Building backlinks is a vital part of your SEO strategy but finding enough organic links can be tough. If you are struggling, you might decide to buy some backlinks instead. However, if you do a quick search for buying backlinks online, you will get a lot of results telling you that it’s a terrible idea and you shouldn’t do it under any circumstances, but that isn’t necessarily true.
When you are trying to build links, it’s important that you know which backlinks to pursue. The prevailing advice is that you shouldn’t buy links because it will lead to you being penalized by Google. In the past, you could buy huge bundles of backlinks from anywhere and everywhere and the algorithms wouldn’t be able to tell, so your ranking would improve. But since the algorithms have been updated, they can now recognize this kind of link buying and you will be knocked down the rankings. That’s why people always say you should never buy links.
The thing is, it all depends on how you define buying links. Anytime you pay money in exchange for a link, whether that’s through a sponsored post or registering your site in a directory of some kind, you are buying links. The key is knowing which kinds of link buying are beneficial and which ones will get you penalized. Here’s everything you need to know about buying backlinks in 2020.
Why Should You Consider Buying Links?
If you read the Google guidelines, they put an emphasis on natural links. A natural link is any link that you haven’t specifically asked for or, more importantly, paid for. There are a lot of different ways to build natural links to your site, but they are all incredibly time consuming. Many businesses move towards buying links because it has a lot of benefits over finding natural links.
Saving time is one of the most obvious benefits. Even if you are reaching out to websites and asking for links without paying, that still takes a lot of time, which your marketing department could be spending on other areas. You will also see much faster results from buying links in bulk instead of waiting for natural links to come in.
You should also consider your competition because, even though everybody says that they’re not buying links, they probably are. In fact, the practice has become a lot more common these days, there are just different ways of doing it. If you find that your competitors are always beating you to the top spot on Google, it’s probably because they’re buying links and you aren’t.
The Downsides Of Buying Links
Although there are a lot of benefits, it’s important that you consider the downsides of buying links as well.
There is always a chance that Google will identify the link as a paid link and discount the SEO benefits. That means that you have paid for something that doesn’t benefit your business in any way. Sites that accept paid links can also be penalized and if you have multiple links from their site, that may damage your entire backlink profile.
In some cases, if you do a lot of link buying and you don’t have any natural backlinks at all, Google may catch you out and apply a penalty. If your site is penalized and you fall down the rankings, it can be very difficult to climb back up again and that will have a big impact on sales.
At this point, you might be thinking that it’s not worth the risk and all of those people that say you should never buy links are talking sense. However, there are benefits to buying links and as long as you do it in the right way, you should be able to avoid these potential downsides.
How Should You Buy Backlinks?
So, the key question is, how should you buy backlinks? The good news is, there are a few effective ways to buy links that won’t get you penalized by Google.
Where To Buy Links
The best way to buy links is to use a backlink service run by a professional SEO company. Instead of buying links in bulk, they will research and create content to generate high quality backlinks. For all intents and purposes, these links will be no different to the natural backlinks that you would normally generate, but all of the hard work is handled for you. As long as you do your research and find a reliable service, you won’t be penalized for using these links.
Using sponsored content is another great way to buy links to your site without getting penalized. You are still creating a great piece of useful content and posting on another site, so it is just as good as a natural link. The only difference is that you are paying a small fee to the site owner to post it.
Where Not To Buy Links
There are some link building strategies that you should never use because they will not work and you will most likely get penalized. The sites that offer to sell links in bulk should be avoided at all costs. These link directories used to work in the early days but now, they will be flagged up by Google immediately and you will drop down the rankings in an instant. They might be tempting because they offer to get you hundreds if not thousands of links for next to nothing, but those links will be poor quality and they will only hurt your business.
Private blog networks are another backlink buying scheme that catches people out. The way that it works is that you will get an email from a blogger claiming to own a list of different sites. For a small fee, they will give you links back to your site on all of their blogs. It sounds like a great deal because you will get a lot of natural looking links. The thing is, these blogs aren’t real and these private blog networks are set up as a quick money making scheme. Google has actively been taking them down, so if you use one, you will be penalized.
Although many people say that you should avoid link buying at all costs, it’s a good strategy as long as you know how to do it in the right way.