Link trading vs. accepting paid links

Éowyn

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Hello builders. I was wondering when it’s best to do a link trade vs. accepting paid links. Recently, a relatively known SaaS founder in my niche offered to pay for a backlink in a post I wrote that ranks for a keyword the individual is interested in. Would it be better for the site long term to do a free link exchange instead of the backlink? Or is there a catch I might be missing?

Also, is there some equation to roughly calculate your backlink prices? Do I just add a zero to my DA? That’s probably a bad idea. I’d like to give a fair number and not just pull a random number out of a hat.

Any advice on how to go about link trades/backlinks is appreciated. Anything to be aware of or cautious of would be too. Thanks for reading & your time. Wish me luck!
 
I'd rather have a backlink from a Saas, than $200, that's for sure. In the long run, good links are worth way more than a few hundred.

However, it requires you can do a 3-way trade, so you don't link to each other. Also be prepared that they're not interested in that and just want to pay.

As for cost, that's very relative. I wouldn't roll out of bed to click a few mouseclicks for less than $150, regardless of your site strength. I'm not really up to date on the price of links, but it all depends on DA and stuff like social following and how relevant your site is. Get paid enough, with each sale, you get more offers and then before you know, you're a glorified linkfarm, so be careful.
 
I personally don't do link insertion (that is when they want you to place a link in an existing article). If they do want a link - I offer them a paid option with criteria that they have to meet. They rarely meet the criteria (if they even respond back in the first place).

Link trade would be the way to go. You get them a link on a 3rd party site they can't get a link on and you get a backlink. Win Win.
 
Thank you all so much for your feedback. This is very helpful. I definitely don’t want to be a glorified link farm. This three way link trade means I must build another website in a similar niche, age it, rank it, etc which will take longer than a week. It may not be an option now, but something to look into.

The request didn’t say the link must be a do-follow. So maybe I could offer the first spot on the post with an expanded mini tutorial on how I’d use the SaaS with a no follow linking out to them in exchange for a backlink to the site. Would this be reasonable? I could add an additional post too to make it feel worth it for them. Though would this still count as the 2 way link to be avoided?

wikibum said:
I personally don't do link insertion (that is when they want you to place a link in an existing article). If they do want a link - I offer them a paid option with criteria that they have to meet. They rarely meet the criteria (if they even respond back in the first place).

Link trade would be the way to go. You get them a link on a 3rd party site they can't get a link on and you get a backlink. Win Win.
Click to expand...

When they’re stuck on having a link insertion, what would an example of this paid criteria be (whatever your comfortable expanding)?

Again, thanks for your insight.
 
Selling one single link isn't a big deal, especially to a reputable company with plenty of referring domains already. But just realize that once you sell one, it'll be that much more easy mentally to sell the next one and so forth.

But no, one link isn't going to doom you. Google isn't psychic and won't know if you accepted money for it, versus trading link-for-link. There's 0.0000001% risk here in this one single transaction.

Yes, they will expect it to be dofollow. No, you shouldn't mark it as sponsored if you're going to leave the link dofollow. You shouldn't mark it as a guest post either. Either sell them the link properly or don't bother because you won't be able to convince them to accept anything less than a proper link. And Google doesn't take kindly to you telling them it's a paid for link while leaving it dofollow.

Three-way trades, as mentioned, can be a good way to hide a footprint if you're doing a lot of link trades. You're not doing that, but if you do, maybe you can find a buddy willing to get involved with that link-love-triangle.

Will receiving a single link be more valuable to you in the long run than accepting the cash? That's hard to answer because we don't know if you're site is earning now, if you'll stick with it for the long-haul, what changes are coming in the future, etc. SEO could die tomorrow and you'd have lost some cash. It could go on forever and that one link could be a brick in your ten zillion dollar fortress. We don't know. You'll have to decide.

Link insertions are completely fine. If they want a guest post, they need to bring the content and it needs to be good enough and they must pay you a little extra to deal with formatting and posting. Otherwise they need to pay you for formatting plus the cost of developing the content if they want a guest post but don't want to bring the content. Otherwise, a link insertion / niche edit is fine.

For pricing you can go look at a million sales threads and link seller websites to see what prices are looking like for your metric ranges, and try to mentally separate garbage from good stuff. Your site is a real, non-whored out site, which should add a premium to it. Higher link metrics, in your case, can be a geometric multiplier, rather than linear.
 
Ryuzaki said:
Yes, they will expect it to be dofollow. No, you shouldn't mark it as sponsored if you're going to leave the link dofollow. You shouldn't mark it as a guest post either. Either sell them the link properly or don't bother because you won't be able to convince them to accept anything less than a proper link.
Click to expand...

Yes, good that you're chiming in here Ryu.

I should have mentioned that my advice was based on EU laws, which in many countries require that any kind of sponsored content, of which linksales qualify, need to be explicitly and prominently described as such.

https://blog.hivency.com/en/brand-influencer-partnerships-regulations-europe
 
Update: Have returned from the Shadow Realm…with a backlink.

Thank you Gokus for the useful advice. I am glad I found this forum.
 
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