Guest posting has always been and still is one of the foundational strategies of SEO. After all, it plays a vital role in securing backlinks and as a result helps your website in improving its search ranking. But what about buying guest post? In other words, I am talking about outsourcing link building to a link building agency or off-page SEO services company. Is this shortcut worth taking? Will it lead to any tangible success or backfire very badly on our SEO strategy.    

In this latest blog post, I will seek to demystify this intriguing question with the most comprehensive and persuading answer.

Why buying guest post is such an attractive proposition?

I think no one can live in denial that link-building through organic guest posting method can be a very time consuming and exhausting exercise. Reaching out to relevant websites, pitching blog topics and creating high quality content takes colossal effort. What makes it even more challenging is that this is not a one-time task. One has to repeat this task again and again unless your website’s domain authority has become so strong that it starts attracting high-quality backlink on its own. But one must bear in mind that it takes years before your website becomes a high authority website. Hence for many businesses out there including small businesses and startups, decision to outsource link building activity not only becomes a viable but also attractive option.

Although link building agencies or blogger outreach agencies are the most preferrable and obvious option for buying dofollow guestposts, SEO agencies can also be an option. Most of the link building agencies have a streamline process of selling guest blog articles to their clients.

You’ll have to first create an account and top up the account balance with your debit or credit card. All well-known agencies offer a wide range of categories to choose from. You can choose only one category at a time. For instance, if you choose finance category then you’ll shown only finance related websites.   

Each website will be accompanied with key metrics like domain authority, monthly traffic and the price for publishing the article on the website. If you’re happy with the metrics as well as the price of the article, you can select the article and happily pay the price.

Potential upside of outsourcing link building

• Access to high authority websites: Individually, it is a herculean task to establish any kind of relationship with high authority websites. But link building agencies are a different ball game all together. They already have relationship with high authority websites across different industries. As a result, you barely have to make any effort to publish an article on high authority websites, provided you’ve good budget on your side.

• Improved SEO performance: In the context of SEO, securing links from authoritative website is simply priceless. Since backlinks act as vote of confidence, it paves way for improved SEO performance, unlocking many great possibilities like growth in organic traffic and increase in brand awareness.

• High Quality Content: Most blogger outreach agencies boost a team of skilled and experienced writers who have mastered the art of crafting high quality content. They also make sure that articles conform to Google guidelines, ensuring that the link juice is passed to your website.

• Data Driven Decision: As informed earlier that most link building companies provide valuable website metrics like domain authority, page authority and monthly traffic. Therefore, you don’t make blind decisions but solid data driven decisions that gives you assurance about the expected success and helps in putting your planning on an accelerated process.

While buying guest post has many upsides but it also has quite a few downsides. Probably the greatest disadvantage is that you are completely at the mercy of the blogger outreach agencies. Although they give assurance about adhering to Google guidelines, this fragile trust can be easily broken. In case if they secretly indulge in black hat techniques then your website stands the risk of getting penalized by Google. If indeed penalized then it can have dire consequences for your website and also obviously for your business.   

Other downsides of buying guest posts

Explained below are other disadvantages and downsides in concise and brief manner.

• Concerns about quality: Some blogger outreach agencies give overwhelming importance to quantity while quality becomes a second priority. This implies that your dofollow guest posts could be placed in many low-quality websites.

• No control: As hinted above, you’ll absolutely have no control either on the quality of the content or link placement. This lack of control could be infuriating as factors like content quality and link placement can play a decisive role in determining whether the link juice would be passed to your website or not.  

• Immensely expensive: Buying guest post from agencies is more often an expensive proposition, especially if you’re adamant about getting links only from authoritative websites. This could cause a huge dilemma. Whether footing this expensive bill is worth it considering the possible risk of penalties and the resultant impact on your SEO campaign.

• Ethical or moral concerns: Although most agencies give assurance about conforming to Google guidelines, in the SEO world anything that comes in the realm of paid services invariably raises ethical concerns.   

Red flags

It is never good to be too gullible. Not least while dealing in business deals. It is always good to be cautious and look for red flags.

Below we’ve shared some the negative signs that you must be apprehensive about.

• Quick results: If any agency claims that their dofollow guest posting services can increase your website’s search ranking in matter of few weeks then this is a clear sign that you’re getting conned. Remember, even high-quality backlinks won’t ensure that your website will get a quick bump in search ranking.

• Promises that are too good to be true: Promises like first page Google ranking or 200% increase in organic traffic are actually a trap. These are false claims that are often made in a desperate attempt to acquire new customers. In other words, promises have to be ‘believable’ and practically achievable.

• Lack of transparency: Any reluctance on the behalf of the agency especially in sharing the performance of their past campaigns means that the agency is not as good as it claims to be. Conventionally, any successful company would be more than happy in sharing the success of their past campaigns or testimony of their clients.

• Always cross-check metrics: As mentioned above, most agencies always display the important website metrics in order to help you make a data driven decision. However, it always advisable to verify these metrics by using a third party tools. For instance, today there many good domain authority checkers available online.                    

Conclusion:

After listing out the advantages as well as disadvantages, I’d like to conclude that the decision to outsource link building becomes a question of personal prerogative for most businesses out there. Most businesses will have to objectively evaluate whether potential benefits outweigh possible risks and make a final decision on this sensitive matter. However, notwithstanding the incredible amount of time and energy required, organic link building may possible be the best and safest option. Moreso because of transparency and  also it gives you complete control over the guest posting process.