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Part of How to compare London link building services
How to compare London link building services
Compare London link building services by outreach method, pricing model, local relevance and compliance, with practical checks to use before signing.
What to take away
- Compare London agencies on a placement-by-placement basis, because a low retainer can hide expensive individual links.
- Ask for live examples from UK clients, and check each page is still live, indexed and followable.
- Judge a shortlist on local relevance and outreach method, not only on domain rating figures.
- Get the disclosure and data-protection terms in writing before you sign a contract.
What a London link building agency sells
Link building is the work of earning or placing hyperlinks from other sites to your own, and search engines treat those links as evidence of trust. Agencies sell that work in three ways: retained outreach, one-off placements and digital PR campaigns built around a story or data set.
Retained outreach suits most businesses. The agency builds a target list, pitches editors, and reports placements each month.
Digital PR usually produces fewer links than placement buying, and those links often come from news coverage rather than paid posts.
The London market is crowded and many agencies run the same outreach playbook. That makes the method the useful point of comparison, not the postcode.
How to compare a shortlist: six steps
- Send the same brief to every agency so their answers and proposals are comparable.
- Identify each agency’s service model and outreach methodretained outreach, one-off placements or digital PR. Ask how it builds target lists and pitches editors.
- Compare quotes on the same basismonthly fee, number of placements, price per live link and what happens when outreach fails.
- Ask for live examples from UK clients. Check that each page is still live, indexed and followable, and relevant to your sector and city.
- Assess local relevance by asking whether the pages reach London customers and requesting placement examples in your sector and city.
- Check the timeline, reporting format and exit terms, and get disclosure and data-protection terms in writing. Ask whether the agency will disclose links on sites it owns.
Six steps to compare agencies
- Name pages and London search terms
- Ask for fixed monthly placements
- Request two UK client references
- Review sample links for relevance
- Agree placement removal policy
- Set 90-day placement review
Pricing: how to build a like-for-like quote
Cost is where quotes diverge most, because agencies price per placement, per hour or per retainer, and each model hides different risks. Our breakdown of link building services cost in the UK explains how those figures are put together.
Pricing models compared
Retainer
- Charged
- Fixed monthly fee
- Check
- Placements guaranteed
Per placement
- Charged
- Fee per live link
- Check
- Failed outreach charged
Digital PR
- Charged
- Project fee per campaign
- Check
- Coverage targets and links
The table below is a comparison frame rather than a price list. Fill it in from agency replies and the differences become obvious.
How it is charged
- Retainer
- Fixed monthly fee
- Per placement
- Fee per live link
- Digital PR
- Project fee per campaign
What to check
- Retainer
- Number of placements guaranteed
- Per placement
- Whether failed outreach is charged
- Digital PR
- Coverage targets and links earned
Worked example, using illustrative figures: a three-month pilot with two placements a month at £400 each comes to £2,400 plus VAT, with failed outreach carried by the agency.
Ask what happens when outreach fails. If the agency bills hours regardless of results, your effective cost per live link rises.
Local reputation signals that matter
A London office does not make a campaign work on its own. What counts is whether the agency can place links on pages that London customers actually read, such as local news sites, university departments and business membership bodies.
Ask for placement examples in your sector and your city. Generic guest posts on unrelated blogs rarely help a London service business.
Agencies with long-standing relationships at London titles tend to place faster, because editors already know how they pitch.
Local link building strategies for UK businesses sets out how to find those pages yourself if you would rather keep the work in house.
Compliance: the paperwork to check
Outreach means processing personal data about journalists, bloggers and site owners, so the agency needs a lawful basis and a written contract that sets out your role. The ICO guide to the UK GDPR covers controller and processor duties in detail.
Paid placements must be identifiable as advertising. The CAP advertising codes apply to content an agency places on your behalf, and undisclosed paid links create risk for the brand, not just the agency.
Check that the agency will not place links on sites it owns without telling you. That single question separates open operators from the rest.
Common questions
How much do link building agencies in London charge?
Most sell retainers rather than single links. Ask for the monthly fee and the price per live link, so you can compare agencies on the same basis.
What should a link building proposal include?
The target sites or site types, the number of placements, the timeline, the reporting format and the exit terms. A proposal with no named targets is a pitch, not a plan.
Do I need a London agency to rank in London?
No. Relevance of the linking pages and the quality of outreach matter more than the agency's address.
How long before the links show results?
Link effects usually appear over months rather than weeks. Judge an agency on placements delivered in the first 90 days, and on ranking movement after that.
