Does your digital marketing agency offer link-building services?
If not, you’re missing out on one of the core aspects of SEO. Backlinks are a proven ranking factor on search engines like Google, and they’re a notorious needle mover when it comes to search rankings.
According to research by Backlinko, the #1 result on Google contains an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions 2 – 10.
In our experience, closing backlink gaps is one of the most effective ways for our clients to outrank competitors.
Yet, link-building is difficult, time-consuming, and takes years to master.
When polled, 52.3% of digital marketers report that link-building is the hardest aspect of SEO, and it’s not just due to time-consuming email outreach, either.
A big part of the difficulty stems from how long it takes to establish a link infrastructure strong enough to consistently build links for clients. To do so, you need to build relationships with news outlets, media sites, and blogs from virtually every industry.
As a result, not every digital marketing agency will have the capacity to offer link-building.
The solution?
You can use white-label link-building services to A) offer link-building services to your clients under your brand name and B) not have to actually build the links in-house.
It works by hiring another digital marketing agency to build backlinks for your clients. You then repackage the links under your brand name, and your clients get to receive valuable backlinks to improve their search rankings.
In this article, we’ll teach you everything you need to know about white-label link-building, including how to pick the best provider for your needs, so stick around!
Understanding the White-Labeling Process
First, let’s quickly define white labeling, as it’s not completely synonymous with traditional outsourcing (as some falsely assume).
At its core, white labeling is a way for a business to offer products and services that it doesn’t produce in-house.
Instead, the company outsources the creation of a product or service to another company. Once it’s finished, the original company rebrands it as their own and sells it to their customers.
As a result, the customer has no way of knowing that the product or service they purchased was actually produced by another company.
Do you know how popular grocery stores like Walmart often have their own ‘generic’ brand of products?
In Walmart’s case, its Great Value brand offers all sorts of popular products at discounted rates, including things like paper plates, peanut butter, and a million other things.
The catch is that Walmart doesn’t actually produce all these goods. Rather, they use white-label providers to produce each product (such as peanut butter) and then repackage them all under the Great Value brand name.
To quickly summarize, white labeling is a form of outsourcing where you sell repackaged third-party goods and services under your brand name.
The name ‘white label’ comes from old product labels (which were traditionally white) that said ‘Your Brand Here.’
How white-labeling applies to SEO and link-building
In the SEO world, there are digital marketing agencies that offer white-label services like link-building, content creation, and technical SEO audits.
These services come in handy for other marketing agencies who aren’t able to offer something like link-building in-house.
Instead of forcing their clients to run SEO campaigns without any link-building, white-label services grant them the ability to offer things like backlink outreach without having to expand their workforce (or learn new skills).
Since white labeling involves repackaging outsourced materials under your brand name, your customers won’t know that you’re not handling everything in-house. That means you’ll get the credit for all the links another agency builds for you, which is definitely a plus.
Here’s a breakdown of how a typical white-label link-building process works:
- An agency finds a white-labeling partner to work with to provide link-building to their clients. Both parties agree upon payment and the services provided before moving forward with the partnership.
- Next, the hiring agency provides the white-label agency with a list of backlinks they want to build for their clients. The agency will then build the links using a variety of techniques, such as digital PR, link insertions, and fixing broken links.
- Some providers will also create content to obtain backlinks, such as writing guest blogs, creating press releases, or designing infographics to attract shares. However, not every white-label agency will provide content creation for link-building, so check that they offer it beforehand.
- The white-label agency will provide results to the hiring agency. All reports will contain the hiring agency’s branding (or will be presented in a format that makes rebranding easy).
- The hiring agency then presents the rebranded results to their clients with the insinuation that they built the links without any outside help.
The different types of white-label link-building services
There are also three distinct types of white-label services that you can use when working with providers.
They are:
- Managed services. This is where the white-label provider handles everything. In the case of link-building, the white-label agency would conduct the outreach, secure the link placements, and provide the results to the hiring agency.
- Self-service. In this situation, the hiring agency handles the outreach by themselves, leaving the white-label agency to secure the link placements.
- Hybrid. There’s also a hybrid model where providers and agencies can rotate between handling some outreach and leaving everything to the white-label agency.
| Should you hire a freelancer or an agency? As with traditional outsourcing, you’ll have the option to use either individual freelancers or full-fledged digital marketing agencies.
Your choice will come down to your specific needs. If you’re on a tight budget and only need a handful of links built, opting for an individual freelancer is the way to go. Conversely, if you really want to provide your clients with top-notch links on a consistent basis, you should hire a white-label agency (just make sure you have the budget for it). |
When Does it Make Sense to Use White-Label Link-Building?
White labeling is undoubtedly handy and yields many benefits, but it’s not always the right choice.
Before you start researching white-label digital marketing agencies online, you need to confirm that you 100% need to white-label your link-building services.
