Home / Blog / Article

You need backlinks, especially the good ones.

The best way to get them? Working with a link building agency.

But how do you choose one that delivers real results?

We took off our agency hat, stepped into our clients’ shoes, and put together this article to help you learn how to hire a link building agency that fits your business needs and goals.

Why Hire a Link Building Agency?

Link building has been declared dead many times, yet backlinks remain one of the main ranking factors. It’s almost impossible to put your service or product out to the world without them.

Sometimes you need backlinks, but you don’t need an agency. You can delegate link building to your team in some cases, when you need very specific backlinks, like turning your unlinked brand mentions into links (this is called low-hanging fruit). 

If your budget is limited, you can still take a few steps, like doing outreach and a site audit. You just need to be very careful and smart about which tools and resources you use.

When it comes to understanding how your website is performing and what issues it has, SayNine can be very helpful, and it’s free. With SayNine, you can do a free SEO audit; all you need to do is add your website URL, and within an hour, you will get a full report about your website’s performance.

However, for medium and large businesses that want to invest in SEO, outsourcing link building is the right choice. Why? Here are a few reasons:

• It is cost-effective: Cheaper than hiring an in-house team. No salaries, tools, or training costs.
• It saves time: Link building takes a lot of effort. When you outsource, someone else handles it all.
• You get access to a huge network: Agencies have connections with thousands of websites, so you get valuable and credible backlinks faster.

How to Hire a Link Building Agency in 4 Steps

Step 1:  Research and Build a List of Potential Agencies

This may sound simple, but it is really effective. Start collecting big and unfiltered data. Search for link building agencies via:

• Google 

All you need to do is type phrases like “best link building agencies” or “top link building agencies” and start exploring the ones that appear. As you can see, our article is on the first page. Check it out, as we clearly break down some of the best link building agencies you should consider in 2026.  

• Ask LLMs

Ask questions to AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to get clear, direct answers. You can also make your prompt much clearer with specific queries, such as “SaaS link building agencies” or “link building agencies near my area,” and get more targeted results.

• Linkedin

To find link building agencies on LinkedIn, use the search bar to type keywords like “link building agency” or “link building services,” then filter by “Companies.” From there, visit their pages and look at the content they post to see how active and experienced they are.

• Your network of colleagues and friends

Let’s say, as a marketing company owner, you have a lot of colleagues in your industry who have had good experience working with an agency and getting good results. You can consider working with them, too. 

Now, you have a long list of agencies, which you’ll need to narrow down to find the best one.

Step 2: Filter Your List to Find the Best Agencies

You need a shortlist, so start filtering out agencies that don’t fit your goals or scammers selling spammy links. Here is how to clean your list.

• Offering many links at a very low price. These people most likely will give you comments/forum, or PBN links. You should stay away from those toxic backlinks.
  
• No social media presence. If an agency has no social profiles, you can’t verify who they are, what they offer, or who they’ve worked with. Better remove them from your list.
  
• Not interested in a long-term collaboration. A good agency will suggest discounts for link packages and show commitment to working long-term.
  
• Suggesting low-metric websites. Metrics like DR and traffic don’t guarantee avoiding toxic backlinks 100%, but they help you stay away from bad ones that won’t improve your rankings.
  
• Not showing a sample of websites they work with. You don’t want to risk your brand reputation and website authority with backlinks placed on spammy or irrelevant sites.

Now you have a better list, which means you’ve reached the step of contacting top agencies to make a final decision.

Step 3: Schedule Calls with Top 3 Agencies

We recommend getting on a call with each agency. You probably have questions ready, but our main advice is this: focus on listening more. Pay attention to what they suggest and how they think.

This is how we suggest you focus during the call.

• Ask about pricing. You have a budget in mind, so confirm their rates work for you and what’s included.
  
• Ask about backlink quality. What types do they build, and what metrics do they use when choosing websites for collaboration? Think DR, organic traffic, relevance.

