Every small business knows the struggle of ranking on Google. Even if you’re following every search engine optimization (SEO), your website can fall short of the top five search results. Now, you’re thinking that it’s time for a different approach: backlink buying. While buying backlinks does present some risk, if it’s done right, it can be rewarding and help your site rank higher in search engines.
Do I Need Backlinks?
Backlinks used to be the name of the game in SEO, and they’re still just as relevant today. However, it’s much more difficult to get unnatural links past Google’s systems.
Google continues to value authority as a primary criterion for search engine rankings, and backlinks are great ways to signify a site’s credibility. High-quality sites that link back to your page tell Google that your site can be trusted. Even social media backlinks count for SEO. The more relevant, high-quality links that point to your website, the higher you can rank on search results
What Is Backlink Buying?
Backlink buying refers to the process of paying for a link from another reputable website to link to your page. It’s a common SEO practice, and it can be done through:
- Paid guest posts
- Paid link inserts
- Paid directory listings
- Press release distribution services
- PBN hosting providers like Easy Blog Networks allow you to invest in creating backlinks you directly control
What Does Google Think of Backlink Buying?
Buying backlinks is a common part of paid advertising, and Google acknowledges that this practice is a normal part of the web economy. But buying links is still against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, so there’s some contradictory information from the search giant.
However, it clearly frowns upon buying backlinks to manipulate search engine rankings—what they refer to as “link schemes.” Some practices that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines include:
- Buying or selling links as part of a link scheme
- Excessive link exchanges or pages exclusively made for cross-linking
- Large-scale article marketing or guest posting with keyword-rich anchor text links
- Using automated programs or services to create backlinks
- Requiring links for the use of your website
What to Consider Before Buying Backlinks
Given the risks of buying backlinks, it’s a practice that deserves extra consideration. Here are some things to think about before taking the plunge:
Time
People assume that buying backlinks is a quick way to improve your search ranking, but as with most SEO, it needs time before you start to see results. When it comes to how long it takes for backlinks to get indexed, it can take a few days; however, a single backlink may take around ten weeks to affect your ranking.
Budget
You don’t want to buy cheap backlinks, as those are more likely to be flagged by Google as spam. High-quality backlinks can cost a pretty penny, with some of them reaching thousands of dollars.
Link Quality
Link quality is the most important factor to consider when buying links. You should know how to properly vet your links to ensure they’re credible and that Google will consider them legitimate.
Backlink Buying Strategy
Don’t go buying backlinks without a strategy. Be sure to:
- Consider how many backlinks you need
- Perform a link gap analysis
- Map out your anchor text
- Establish your drip dates
- Buy quality backlinks
Once that’s all completed, it’s time to focus on maintaining your existing backlinks.
PBNs: A Safer Link-Building Strategy
Buying backlinks is as risky as it is rewarding. A safer and more convenient way to generate credible backlinks is by building a network of blogs through Easy Blog Network’s PBN hosting service. You can get a completely natural hosting profile without footprints in minutes so that you can securely create organic links that point back to your website, and see your page rank climb higher and higher.