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Link building is a black box for SEOs.
We know that we need to do it, but have we ever really tracked the impact of links on organic traffic?
For this week’s session of The Agency Blueprint Podcast, we brought in Aaron Gray – founder of link building marketplace NO BS Links.
Currently, NOBS is acquiring over 5,000 links per month for customers.
Aaron has access to incredible amounts of data on what’s working in link building right now, he sat down with us to discuss how your agency should be approaching link building on today’s internet.
Timestamps
- 8:02 – How is NOBS able to acquire 5000 links per month?
- 16:49 – What is your review process during link prospecting?
- 25:52 – Does building a lot of links help?
- 28:43 – Do you recommend companies acquire links for sites that are NOT theirs?
- 32:42 – Tiered link building…Recommend it?
- 38:34 – What would you recommend for tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 types of links in terms of price and quality?
- 44:44 – Should people ONLY buy links?
- 49:11 – What is working in link building right now?
How is NOBS Links able to acquire 5000 links per month?
Our business is broken down into three major areas:
- link production
- publisher acquisition
- management
We use a hybrid system of our own as a prospecting tool. We scrape Google and other websites for prospecting. We use sales tools for our outreach. We verify our publishers and help them make money.
Our content processes are automated right down to every writer that we have. All of our writers go through HubSpot training so they understand how a good piece of content is written and that is why we produce content that ranks.
What is your review process during link prospecting?
We bring people on as actual publishers in the marketplace and add them to our database so that we can use them later but every time a client comes and picks a publisher we always send that publisher a custom pitch.
We have a review process in place that sorts all our publishers into different categories that we keep track of internally and we offer clients the best of the lot that we think will be beneficial for them.
Some of our clients, especially in the insurance industry, have huge link building budgets and they are always after high DR sites but what we have seen is such sites dilute their authority with time as they link out more and more. In such cases, low DR but highly niche relevant sites outperform them easily.
Does building a lot of links help?
For companies with big budgets, link building is like a form of reputation management. They want to be seen everywhere and they do not build links just to their websites, they, in fact, try to own the top results on Google’s first page using different properties that belong to them.
Do you recommend companies acquire links for sites that are NOT theirs?
I would definitely recommend it. These days you have to think about your reputation on the internet instead of just the reputation of one of your websites. You have to build positive press across the whole internet for yourself to get a better outcome long term.
By building links to other websites, you can effectively own and control the SERPs for your company.
Tiered link building…Recommend it?
Definitely. If done right, this technique is still as powerful as it used to be back in the day. You have to be smart about it and avoid patterns that can be flagged easily by Google. If you can make it look natural you will benefit from it for sure.
Specificity is of paramount importance here. Right from your tier 1 page to your money page it should all make natural sense and be highly specific and related to each other.
Do not think about it from an SEO perspective, think about it from a user perspective. If the user is benefiting from it then Google is not going to penalize you.
What would you recommend for tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3 types of links in terms of price and quality?
Depending on the niche, tier 1 links usually range between $200 – $300 mark. Tier 2 between $50 – $100 and tier 3 in a $30 – $50 range.
I would strongly suggest that you should never go for cheaper links as your tier 1 links. Doing so would hurt you more than it helps you because most of them will be spam or PBNs.
You should also avoid high DR website links that come cheap because that indicates that too much content is being produced by them and too many links are being sold. That eventually dilutes the authority of such websites, so stay clear of them.
Should people ONLY buy links?
I am a big believer that people should still be doing manual outreach for digital PR like helping reporters or building relationships with influencers. They can always hire us when their team is lagging behind for some reason.
I also think that doing some natural good on-site can actually earn you links so you should focus on churning out good content as well. A good technique is to build out good statistical pages. Most of the journals are not indexed in Google so you can take out good nuggets from such journals and write a post about it.
If your website has even a little bit of reputation and you give good data while backing it up with links to the right sources then someone will link to you naturally.
What is working in link building right now?
I think that people are forgetting the fundamentals of SEO. There is a meaning behind building a link and you should not build links just for the sake of building links. You should build links to rank instead and that too for good reason.
You should aim to build authority, trust, and expertise by showing proof that you are an expert.
At the end of your guest posts, you should add a bio of the author linking out to an author page which should have links to the author’s social media and other work he has done. This builds authority and trust in the eyes of Google and it pays off.
More on NO BS Links
No BS Links, provided by the NO BS Marketplace, is a service focused on delivering honest, high-quality link-building for SEO purposes. Unlike some traditional link-building services that may use questionable practices, NO BS takes a straightforward approach by offering transparency and working only with reputable, vetted websites.
Users can choose their own publishers or rely on NO BS to manage the entire process. The platform provides detailed reporting and ensures that all links are authentic, relevant, and helpful for improving search rankings. The service includes content creation, ensuring that any guest posts or link placements fit naturally into the context, aligning with white-hat SEO techniques for safe, long-term results.
The name “NO BS” reflects their commitment to avoiding shady tactics, offering reliable support, and providing clear visibility into the link-building process, from site selection to final reporting.
Lori Newmansays 
Elijah-Blue Vieausays