Why is link building so expensive?

It’s not really. It’s more a matter of value. It can seem expensive for the same reason that good legal or accounting work seems expensive. There often is a fair amount of grunt work involved, even when software does much of the heavy lifting, but the real value comes from really understanding what will provide the greatest benefit and what will cause the greatest risk of harm. Just like an improperly worded contract can put your assets at risk in a lawsuit, a link building campaign executed without a complete understanding of all of the factors involved puts your website at risk of being banned by the search engines, resulting in zero organic traffic. For many businesses, this would be devastating.

An effective link building campaign takes into account a variety of factors, such as relevance, link age, rate of growth, churn, historical patterns and anchor text just to name a few. If you’re getting a bargain price, chances are that you’re just getting a brute-force link building campaign which is generally pretty easy for the search engines to spot and potentially ban your website. A quality link building campaign on the other hand will account for all of these factors and more, ensuring that you receive the best possible results while reducing your risk.

You get what you pay for.