• Share your concerns.  Discuss SEO issues your website has, and see how they respond and what solutions they suggest.
  
• Consider the human factor: Communication is everything. A call with a potential agency is like a job interview. You need to feel comfortable being open with each other. Link building is full of challenges, so make sure you can work with them toward a shared goal: growing your backlink profile. 

Now, take time to think about all the information you’ve collected and choose the agency that best suits your goal, budget, and overall vision.

One important note: Our tips for choosing a link building agency are true for most companies. But for enterprises, it can be a different story, though: more teams, more approvals, longer process.

Step 4: Do a Test Run Before Committing to an Agency

Finally, you choose an agency, and you hope it will be a long-term partnership. But you still need to prove that it is. How? Consider a minimal commitment: a one-month test run.

Most agencies, including SayNine, offer this option. During this period, pay close attention to the following factors:

• How is the communication going? Is it smooth enough or confusing?.
• Whether the agency actively finds and fixes issues that may come up.
• If they keep their promises, like agreed results and backlink value.

If all these factors check out, you scored a goal and found an agency you can work with for the long term.

Good vs Bad Link Building Agencies: Key Signs to Look For

How to quickly tell whether the agency you are going to work with is the right one. We have a few points that can be helpful for you.

Green flags

✅ Not overselling their services. This type of agency will just have a real talk with you. What you are doing, how they can help, and what they hope to achieve with you, with clear steps.

✅ Being honest. They share testimonials and case studies but clearly communicate that the same results are not guaranteed for every website. 

Every journey is different. The important thing is to be as real as possible, seeing issues and having a clear road to effective results.

✅ Caring about results. You can sense during initial research or during a call that the agency you potentially may work with wants to provide the best results possible. 

For SayNine is true, that in many cases our team suggests not to invest in link building without solving other content and on-page SEO issues, because without them, backlinks won’t work.

But we don’t stop here and suggest solutions as well, like if your website design isn’t what it should be, we suggest redesigning it to make it better and more professional. 

If your website has on-site issues, we can provide detailed reports and a roadmap on how to solve all of them.

✅ Proven track record in your industry. They have worked with companies like yours and can show it. 

Let’s say you are a SaaS company looking for a link building agency. SayNine has five years of experience helping companies in your industry get higher search engine rankings, which is a big plus when considering trusting your link building efforts to them.

Red flags

❌ Not writing from a professional email. Ignore messages from @gmail.com addresses. There is a high chance it is a scammer who can promise good backlinks, then delete their address and disappear.

❌ Many links at a very low price. A sign that they are selling links from comment forums or PBN websites.

❌ Overpromises. “Reach the first page of Google in two weeks.” Just run.

❌ No personalized outreach. They reach thousands of websites simultaneously, with Sir/Madam having copy-pasted phrases.

Why Choose SayNine

There are many top link building agencies out there. But SayNine could be the agency you should work with. Why? 

Here are just a few facts about SayNine that may interest you.

• Built 40K+ backlinks for 200+ companies
• Over 3,000 partners to get your backlinks
• Relevant, dofollow, and permanent backlinks from websites with strong metrics: DR 50+ and 1K+ monthly traffic
• Clear, transparent reports for tracking your website growth. If there is no progress, we do an audit and share the results with the client.
• Flexible pricing plans
• Natural link insertions in the most relevant places, done by our content team
• One-year guarantee on all backlinks. Removals don’t happen very much, and our collaborations with link building partners are quite strong. However, you can expect restoring or replacing any backlink that gets removed or lost within the mentioned time period
• Very transparent about what type of backlinks we provide

Final words

We get you. Choosing a link building agency is not easy.  

But it is necessary to have a strong website with valuable backlinks.

So, to make the process a little easier, we shared our insider tips on how to be smart and what to avoid during that process.

Hope it helps you find a company that boosts your website rankings and delivers real results.

If you see yourself working with SayNine, book a call and get answers to all the questions you still have.

FAQ about how to hire a link building agency