There are lots of different automated linkbuilding tools out there, but the question that most people will ask is “are they worth it?”. The answer to that question depends on many variables, such as how much you have to spend on marketing, how much you value your search engine rankings, and of course how much time you have on your hands.
The risks
The risks of using automated software are huge – if you’re caught by search engines (and it does happen!), you might find your site is deindexed. Less severe punishment could well be a penalty that plunges your site into the obscurity of search results 50 pages back, or it could just be a polite message to tell you to tone down your linkbuilding activity.
If you’re just trying to get your head around SEO by building links to fresh sites, the risks aren’t huge because you’ve not got an established site at the mercy of the search engines. On the other hand, if you have an established shopping site for example and it’s how you make a living, you probably shouldn’t mess around with automated tools unless you know what you’re doing – because if the site was deindexed overnight your business could fold.
Is it worth it?
If your budget is for SEO is low, you really don’t need to go blowing your money on automated tools. Instead, wait until you’ve started to receive some pay checks as a result of your manual SEO labor, then start to invest in some SEO tools. The thing with SEO is that it can be done entirely by hand – the only obvious drawback is that it’s a very, very time consuming process.
In the past automatic linkbuilding tools have proven very effective, however search engines like Google are now wise to them, and their effectiveness has been much reduced. Don’t let this put you off altogether though, because they still have their advantages and their merits.
Things like manually submitted articles, guest blogs, blog comments and social bookmarks are all a fantastic source of backlinks for your site. You can sign up to many article directories, social bookmarking sites and even blogs for free – it costs you nothing to generate these links except of course your time.
Alternatives
If automated linkbuilding isn’t for you, but you don’t have the time to do it all manually, you should definitely consider outsourcing it. There are lots of providers in the far East who will do manual linkbuilding at very reasonable fees – and the cost will soon offset itself against the increase traffic and conversions that improved SERPS bring with them.
IF you want your site to feature prominently in the search engine results, there’s no way around linkbuilding unfortunately. Automated linkbuilding might seem like a one click solution to this inconvenience, but the fact is the software is often expensive and difficult to use. Outsourcing your SEO is always a good idea if you don’t have the time for it.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!