Why You Need an Expert to Manage Your Link Building

Can I build my own backlinks?

Of course, you can do anything yourself. You’ll just need the knowledge, process, and time to sustain a daily outreach campaign. You’ll need to build lots of links each month (at minimum) for this strategy to work, which means you’ll need to dedicate several hours per day to research, outreach, pitching, and negotiation. You need to know which type of anchor text to target and why, which to avoid, and which pages to link to so you don’t cause any issues.

One of my clients, had tried this, attempting to handle everything in-house. This was at a niche e-commerce company, doing about $800k/day in revenue. For them, it quickly became overwhelming. Mark (the ecommerce manager) told me that once we started working together on link building, their results doubled in just six months.

What if I just use a tool to automate my outreach?

Automation can help speed up some tasks, but it can’t replace personalized, thoughtful outreach. Automated emails often get ignored or marked as spam, and they can damage your reputation. You probably delete or ignore dozens of automated emails every month yourself. Expert link builders create custom strategies and messaging to ensure higher success rates.

We have a partnership with (insert website), can I ask them to give me a backlink?

It can’t hurt. However, we need to build lots of links each month, and we need variety in our backlinks. So you will probably run out of opportunities very quickly, and we’ll be right back to needing to start a backlinking campaign.

If our employees post links on social media, will that help?

No, that won’t do anything.

If we post comments on other websites with backlinks, will that help?

Sorry, no.

Can I pay for backlinks?

Technically, yes, but it’s risky. Google’s guidelines strictly prohibit paying for links to manipulate rankings. If you’re caught, your website could face penalties, which could hurt your traffic and rankings. A professional link-building expert knows how to acquire links sustainably.

“We once worked with a low-cost provider who paid for links, and it got us absolutely nowhere,” said Annalise, my client at a B2B SaaS firm. “Switching to sustainable, white-hat link-building strategies saved us from risk of penalties and got us back on track.”

Do I need backlinks if my content is already high-quality?

Only if you’re in a clearly dominant position in your market. I’ve had a few clients like this, and it means they can invest more in creating great content. But for most brands, without backlinks, the content can’t reach its full potential. Backlinks act as endorsements that help search engines recognize your content as authoritative. Even the best content won’t rank well without a strong backlink profile.

What if I focus on internal linking instead?

Internal links are valuable for helping users navigate your site and distributing link equity, but they don’t replace backlinks from other websites. Search engines use external backlinks as a trust signal, which internal links alone can’t provide.

Can I just wait for backlinks to happen naturally?

You can, but you’ll be waiting a long time, during which your competitors will be acquiring backlinks too. Proactive outreach is necessary to accelerate link acquisition. Relying on organic backlinks alone won’t give you the volume or quality needed to compete in most industries.