier to explain results to your team—or clients if you outsource link building for agency work.
Full-Service or Just Outreach Help?
If you don’t have time to manage writers or deal with outreach emails, the full-service route of outsourcing link building may be best. It’s a hands-off option that gives you more time to run your business.
On the other hand, if you already have blog posts or infographics ready, you can save money by choosing a vendor that focuses only on outreach and placement.
LinkGenius lets you manage both models in one platform. You can use our Done-For-You service or bring your own content and have our outreach team handle the rest. We offer the kind of flexibility that helps you scale as your business grows.
Your First Step in Effective Backlink Outsourcing
If you’re just getting into backlink outsourcing, don’t feel like you need to dive in with a huge campaign. Start with a small batch, like 5 to 10 quality backlinks, and see how your rankings and traffic respond. Use that first round to evaluate how well the service communicates, what kind of sites they target, and how clean their reporting is.
Remember, one strong backlink from a relevant, high-authority site can be more valuable than dozens of weak ones. Link building is a long game, and smart outsourcing means growing at your own pace with the right team behind you.
Whether you’re a solo founder or an SEO agency, Link Genius takes the guesswork out of outreach. With our Starter, Growth, and Agency plans as well as our Done-For-You service, you get niche-relevant backlinks and custom content at scale.
Get hundreds of backlink opportunities with just one click