8 Best Link Building Agencies + Questions to Ask Before Hiring One

As a top 3% agency that delivers 4.5x average ROI for clients, we know what it takes to be great. Check out our list of the top link building agencies reviewed and vetted by our team of editors.

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

Let’s explore how link building works and how to find the best link building agency for your business.

Top link building agencies to consider

As a top SEO/SEM agency, our team at HawkSEM works with a huge array of different clients on everything from link building and landing page optimization to paid ads, and content marketing.

From time to time, we pass a client to another agency, like when our roster is too full to take on another project.

We make sure that we know the best in the business for this very reason – if we can’t be the one to help you, we ensure you’re in the best hands.

Let’s look at 8 top-notch link building agencies:

1. HawkSEM
2. FATJOE
3. PageOne Power
4. Siege Media
5. WebFX
6. Thrive Internet Marketing Agency
7. Dofollow.com
8. The Upper Ranks

1. HawkSEM

As a full-service and award-winning search engine optimization (SEO) agency, our teams at HawkSEM are stacked with senior-level marketing experts obsessed with over-delivering value for our clients.

We build comprehensive strategies to generate backlinks from quality, credible, and authoritative websites. We specialize in white hat practices – writing insightful, research-based, and unique content that encourages other sites to link to it naturally.

Our team builds deep relationships with journalists and influencers, ready to share our unique client stories and first-person perspectives. We have extensive past performance across social media, email, PR, SEM, and other complementary digital strategies.

It also doesn’t hurt that we have ConversionIQ up our sleeves — our proprietary software that provides AI insights for optimizing ads, landing pages, and web pages. With ConversionIQ, we can track link building campaigns to better measure ROI and continuously improve our strategy.

We are data-driven and results-obsessed – just look at our testimonials.

For instance, we helped:

• Verizon increase conversion growth by 3,200%
• Easly increase referring domains by 2,500% and their keyword portfolio by 1,500%
• Merill Lynch double lead volume

Our wide breadth of on-page, off-page, and local SEO, technical and creative expertise, and owned, earned, and paid media past performance means we offer clients complete, multi-channel solutions to achieve their goals.

Plus, we’re a whiz at the technical aspects of SEO, mobile UX, and digital optimization that really make or break your success.

From reviewing your backlink profile and cleaning up toxic backlinks to reverse engineering Google’s recent algorithm updates – if you have a problem, we’ll solve it.

If you’re overlooking an opportunity, we’ll find it, and if you’re an ambitious brand looking to next-level your results in 2024, we offer the best SEO link building services.

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
• Digital marketing
• Google Ads, Microsoft, Amazon
• SEO
• Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn Ads
• Data-informed campaign optimization

Clients

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

2. FATJOE

Founded in 2012, FATJOE is a backlink building agency 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

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 1000 clients annually and secured over 15,000 links.

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

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

Services

• Content marketing services
• Keyword research services
• Link building services
• SEO consulting services
• SEO services
• Technical SEO audit

Clients

• Intuit Quickbooks
• Hyatt
• BigSteelBox
• Lucidchart
• YorkTest

4. Siege Media

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

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

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

Best for: Fintech, ecommerce, and SaaS companies needing exponential growth and high ROI.

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

WebFX is a tech-enabled digital marketing solutions provider offering link building services and other digital marketing strategies.

It’s a Google Premier Partner and Meta Business Partner and boast over $3 billion in sales from its services and over 7.8 million leads captured for its clients.

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

Best for: Businesses seeking comprehensive, enterprise SEO services – everything from link building to conversion optimization, web development, and more.

Services

• SEO and lead generation
• 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

Thrive Internet Marketing Agency is a full-service digital marketing agency with over 150+ Google reviews, and supports more than 25 cities.

This agency can complement your off-page SEO strategy with keyword analysis, backlink audits, blogger outreach services, guest posts, broken link recovery, and more. It also offers white label link building solutions for agencies.

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

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

Clients

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

7. Dofollow.com

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

This SaaS link building agency takes a manual and modern approach to link building. For example, it’s evolving with the changing SEO landscape to take advantage of AI search, competitor analysis, quality content, and user experience.

Dofollow.com doesn’t do content or technical SEO — so if you don’t already have this foundation in place, it isn’t the right partner. It’s completely focused on link building and offers a rigorous editorial process and extensive media relationships.

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

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 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

Before hiring an agency, let’s take a quick step back and review quality link building basics, benefits, and partner considerations.

What is link building?

Link building is an SEO strategy of gaining backlinks from high-quality, authoritative websites to increase your organic search ranking and domain authority.

Google offers guidelines to webmasters to help them build quality backlinks.

In a nutshell, if your industry’s premier trade website links to your blog post, Google recognizes that a highly credible and relevant site appreciates your content quality.