For example, let’s say you run a newbie digital marketing agency offering content creation and technical SEO audits to a handful of clients. At the moment, your clients are handling their link-building either by themselves or with products from other agencies.
However, your business is humming along fine and you aren’t getting any complaints from your clients.
At this time, there’s no need to add white-label link-building to your services. Instead, you should wait until A) your clients start requesting link-building or B) you begin to scale your business and want to add other services.
Here’s a list of instances where it does make sense to use white-label link-building:
- Client demand. If a large number of your clients are asking for link-building, it’s time to consider white-label services, especially if your current staff can’t handle the extra workload. At a certain point, it’ll become extremely difficult for a digital marketing agency to remain competitive without offering link-building services (since backlinks are such an important ranking factor).
- Lack of in-house expertise. While you may employ expert content creators, SEO auditors, and strategists – link-building may not be in their wheelhouse. The last thing you want to do is try to become a link-building expert overnight, as there’s way too much to know. If you don’t have any link-building gurus on hand, white-label services are the next best thing.
- Cost-effectiveness. Hiring an in-house team of link-builders is incredibly expensive. Most industries face costs of $4,000 – $20,000 just to onboard a new employee, and that doesn’t include salary or benefits. For this reason, white-label link-building is far cheaper than hiring new staff.
- Scalability. White-label services are great because they’re a scalable solution. As you grow your business, you can add new capabilities (like link-building) without having to expand your workforce, which saves a ton of money.
If any of these situations apply to you, then it’s a good idea to consider working with a white-label link-building agency.
What are the Benefits of White-Label Link-Building?
We’ve already mentioned that white-label link-building will yield many benefits for your business, but we haven’t dived into the specifics yet.
Besides gaining the ability to provide link-building services to your clients, there are plenty of other perks to using a white-label link-building agency, so let’s take a closer look at them all.
Access to specialized expertise
Link-building is something that takes years to master, not only because of the skills involved (outreach, blog writing, etc.) but also the infrastructure.
By infrastructure, we mean having existing relationships with news outlets, media sites, and blogs from virtually every industry.
A vast link network is a necessity for any marketing agency claiming to offer link-building services.
It’s also a major reason why smaller agencies choose to use white labeling to provide backlinks to their clients. While a small digital marketing agency may lack the connections necessary to build backlinks for a landscaping supply company, it’ll be a cinch for an experienced link-building agency.
Seasoned link-builders also keep up with Google algorithm updates, which are extremely frequent and vary in impact.
For example, the Core Update for March of 2024 was an infamous one, as it cracked down on spam and AI-generated content in a big way.
If you aren’t able to keep up with these algorithm changes, you’ll have a tough time building links for your clients. Luckily, the best white-label link-building agencies are always well aware of these updates (and their potential impacts).
Increased revenue
There are two primary ways that white-label link-building will increase your revenue, which are:
- It costs far less to outsource link-building services than to hire in-house, so you’re already saving money.
- You’ll generate more revenue by being able to offer link-building services to your clients, which can A) help you convert new clients and B) increase the bill for existing customers (assuming they choose to build links with you).
While you’ll have to pay the white-label agency for their services, it still pales in comparison to the costs involved with hiring new staff. Moreover, you’ll start generating more revenue by the simple fact that you’ve expanded your service offerings.
It provides benefits for your clients, too
You aren’t the only one who will benefit from white-label link-building services. Since you’ll be able to start building high-quality links for your clients, they’ll also receive perks.
In particular, high-quality backlinks will help your clients outrank competitors, achieve higher rankings, and generate more leads and sales.
As a bonus, the happier your clients are, the more likely they are to recommend your services to friends and colleagues.
You can focus on your core areas of expertise
If your agency’s primary strengths are content creation and keyword research, the last thing you want is to bog your team down with learning how to build backlinks.
By outsourcing your link-building to a white-label agency, you’re free to focus on what you do best.
As a result, your team will fire on all cylinders. You’ll be creating outstanding content tailored to relevant keywords while your white-label agency builds valuable backlinks for your clients.
This is a far better scenario than trying to handle everything on your own (and having your primary areas of focus not receive enough ****).
How to Choose the Right White-Label Link-Building Partner for Your Needs
At this point, you should understand what white-label link-building is and how it can benefit your business.
Now, it’s time to learn how to select the best link-building partner for your specific needs (and the needs of your clients).
Here’s a step-by-step guide for researching and selecting a white-label link-building agency.
Step #1: Make sure you have a basic understanding of link-building
First, you should strive to educate yourself on the basics of link-building.
Why should you do that when you plan on outsourcing the process?
It’s important to know the basics of link-building so that you don’t get ripped off. It will also help you understand the types of backlinks your clients need to outrank competitors and rank higher on the SERPs (search engine results pages).
