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Getting authoritative backlinks from reputable sites for your startup is as difficult as earning a presidential nominee in the US.
Link-building agencies are the equivalent of a highly-skilled political team doing the legwork to get you those valuable endorsements.
This article helps you decide which link-building services for startups to choose. We will:
- Compare eight agencies, focusing on their services, clients, pros, and cons.
- Teach you how to use your business goals as a lens to pick the right services.
Keep reading below.
TL;DR
- Blue Things: Comprehensive and data-driven, used by B2B SaaS startups.
- LinkBuilder.io: Customized link-building agency with a focus on strategy.
- PrestigeLinks: Specializes in guest posting for quick results.
- Marketing Lad: Offers all-in-one digital marketing services.
- Siege Media: Focuses on editorial links and content marketing.
- LinkDoctor.io: Emphasizes relationship link-building.
- Brainy Bees: Known for content creation and community engagement.
- Outreach Monks: Specializes in editorial backlinks from high-quality sources.
- Choosing the Right Link-Building Service:
- Look for agencies with high domain ranking and topical relevance.
- Prioritize data-driven, white-hat tactics over cheap or black-hat services.
- Be patient, as results typically take at least three months.
- Consider Blue Things as a versatile, affordable, and expert choice with a proven track record.
Why Do Startups Need Link-Building Services?
Google E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If you’re new, you’re probably not meeting that criteria because:
- Your rivals are ranking for more high-density keywords with high search volumes and:
- They likely developed more tools and content assets cited by more authoritative websites.
If you can get more authoritative sites to link to your websites, your experience, expertise, and authoritativeness will increase.
That means your search engine rankings will also increase for more competitive keywords, which gets you quality organic traffic.
But to gain that online visibility and search rankings, you need to find reputable sources to link to your content.
Agencies that offer link-building services for startups are a better bet than your in-house SEO or marketing team because they:
- Have a wider network of connections: These agencies can get you high-quality backlinks from reputable sources they know. These websites have high domain rankings and huge topical relevance for your target audience. By contrast, you would likely struggle to get replies from these authoritative creators in your niche.
- Know a wide range of white-hat tactics: These tactics respect Google’s ranking factors and rules, meaning your website won’t get penalties from search engines. So instead of using Private Blog Networks (PBNs) or creating low-quality content, you will get quality blog posts on reputable websites or valuable mentions through HARO.
- Value sustainable SEO: These agencies can build a strong backlink profile that increases qualified traffic in the long run instead of just traffic spikes.
As a result, you can:
- Maximize your SEO budget instead of investing your resources in faulty practices, like low content quality.
- Free up your team to focus on other ways of achieving your business goals.
Pro tip: Link-building services for startups may seem expensive, but you should consider them long-term investments in your reputation and search engine rankings.
A random link-builder on Fiverr can promise all kinds of links for $10, but these may come from link farms or other low-quality websites. Thus, they will bury your reputation instead of consolidating it.
The 8 Best Link-Building Services to Consider
Learning why successful startups need professional link-building services is just the first step. Let’s see the best places to get those services from.
1. Blue Things: Best Overall
- Services: Content strategy and creation, HARO, broken link-building, link-building outreach, technical SEO, SEO management
- Clients: inBeat, Tiddle, ThreatX, Arielle, Content Allies, Hurom, iWave
Blue Things offers the best overall link-building services for startups because it’s data-driven, comprehensive, and affordable.
More importantly, it has successfully used its link-building services for a slew of B2B SaaS startups:
- inBeat’s pipeline value increased to $4,000,000: Blue Things’ own CEO trusts the company so much that it has contracted its services for his other company, inBeat. The influencer marketing agency went from 500 to 70,000 monthly visitors within the year after getting Blue Things to manage it.
- Arielle went from $17,000 to $73,000 per month in organic traffic value: This change took place after six months through organic backlink placements.
- Content Allies jumped to $2,000,000 in organic pipeline value: Blue Things achieved that by building 20+ DR60+ monthly high-quality links.
Blue Things’s link-building services include:
- HARO link building
- Broken-link building
- Relationship link-building
- Finding unlinked brand mentions
- Digital PR techniques
- Professional link-building outreach
All these are based on thorough data and tied together by comprehensive SEO knowledge.
First, Blue Things will conduct a complete site audit and competitor research.
Their team of professionals only uses high-rated link-building tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush. Therefore, they will discover your link-building opportunities by studying your competitors’ keyword and backlink strategies.
They will also use tools like BuzzSumo to identify trends that interest your target audience and potential link partners.
Blue Things uses this data to craft an effective link-building strategy for your needs, so it:
- Identifies valuable link partners
- Creates a content strategy based on relevant keywords with high search volume and low to medium competition
- Creates high-quality content, such as guest posts on reputable websites with DR 60+
- Creates valuable content assets and tools for your website to increase the likelihood of organic inbound links
This awesome agency uses their link-building expertise to zero in on the highest-performing techniques, replicating them until you reach your SEO goals. And they’ll provide comprehensive reports of all their achievements, so you’ll always be kept in the loop.
