One of the most common questions I get about link building is what the best type of links are. While I’m partial to building natural links through linkbaiting and remarkable content I also like to throw a few paid links into my overall link building campaigns.

One of the reasons I like to use paid links with my link campaigns is that you can not only pick high authority sites that are relevant, but you can also pick the exact anchor text you want to use. Those are things you can’t always do with linkbaiting. You just can’t always dictate who will link to you or what anchor text they will use.

Although it might be a little hard to argue in favor of buying paid links after the latest from Matt Cutts you can’t deny that paid links are still effective, if done correctly.

In my opinion, Matt’s post can almost be interpreted as a sign of weakness on Google’s part. They’re fighting an unnecessary war they know they can’t win and itâs obvious they’re having a hard time finding paid links with their algorithms. But that’s not really what this post is about. Instead I want to give a little insight on strategies for buying links.

The biggest problem I see with people who get dinged for buying links is that they’re lazy. Instead of working on creating remarkable content that will naturally attract links they throw a bunch on money at buying links and call it a day. If you’re guilty of this then you’re asking for trouble.

Buying links effectively is all about staying away from patterns. If you’re whole campaign is entirely based around paid links that will create a very recognizable pattern that can be picked up by the algorithms and filtered out. It may even result in penalties.

Paid links aren’t bad as long as your overall link profile is clean with no recognizable patterns that lead back to the links you’re buying. When those paid links are mixed in with hundreds of natural links they won’t stick out. If you don’t have those natural links the paid links will stick out like a sore thumb.

As you can see by the images if you don’t balance your paid links with your whole campaign they will stick out and sooner or later big brother will find out what you’re up to and ding your for it.

Whether or not Google’s new defense against paid links will work or not is still up in the air. In the meantime I’ll continue to throw a few paid links into my link building campaigns. What about you?