The last thing you want is to hire a white-label agency that builds extremely cheap, low-quality backlinks for your clients. Doing so will harm your agency’s reputation, and you’ll waste money hiring a white-label link-building provider that isn’t worth its salt.
Here are some basic facts you should know:
- Backlinks act as credibility votes on search engines for the quality and accuracy of content.
- Relevancy is an extremely important factor when determining the quality of a backlink. In other words, the page containing one of your links must relate to what you do in some way.
- You can determine if a backlink is worth pursuing by analyzing the website’s domain authority.
To learn more, check out our Learning Hub post on the importance of link-building.
Step #2: Determine your client’s backlink goals
Before you start researching providers, you should come up with a game plan for your clients. In particular, you should determine:
- How many backlinks do they need to build by analyzing competitors outranking them (how many more links do they have?)
- Which keywords your client wants to rank #1 for (and who is currently in those spots)?
- What’s your client’s target audience, budget, and timeline to achieve results?
Once you have an answer to these three questions, you can move on to the next step.
Step #3: Research providers and look for social proof
Okay, now it’s time to search the web and start looking for white-label link-building agencies.
Besides looking at individual provider’s websites, there are plenty of guides online comparing different white-label agencies, so take a look at them, too.
Also, you should try to find social proof for every agency that you’re considering partnering with. This means looking for third-party reviews, testimonials, and case studies.
The reviews on the provider’s website will undoubtedly be positive, so do some digging on third-party websites to find less biased reviews and testimonials.
Do you know anyone who uses one of the agencies you’re considering?
If so, reach out to them and ask for their two cents. One of the best ways to find a suitable provider is to ask colleagues, so browse through your network for contacts who may use white-label link-building.
Step #4: Ensure they use ethical strategies
Next, you need to make sure that they’re a clean provider. By that, we mean they strictly use ‘white-hat’ link-building techniques that don’t violate search engine guidelines.
Some agencies engage in nefarious ‘black-hat’ link-building techniques that violate search engine guidelines. These tactics are extremely risky because they could land you a manual penalty from Google, which can cause your content to disappear from the SERPs entirely.
Black-hat tactics may provide fleeting success for some clients, but they’re a ticking time bomb.
Here are some red flags to watch out for when looking for white-label link-builders online:
- Using PBNs (private blog networks). These are vast networks of ‘dummy’ sites that only exist to feed links to a core site.
- Offering backlink packages for dirt cheap prices. If you see 1,000 backlinks offered for $15, it’s clearly a bogus deal filled with garbage links.
- Fake guest posting services that post on fake websites (that may be part of PBNs or link farms).
Step #5: Look for transparent reporting
Next, you’ll want to choose an agency that provides real-time reporting on campaign progress and quality metrics.
This provides a level of transparency that ensures no foul play is taking place (such as faking numbers to make them look more impressive).
Real-time reporting is a sign that an agency is trustworthy, and it’s handy to be able to check on the progress of your backlink campaign any time that you want.
Step #6: Consider end-to-end providers
An end-to-end provider is an agency that will A) conduct outreach B) create content and C) add the link placements (or ensure they get added by site owners).
End-to-end service is great because it provides a seamless experience from start to finish. Also, it means the white-label agency will handle every aspect of the link-building process for you, freeing up your team to focus on more important tasks.
Step #7: Check their own backlinks
Lastly, it’s time to see if the agency puts their money where their mouth is. In other words, you should audit their website’s backlinks to see if they practice what they preach.
Ideally, they should have a strong backlink profile with a solid domain authority score. If their metrics are less than flattering, it’s a sign that they aren’t the real deal. You should only work with a white-label link-building agency if they have flawless SEO and link-building metrics for their own website.
White-Label Link-Building with The HOTH
We’ve covered a lot so far so let’s briefly recap:
- White-label link-building is where you outsource link-building services to another agency. From there, you repackage the links under your brand name to your clients.
- It’s a cost-effective way to add link-building to your repertoire, and it’s cheaper than hiring in-house.
- You should look for providers who A) have great backlink metrics and B) boast flawless reviews online.
At The HOTH, we provide renowned white-label link-building services to other digital marketing agencies.
Here’s what makes us different:
- We offer a wide range of effective link-building services (digital PR, outreach, insertions, etc.).
- Our reports were built to be white-label from the ground up, making it effortless to add your own branding.
- We boast one of the largest link networks online consisting of 300+ news outlets and media sites.
- Our team can build valuable backlinks for virtually any industry.
- We have a proven track record and flawless testimonials.
Our customer service is also the best in the biz, as our clients NEVER have to wait long before one of our team members reaches out for assistance.
If you’re ready to expand your services and offer link-building to your clients, don’t wait to try out our white-label services today.
Besides link-building, we also offer other SEO products for reselling, so don’t wait to get in touch to discuss your options in more detail!