Pro-tip for startups: Blue Things can also handle your technical SEO and oversee your SEO campaign if you need a more comprehensive, hands-off form of link-building.
Pro-tip for agencies: Blue Things offers white-label services you can use for your own clients with startups.
2. LinkBuilder.io: Customized Link-Building
- Services: Analysis and planning, strategy development, prospecting targets, outreach, relationship building
- Clients: JobSage, ARC Relocation, Online Course Site, Snack Nation, Follow Up Boss
LinkBuilder.io defines itself as a bespoke link-building agency for ambitious brands and agencies worldwide.
Founded in 2016, LinkBuilder.io has helped 350 companies with 20,000 links.
The SEO agency has a similar strategic approach to Blue Things because it:
- Focuses on strategy and data for link-building purposes
- Uses cutting-edge link-building tactics, without any excessive link exchanges
- A/B tests and experiments to find customized plans that work
Here’s how that works:
- After a comprehensive competitive analysis, plus a link and website audit, LinkBuilders.io defines your strategy and builds your outreach persona.
- Their experts will find relevant link opportunities, send outreach messages, and A/B test cold emails.
- The agency also monitors your efforts and prepares quality reports.
By comparison, Blue Things offers more SEO services, including on-page optimization, content creation, and overall SEO management. This larger focus helps you integrate your link-building efforts into a broader SEO plan, maximizing your budget.
3. PrestigeLinks: Best for Guest Posts
- Services: Guest posts, editorial links, blogger and influencer outreach, white-label link-building, niche edits, backlink quality check
- Clients: HVSEO, Study Gate, Vidyard, Pantheon, Preply, Bipper Media, Invalley, Airwallex, Binance
Prestige Links operates on two levels, just like Blue Things:
- White-label link-building for agencies
- Link-building for startups and businesses
However, all Prestige Links packages for companies refer to guest posting.
All these link-building packages are tempting. The turnaround times vary from 7 to 10 days, and the websites have high DRs of at least 40 at the least expensive service package.
This agency's link-building team will help you rank for those competitive keywords that fit your target audience’s search intent, thus gaining more qualified, organic traffic.
They promise:
- Do-follow links from websites with real traffic, not just high domain authority
- Native English writing
- 100% manual outreach, not PBNs or fake websites
- 12-point quality check to ensure no low-quality links
- Replacement guarantee if one of the links they’ve built gets deleted
Remember: Prestige Links offers just guest posts. Although these blog articles are high-quality, your bespoke link-building strategy might require other tactics Blue Things can help you with.
4. MarketingLad: All-in-One Digital Agency
- Services: Link-building, search engine optimization, SEO consulting, website development, landing pages
- Clients: Apexure, Beaconstac, Infuse Media, Heavy Duty Mobility
Marketing Lad is a good bet if you need an all-in-one digital marketing agency.
Their team of experts offers solid link-building services for startups, but they also boast:
- Growth marketing consulting for B2B SaaS
- General SEO
- Content creation
- Web development
This combination results in a hands-off approach for your startup so that you can focus your efforts in another direction, such as sales or product development.
In terms of link-building services, Marketing Lad promises to use 16+ ethical link-building and SEO tactics to increase your:
- Organic keywords
- Organic and referral traffic
- Domain rating
Their process includes:
- Website audit and competitor research
- Finding link opportunities in industry-relevant websites, such as editorial mentions, brand mentions, and guest posts
- Manual outreach for high link quality
- Performance tracking and reporting
Marketing Lad also helps you with technical optimization and on-page SEO, such as keyword research, content planning, and internal linking. Adding these services ensures your overall SEO performance is high.
Pro tip: While this agency seems close to perfect, they don’t create helpful content.
And content creation for guest posts is a major strategy for startups in terms of building links. If you need that in your SEO package, count on Blue Things to help.
5. Siege Media: Best for Editorial, Organic Links
- Services: Content strategy, SEO consulting, Digital PR, content marketing, link-building, copywriting, content creation, blog design, graphic design
- Clients: Zapier, Quick Loans, Adidas, Chime, Asana, Airbnb
Let’s jump from an agency like Marketing Lads with no content writing services to Siege Media, which primarily focuses on linkable content marketing.
Siege Media offers comprehensive digital marketing services in three niches:
- Fintech
- E-commerce link building
- SaaS
If your startup is in that niche, Siege Media will help you with a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, content, design, and link-building.
Pro tip: Siege Media focuses on a method of link-building called editorial links. Here’s how:
- Their content writers will create high-quality content assets for your blog, following your brand’s voice and tone.
- This content will rank for keywords with high link intent. Basically, high-quality content creators in your niche will find these valuable content assets and cite them without any need for outreach.
