The top link-building agencies boost your online presence through strategic backlink services like manual outreach, high-quality content creation, and digital PR. We rounded up the top link-building service providers so you can find your best match.

Google measures the quality of websites that link to your website as an important search ranking factor.

But how do you get those high-quality links?

For most businesses, link-building services provide the extra help they need to get connected.

But finding the right link-building agency comes with its own challenges. That’s why we created this roundup of the top agencies you should consider.

1. HawkSEM

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As a full-service search engine optimization (SEO) agency, our team at HawkSEM is stacked with senior-level marketing experts who specialize in white hat link building practices — from creating insightful and original content to award-winning local SEO techniques.

We also leverage ConversionIQ — our proprietary platform that tracks link-building efforts to maximize ROI and continuously refine our strategy.

Here’s a look at some of our results:

  • 3,200% increase in conversion growth (Verizon)
  • 2,500% increase in referring domains (Easly)
  • 2X lead volume (Merrill Lynch)

Best for: Enterprise businesses seeking full-service solutions and senior-level expertise, backed by a proprietary conversion tool to track and optimize every strategy.

Services

  • Link building
  • Content creation
  • SEO
  • Conversion rate optimization (CRO)
  • Social media marketing
  • Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising

Clients

  • Honda
  • Microsoft
  • Nike
  • Mommy’s Bliss
  • Datadog

2. Fatjoe

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Founded in 2012, Fatjoe is a link-building company specializing in serving SEOs, marketers, and digital agencies to better deliver results for its clients.

Between its white-label service offering and on-demand platform, Fatjoe productizes link building and SEO services to help fellow agencies scale.

If you’re an agency looking for a leg up, outsourcing to Fatjoe offers ROI and margins that cannot be replicated in-house. Just ask the 40,000 key accounts relying on its service and platform offering.

Best for: Digital or SEO agencies looking for comprehensive, on-demand solutions to serve their clients.

Services

  • Link building
  • SEO
  • Digital PR
  • Content writing
  • Design and video

3. PageOne Power

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PageOne Power provides sustainable link building and strategic content to help businesses succeed through search.

With company headquarters in Boise, Idaho, PageOne Power has served more than 1,000 clients annually and secured over 15,000 links.

It offers content marketing, link placement, and technical SEO services, delivering quality backlinks to improve your website’s authority and brand visibility in the marketplace.

Best for: Small businesses to Fortune 500 companies or agencies looking for white label services.

Services

  • Content marketing
  • Keyword research
  • Link building
  • SEO

Clients

  • Intuit Quickbooks
  • Hyatt
  • BigSteelBox
  • Lucidchart
  • YorkTest

4. Siege Media

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Siege Media caters to SaaS, Fintech, and ecommerce industries, delivering end-to-end link-building services to get rankings and revenue for clients.

This agency specializes in generating links from publications like Fast Company, Thrillist, Fortune, and Business Insider.

Its combination of SEO expertise, high-quality writing, and creative chops is getting noticed — recognized on Inc.’s Best Workplaces list and the Inc. 5000 list.

Best for: Fintech, ecommerce, and SaaS.

Services

  • Content strategy and creation
  • SEO consulting
  • Blog design
  • Content marketing
  • Link building
  • Copywriting
  • Graphic design and video production

Clients

  • Airbnb
  • Y Combinator
  • Tripadvisor
  • Zillow
  • Intuit

5. WebFX

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WebFX is a digital marketing solutions provider offering link-building services along with a full suite of digital marketing strategies.

With strong industry relationships to generate quality backlinks, WebFX has an in-house team of over 40 influencers to gain attention from prominent publications.

Best for: Businesses seeking comprehensive, enterprise SEO services.

Services

  • SEO
  • Revenue marketing and CRO
  • UX and interactive
  • Technology

Clients

  • HydroWorx
  • Soundproof Cow
  • Refresh LED
  • Kent County Tourism Corporation
  • Resource Furniture

6. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency

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Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is a full-service digital marketing agency ready to complement your off-page SEO strategy with backlink audits, blogger outreach services, guest posts, and broken link recovery.