Just think of a backlink as an objective vote of confidence. When Google sees this backlink endorsement, the overall authority of your site goes up, improving your position in SERPs.

Like so many digital marketing tactics, successful link building is part art and part science.

Let’s compare how different link building companies approach this crucial strategy.

How does link building work?

Link building is a process of writing the best, most comprehensive content on topics related to your business and encouraging other relevant websites to link to that content.

There are several ways to gain backlinks:

• Guest post for another website
• Publish press releases and byline articles
• Replying to relevant HARO requests for subject matter expert quotes
• Get interviewed by your industry press
• Present at conferences
• Run co-marketing initiatives with vendor partners
• Speak at podcasts
• Build community through social media
• Build profiles on ratings and reviews websites
• Win industry awards

This list is far from comprehensive, but each initiative could result in a third-party website mentioning your business and linking back to your website.

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.

It also helps when the anchor text is relevant to the topic and keyword. For example, if your content is about how to wash a dog, then the anchor text for the link should be something like “wash a dog” or “washing dogs properly.”

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 business 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 authority is to Google’s algorithm (among other factors.)
But, rankings isn’t the only business benefit. The value of each of these tactics extends far beyond generating backlinks.
Here’s an overview of link building business benefits:

• Higher authority in Google’s eyes
• Higher search engine rankings
• Deeper industry relationships with the press
• Public relations (PR) content distribution to widen your audience
• Fresh, high quality 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.)
• Lead generation through exposure on other sites
• Customer retention through 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 take a DIY link building approach?

Absolutely — many savvy 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 point-of-views 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 your patient, this strategy will still prove worthwhile for your business.

Partner with a link building agency to speed success

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 a less ethical, black hat link building company (e.g., recommending you buy links or publish on low-quality websites.)

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

1) Creating link-worthy content

• Performing keyword research to understand your target audience’s needs, search phrases, and intent.
• Interviewing your SMEs or executives to breathe fresh ideas into your content.
• Designing creative assets to bring your content to life (e.g., images, infographics).
• Writing content that resonates with your audience and business value proposition.

2) Pitching media and strategic outreach

• Finding the best fit websites where your audience reads and engages.
• Building personalized connections and relationships with key media at these publications, so they’ll cover your story, invite you to guest blog, interview your execs, and share your press release.
• Finding and building relationships with influencers, partner vendors, and other industry leaders for co-marketing opportunities.
• Sending personalized pitches to get your stories and interviews picked up and syndicated.
• Amplifying any earned media through social platforms, email marketing, and other digital channels.

3) Optimizing your website and earned backlinks

• Monitoring your earned backlinks for any broken links, so you can reach out to the publication and update it.
• Improving your website for technical SEO issues, which is another critical factor in Google’s search algorithm.

4) Reporting on backlink performance

• Measuring earned, owned, and paid media success.
• Reporting on earned backlinks, channel performance, and SEO success to identify opportunities for continuous improvement.
• Optimizing your strategy, based on reporting and performance.

Clearly, there’s tremendous value in bringing in experts that live and breathe link building and digital marketing.

As far as costs, the best link building services can range from $2k – $8k per month, depending on the volume of links and their quality.

Adding additional services (e.g email marketing or influencer marketing) will expand your marketing budget, but you’ll also receive a far more comprehensive suite of services.

Questions to ask to find the right link building agency

With so many different capabilities and strategies, choosing the right link building agency can make or break your success.

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

1. How long have you been in the industry?
2. Can you share successful link building techniques, campaigns, and case studies?
3. Do you have customer references?
4. Can you tell me about your media relationships?
5. How do you ensure the websites, publications, and media opportunities are authoritative and on-target for my ideal customers?
6. What is your process to build backlinks and ensure quality?
7. Which tactics would you employ to achieve [insert goal]?
8. Can you provide your reporting cadence, and what metrics do you measure?
9. What is your pricing, and what should I expect with [insert budget]?
10. Which certifications do you have?

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 – quality over quantity, always!

At HawkSEM, we follow white hat strategies and a “content is king” value-add approach. Plus, we obsess over tracking results of our clients’ link building campaigns to continuously measure ROI. In fact, it’s one reason we created ConversionIQ (CIQ) to better measure ROI of every link building campaign.

The takeaway

Successful link building requires a strategic approach to gain backlinks from high quality websites, resulting in heightened online visibility, authority, and search rankings.

You can DIY or hire an agency to help speed up your success. To find the right PR agency, you must understand their link building packages, tactics, industry experience, and past performance – paying special attention to spammy or unethical strategies.

Our senior SEO experts at HawkSEM would love to execute a comprehensive link building plan to improve your rankings and overall visibility. We’re smart, passionate, and obsessed with optimizing all aspects of campaign strategies and digital experiences to drive better results.

Contact us for a free consultation – we’re happy to answer your questions and kickstart a profitable partnership for your business.