The benefit of getting brand mentions from high-quality bloggers and journalists is that Google will reward you with ever-growing search engine rankings.
- The problem: editorial links are also a more passive, long-term approach. Although Siege Media has a solid track record with this strategy, you may need a more active, hands-on link-building approach.
- The solution: agencies like Marketing Lad and Blue Things use tens of other link-building tactics for short to medium-term results.
6. LinkDoctor.io: Good Relationship Link-Building Services
- Services: Blogger outreach, guest posting, broken link building, content creation, and SEO services
- Clients: Arc Stone, Express Legal Funding, Prxy Scrape, Max Burst
Link Doctor prides itself in the human-centric route for link-building.
That means it nourishes relationships with content creators in your niche through:
- Professional email outreach
- Resource link-building
- Guest blogging
- Broken link-building
- And more
They will also integrate building links in a comprehensive package of content creation and on-page SEO to get the most out of your SEO efforts.
Link Doctor has three main unique selling points:
- It focuses on your business goals to find the best link-building opportunities.
- It offers month-to-month contracts instead of full link-building campaigns.
- It offers link replacement if you’re unhappy with the links or if they have been removed.
Link Doctor guarantees no:
- PBN links
- Made-for-guest-post websites
- Illegitimate DA/DR websites
Pro tip: Link Doctor has no pre-arrangements with content creators for publishing guest posts or brand mentions.
Although manually identifying and reaching out to bespoke link partners is a valuable way of getting inbound links, that’s not always the case.
Remember: Building relationships with content creators across niches can facilitate outreach. Authoritative creators don’t offer excessive link exchanges and brand mentions if there’s no topical relevance. So using our network doesn’t mean paying relevant sites to mention you; it simply means you are likelier to be mentioned by reputable creators in your niche.
7. Brainy Bees: Best for Content
- Services: Content marketing, social media, PR, and link building for SaaS, tech, and B2B companies
- Clients: Kontentino, PushPushGo, RocketLink, Senuto, and more
Siege Media took pride in editorial links obtained organically through high-quality content.
Brainy Bees takes this one step further because:
- It’s a more affordable agency for startups.
- It can build awesome content.
- It can conduct active link-building campaigns through outreach and PR.
While Brainy Bees primarily focuses on content creation, its link-building services are professional and high-quality.
The agency will:
- Get you valuable brand mentions using their network of PR partners.
- Look for ambassador opportunities.
- Secure relevant links from high-quality creators.
Brainy Bees has another advantage:
It does social media management and creates community groups on various platforms, like Quora and Reddit.
This helps you engage important potential link partners on different social media.
And that’s how you can get a steady stream of brand mentions in the long run.
Here’s the problem:
You may need more comprehensive SEO services, from on-page optimization to technical SEO and SEO management.
And the solution:
If you outsource all this to one agency, like Blue Things, you can integrate your link-building efforts into a more comprehensive SEO campaign.
8. Outreach Monks: Best for Editorial Backlinks
- Services: Managed link-building, link insertions, guest posts, white-label link-building, blogger outreach
- Clients: Express VPN, Zocdoc, Sephora, VPN Pro, Mac Paw, Trip Advisor, Coin Base
Outreach Monks’ unique selling point is editorial backlinks.
Much like Siege Media, this agency promises to help you gain organic mentions from high-quality creators in your niche.
These specialized bloggers and journalists will link to your most valuable resources without being pushed in that direction.
Google appreciates these mentions above anything because they signal credibility and expertise. So, Google will increase your ranking, leading to more exposure and qualified leads.
Unlike Siege Media, Outreach Monks actively reaches out to those expert journalists and bloggers.
Outreach Monks have several unique selling points:
- They can conduct high-quality backlink campaigns or simply get some link insertions.
- They offer white-label SEO services for agencies.
- They can produce local backlinks if you want to grow your startup in a geographical area.
Conversely, Blue Things can offer more comprehensive SEO services, including your link-building campaigns in a larger SEO plan.
How to Choose Link-Building Services for Startups
If you want to choose the best link-building services for your startup, focus on:
- Websites with high domain ranking and actual traffic
- Sources with topical relevance your target audience genuinely heeds
- Data-driven agencies that only use white-hat link-building tactics
Avoid red flags like cheap link-building services, black-hat tactics, and agencies that promise fast results.
Pro tip: The typical timeline to see results from your link-building process is at least three months.
That said, evaluate the agencies you shortlist through the lens of your business goals.
Blue Things is arguably your best bet because it focuses on scalable SEO strategies, is data-driven, and uses numerous white-hat techniques. The agency will use its massive network of relationships to facilitate your outreach, create awesome content, and advise you on everything SEO-related.
Basically, this is a versatile, affordable, and expert agency with a proven track record of results.
Remember that Blue Things CEO trusted it with its other company, and Blue Things delivered as expected. You can gain the same results.
Book a free strategy call, and we’ll answer all your questions.