Its comprehensive solutions earned them Top Digital Marketing Agency by Clutch, Top SEO Provider by The Manifest, and Top 10 Agency by the Influencer Marketing Hub in 2023.

Best for: Businesses of all sizes and industries looking for a wide range of digital marketing services to attract, impress, and convert more leads.

Services

  • Reputation management
  • Web design
  • Social media marketing
  • Ecommerce marketing

Clients

  • The Farah Law Firm
  • Nationwide Construction
  • PARC Urology
  • Accurate Leak and Line
  • About Roatan Real Estate

7. Dofollow.com

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Dofollow.com is a bespoke link-building agency serving B2B, SaaS, and software companies.

This SaaS link-building agency takes a manual and modern approach to link building, taking advantage of AI search and competitor analysis.

Dofollow exclusively specializes in link building and offers a rigorous editorial process and extensive media relationships.

However, this means that content marketing and technical SEO aren’t included in their scope of work — so if you don’t have this foundation in place, Dofollow isn’t the right partner.

Best for: B2B services, SaaS, and software companies looking for user-centric link building solutions.

Services

  • Link building strategy
  • Media outreach
  • Competitor analysis
  • White label link building services

Clients

  • Surfshark
  • Resume.io
  • CoachHub
  • Vonage
  • LegalZoom

8. The Upper Ranks

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The Upper Ranks has more than 14 years of experience specializing in manual link building services to improve rankings and organic search success.

Trusted by over 500 SEO agencies and teams, it offers white-hat link building and custom link building services.

The Upper Ranks doesn’t believe in a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, it customizes its services to your business, website, industry, and project goals to gain the high-quality backlinks you need to generate impactful results.

Best for: SEO agencies, publicly traded companies, Silicon Valley startups, and in-house SEO teams

Services

  • Business and industry analysis
  • Website prospecting
  • Outreach
  • Writing and editing

Clients

  • Microsoft
  • Neil Patel
  • eBay
  • The Home Depot
  • SingleCare

Questions to ask your potential agency

Choosing the right SEO link-building services can make or break your success.

To find the best agency for your needs, ask the following questions:

Experience and credibility

  • What certifications do you have?
  • How long have you been in business?
  • Can you share successful link-building techniques, campaigns, and case studies?

Strategy and processes

  • What is your overall link-building strategy?
  • Can you tell me about your media relationships?
  • Which tactics would you employ to achieve [insert goal]?
  • How do you determine which sites to target for backlinks?
  • How do you ensure the links are relevant to my business?

Link quality and ethics

  • How do you ensure the websites, publications, and media opportunities are authoritative and on-target for my ideal customers?
  • What metrics do you use to evaluate link quality?
  • Do you disclose acquired links and their sources?
  • Do you create the content for outreach? If so, how do you ensure content meets our guidelines?
  • Will I have final approval on link placements, guest blogs, or featured content?
  • Do you ever pay for links or rely on private blog networks (PBNs)?

Reporting and transparency

  • What does your reporting include?
  • How do you measure link performance?
  • Can you provide your reporting cadence?

Pricing and terms

  • What’s your pricing model?
  • What should I expect with [insert budget]?
  • What’s the typical turnaround time for results?
  • Are there minimum contract terms or cancellation fees?

[Download the free checklist here]

These questions will help you find a partnership that feels right for your goals and business.

Remember to listen carefully and weed out any agency employing spammy tactics to generate backlinks.

The takeaway

Successful link building requires a strategic approach to build backlinks from high-quality websites, resulting in increased brand mentions, referral traffic — and ultimately website authority and search rankings.

While DIY efforts can work, hiring an agency accelerates your link building campaign results and ensures a more scalable, strategic approach.

The team at HawkSEM offers link-building packages to improve your rankings and online visibility. From SEO to PPC, we’re a data-driven agency that optimizes all aspects of campaign strategies and digital experiences to drive real results.

Ready to improve your link profile? Reach out today.

This article has been updated and was originally published in March 2024.

Link building FAQs

  • What is link building?

    Link building is the SEO strategy of earning links from other relevant sites that point to your website.

    Backlinks from high-quality, authoritative websites improve your organic search ranking and domain authority. When Google sees these backlink endorsements, your site gains more credibility in search results.

