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Outsourcing White/ Grey Hat Link Building - Expansion Question

by Paul Tovey
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hello All,

I've been doing SEO for quite some time now and I've gotten to the point where I would like to start expanding into website design, content generation and pursuing some other great ideas i've had over the years but the sheer workload of managing all of this is taking up 100% of my time. Secondly and most importantly, over the years with all of these updates and rules, i'm frankly finding it hard to know what a 'good' link is anymore.

I never planned to be a full-time SEO, but here I am anyway. Stuck in this limbo of needing more time but with no end of workload in sight.

I've come to the conclusion that my white/grey hat link building work is the most time consuming of all activities so I would like to source this part of the work, but everybody I have spoke to wants a lot of money for this service, far more than I charge for a whole service! This makes is completely pointless as I would be making a loss. A lot of PBN companies have approached me, but without that monthly link report I end up with the inevitable 'I've done work, please believe me' scenario.

So...where does a guy even begin to find a RELIABLE white/ grey-hat SEO company (or person) they can outsource this work to?

Generally clients that approach me can afford to pay around $250 - 500 for ongoing SEO work. Is it even possible to find white hat SEO guys in this price range - and still have room to mark up the services a bit to make a little profit? If the answer is no, what can I offer these clients? There has to be something I can do for "ongoing SEO" in this price range.
#building #expansion #grey #hat #link #outsourcing #question #white or
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      I don't see what the problem is with no link reports.

      Why don't you monitor the SERP's and draw your conclusions based on that?

      You know nowadays when something go's wrong people will first disavow and after they ask questions, so you have to think whether you would like to deal with someone that sends out live link reports to everyone.

      I even go so far that we block all the back link crawling services like Ahrefs, Majestic, OSE and 150+ others on >90% of my sites so that it's hard for people to figure out which links are mine and which aren't. I don't do it for the full 100% cause it's not so unnatural that someone links with zero back links. (well actually I forgot it a few times when I added new domains but that works out positive ).

      As for your question, finding someone to do truly whitehat SEO for less then $250-$500/month as that's what your clients pay you. Good luck!

      For natural links you also need link bait content, and if you want to do it good that costs a lot of money.

      I hired 5 VA's in the past, giving them clear instructions that I want natural relevant links, none of them passed the test, I'm glad I used a throw away domain cause right now it's penalized by article directory links, bookmarks, blog comments and more of that crap. That's what most VA's see as whitehat / natural so be prepared!
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    There are some very good services right here on this forum. You can easily resell them to business owners. Some guys charge between $99-$149 / month for 2-6+ keywords and you can flip that for $200-$300. Then price it out based on volume of keywords. I'd also do SEO on your own to reduce costs. Its not difficult if you target wisely and use your brain.

    -RS
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by RedShifted View Post

      There are some very good services right here on this forum. You can easily resell them to business owners. Some guys charge between $99-$149 / month for 2-6+ keywords and you can flip that for $200-$300. Then price it out based on volume of keywords. I'd also do SEO on your own to reduce costs. Its not difficult if you target wisely and use your brain.

      -RS
      He wants live reports but none of the ones you mean provide that. Although maybe John does, no idea really.
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  • Profile picture of the author Paul Tovey
    Any suggestions RedShifted?

    Nik0 - I personally have no problem with no reports, infact I prefer it this way. But you seem to be forgetting than many people looking for SEO are well aware of Penguin, Panda and all of the major updates.

    The majority of them I speak to have hired an 'SEO Guru' before and been hit by a penalty at some point, thus, when you turn around to them and say: 'I will do work for you, but I can't show you any evidence of the links i'm building' all kinds of alarm bells start ringing for the client.

    And rightly so! It's like me saying to you 'Don't worry, it will be sunny on Wednesday.. maybe, just give me some money'. You also cant guarantee anything, so essentially its uncertainty + uncertainty. See my point? Clients need to know at least basic details of whats going on.
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

      Any suggestions RedShifted?

      Nik0 - I personally have no problem with no reports, infact I prefer it this way. But you seem to be forgetting than many people looking for SEO are well aware of Penguin, Panda and all of the major updates.

      The majority of them I speak to have hired an 'SEO Guru' before and been hit by a penalty at some point, thus, when you turn around to them and say: 'I will do work for you, but I can't show you any evidence of the links i'm building' all kinds of alarm bells start ringing for the client.

      And rightly so! It's like me saying to you 'Don't worry, it will be sunny on Wednesday.. maybe, just give me some money'. You also cant guarantee anything, so essentially its uncertainty + uncertainty. See my point? Clients need to know at least basic details of whats going on.
      If they find you through a website and they know nothing about you then I can imagine that scenario yes.

      For me it's a different scenario as people know me from the forums and I have public sales threads where everyone can leave a response and in case I would neglect to do my job there's no reputation management that can fix that.
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    • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
      Originally Posted by Paul Tovey View Post

      Any suggestions RedShifted?

      Nik0 - I personally have no problem with no reports, infact I prefer it this way. But you seem to be forgetting than many people looking for SEO are well aware of Penguin, Panda and all of the major updates.

      The majority of them I speak to have hired an 'SEO Guru' before and been hit by a penalty at some point, thus, when you turn around to them and say: 'I will do work for you, but I can't show you any evidence of the links i'm building' all kinds of alarm bells start ringing for the client.

      And rightly so! It's like me saying to you 'Don't worry, it will be sunny on Wednesday.. maybe, just give me some money'. You also cant guarantee anything, so essentially its uncertainty + uncertainty. See my point? Clients need to know at least basic details of whats going on.
      I have no idea.

      What I can tell you is this.

      The guy I use does NOT provide backlink reports. Yet I know for a fact there are many people who still resell his services to business owners.

      Maybe its part of how they pitch their service. They might tell business owners straight out, "Look, when you sign this contract you agree that you only care about 1 thing, rankings. For security reasons, and because of recent Google updates we no longer provide backlink reports." etc etc.

      Then I'd show them a crapload of fake testimonials. But thats just me and part of the reason why I don't sell SEO.

      Best thing I can tell you is just go find SEO services where people are asking questions like "can I resell this to business owners" then right after that you see them placing orders. Find those people, contact them, and ask them what they do.

      Theres 2 I know of off the top of my head. Maxrezn and Sir Thomas. They both post in the offline section a lot. And you can ask them how they go about it.

      -RS
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        For what it's worth.

        Many of my resellers sell a complete marketing service, so organic rankings is just part of the game and thus the clients don't focus too much on the ranking part.

        So I guess it's all about how you sell it.

        Another one of mine that only put focus on the selling part is showing sites that he ranked, and he is ranked #1 himself for the main keywords in a certain country.

        The ultimate proof!

        How? SAPE, 301 redirects, Massive spam!

        (obvious end customers don't have to know that and he doesn't prefer to use that on his client sites, hence he hires me, but he does use it to show off)
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  • Profile picture of the author alvinchua91
    Well, I run an SEO company, you can PM me. Prices will have to depend on your niche - hopefully no adult niche please.
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