Balling on a budget

Backlinks are so f*cking expensive.

I’ve seen Forbes links go for $40,000+.

Total insanity.

Most of the links I build cost somewhere between $200-400 on average.

But this still isn’t cheap, especially not for newer brands.

Even at my agency, we can only build 5-10/month if we get pretty creative.

Which we do, but it takes time.

Fortunately, we have the time. We’re an SEO agency, it’s literally our job to get creative with the budget to maximize ROI.

But you’re an eCommerce operator.

In addition to SEO, you have to oversee (or directly manage) Meta spend, Google Ads, product sourcing, fulfillment, customer service, and so much more.

You don’t have the time to get creative with link building budgets.

So I’m going to share with you a simple hack to build more links with less money.

It’s not a link exchange.

It’s not broken link building.

I don’t even have a name for it.

Let’s go with link subsidizing.

Scenario:

You want to build a link that costs $500 because it’s a great link.

But you don’t have $500. Or perhaps you might, but just barely.

You think your only options are 1) pay for the link or 2) not pay for the link.

Wrong. You have 3 options.

Split the bill with another website.

Reach out to a friend, another site owner, or whoever isn’t a direct SERP competitor of yours.

And offer them a position on the same guest post or link insertion as you for a discounted rate.

So now instead of you having to pay all $500, you can split the cost with someone else and simply add two links into the article.

Most publishers will let you add 1-2 links without any extra charge, though they may add an extra $100 or so.

Still an improvement.

Originally, you were paying $500 for 1 link.

Now, you & a friend are each paying just $250-$300 and you each get a link.

But you could be even more savvy.

Add a second friend, now the cost per person goes down even further to $150-$200.

Or better yet, you have your two friends subsidize the entire cost, so their cost per link is $250-$300 and yours is $0.

A free backlink, just for brokering the deal for your friends.

What a concept.

Go be creative with your link building budget, your brand’s future depends on it.

Kai

P.S. I’m thinking about hosting guest coaching calls in my 5 Hour SEO community with the Founders, CMOs, and Directors of eCommerce of some of the brands I work with at my agency. They’ll talk about non-SEO items, like how they think about scaling, growing profitably, sourcing products, building teams, etc.

This won’t happen until October, just wanted to gauge your interest. Reply back to me to let me know if you’d be interested in something like this.