  • How does link building work?

    Link building works by getting third-party sites to link to yours. It involves strategies like:

    • Creating high-quality, shareable content
    • Publishing guest articles on reputable sites
    • Running digital PR and outreach campaigns
    • Building useful resources like tools or infographics
    • Earning local citations and directory listings
    • Responding to expert quote requests on HARO or Qwoted
    • Collaborating with partners on co-marketing content

    Google won’t weigh each of these types of links equally. For instance, a link from social media won’t hold as much authority as an interview with a respected journalist.

    Your link-building strategy should aim to consistently gain a number of links from many different sources to continuously demonstrate to Google that your business is a respected, high-authority website in your space and deserving of first-page positions in search engine rankings.

  • What are the benefits of link building?

    Link building is key to improving rankings in SERPs. The more reputable websites link to your content, the higher your domain rating is to Google’s algorithm (among other factors.)

    Link building offers increased visibility and organic traffic as well as:

    • Deeper industry relationships with the press
    • Public relations (PR) content distribution to widen your audience
    • Fresh content to engage customers
    • Third-party media for your sales teams to share with prospects
    • Mixed media to add to your website (e.g., video and podcast interviews)
    • Improved brand recognition and credibility

    Gaining backlinks through external promotion fuels your content strategy, PR efforts, sales team meetings, lead generation tactics, and customer retention goals.

  • Can you do your own link building?

    Yes, many businesses gain backlinks from reputable websites through writing informative and unique content.

    The DIY link building process is slow and time-intensive, but will incrementally grow your backlinks, exposure, and site authority if performed strategically and consistently over time.

    A DIY approach can be successful if you have the right team and connections. You’ll need:

    • Budget for sponsored posts, events, and content distribution
    • Team of writers or freelance resources to consistently write killer content
    • Subject matter experts (SMEs) or executive points of view to differentiate your content from the sea of alternatives
    • Industry connections and relationships with journalists to pitch your SMEs and content to the media
    • Creative design and media expertise to create images, audio, video, and more
    • Marketing resources to repurpose published content across sales and marketing channels
    • Technical resources to redirect broken links, set “no follow” links, and other technical SEO maintenance

    DIY link building tactics may seem less expensive than outsourcing, but you’ll face overhead costs to properly resource the team and tasks.

    Or, you may need to compromise with a slower and more ad hoc approach to generating backlinks. As long as you’re patient, this strategy will still prove worthwhile for your business.

  • What's included in link building services?

    Many link-building agencies offer complementary digital services and will handle all aspects of your backlink strategy, including:

    Creating link-worthy content

    • Keyword research
    • Interviewing SMEs or executives
    • Designing creative assets (e.g., images, infographics)
    • Content creation

    Pitching media and strategic outreach

    • Finding the websites where your audience engages
    • Building personalized connections with key media at these publications
    • Building relationships with influencers, partner vendors, and other industry leaders
    • Sending personalized pitches
    • Amplifying earned media through social platforms, email marketing, and other digital channels

    Optimizing your website and earned backlinks

    • Monitoring earned backlinks for broken links
    • Improving web pages for technical SEO issues

    Reporting on backlink performance

    • Measuring earned, owned, and paid media success
    • Reporting on backlink profiles and SEO performance
    • Optimizing your strategy

  • How much do link building agencies cost?

    The best link building services can range from $2,000 to $8,000 per month, depending on the volume of links and their quality.

    Adding additional services (like email marketing or influencer marketing) will increase your fees, but you’ll also receive a far more comprehensive suite of services.

  • Why hire an agency?

    Hiring an SEO link building agency ensures you receive a comprehensive strategy and expert resources to gain those quality links faster.

    Just be wary of less ethical, black hat link building and SEO companies (e.g., recommending you buy links or publish on low-quality websites.)

Patience Hurlburt-Lawton

Patience Hurlburt-Lawton

Patience is a writer, editor, and educator. As a content marketing manager at HawkSEM, Patience leans into the power of empathy and understanding to create content that connects the dots. When she’s not a writer, she’s a singer/songwriter, trail romper, and adventure seeker with her wolfie dog, Jackson.