Running a website involves a lot of time, effort, and investment, so, naturally, you want it to pay off. One of the ways to make your website work for you is to turn your traffic into revenue. There are numerous traffic monetization methods, and one of them is selling links. 

In this article, we’ll explore how to sell links from your website in a way that is both profitable and safe. 

Can You Really Make Money by Posting Links?

The short answer is yes. Selling links from your site is a legitimate and proven method to generate revenue. However, the price you can get for placing a link on your site depends on many factors. Key impacting factors are DA (Domain Authority), your website’s traffic, and the quality of your content. 

It is also essential that webmasters are well aware of ethical issues arising from this activity. Some things need to be done to avoid Google penalties and to make sure selling links doesn’t harm your website or those you link back to. 

Best Ways to Get Paid for Posting Links

Let’s take a closer look at what type of link placements you can sell to make a profit. 

Guest Posting for Money

Guest posting is very popular as a means to promote a website. It drives referral traffic and connects vendors and service providers with new, engaged audiences. If you have an established blog with a good number of active followers, offering guest posting opportunities can become an excellent source of income. 

Depending on your SEO metrics, the number of your followers and their engagement, and your niche and popularity, the price for placing a single post can greatly vary.

Typical rates:

  • Average-quality blogs (DA 20–30): $30–$100 per post
  • High-quality sites (DA 40–60): $100–$400 per post
  • Premium authoritative sites (DA 60+): $400–$1500 per post

Affiliate Marketing Links

You can place affiliate links to various products or services in relevant content on your site. If a visitor to your site clicks on the link and proceeds to buy something, you earn a commission for their purchase. For vendors and service providers, this is an excellent way to cut down marketing costs.

For example, some large companies like iHerb use this as a major promotional channel. Established health blogs worldwide can easily earn several thousands of dollars from these links alone. Many e-commerce projects use this type of promotion, so you’re likely to find a suitable vendor to promote, no matter your niche. 

Good examples of affiliate programs include Amazon Associates and ClickBank.

The image below illustrates how much iHerb pays out in commissions. 

Typical rates:

  • On average, affiliate commissions start at 5%
  • If your turnover is large, commissions can go up to 30%

Sponsored Content & Paid Backlinks

Sponsored posts or backlinks mean that advertisers are paying for direct exposure. Usually, these are clearly marked as “Sponsored” for transparency. Such links are often placed with a “nofollow” attribute and will not count towards the Google ranking of the site you link to.

Nonetheless, if you run a high-DA, well-established site, and have a trackable internet history, people will want to place links to their resources across your content, even with a nofollow attribute. For them, it means a stable source of traffic. 

Even more sites would want to buy dofollow links from a solid, high-DA site. But in this case, they would want their links to be natively integrated and natural-passing. 

Once again, the price range depends on the niche, your geographic SEO, and other factors.

Typical rates:

  • Medium level websites (DA 20–40): $50–$200 per link
  • Authority websites (DA 50+): $300–$1000 per link

Link Building Services

If you don’t want to get involved in all the collateral things that go with link selling, such as outreach and communication with potential partners, pricing policies, negotiations, and management, there’s still a way you can sell links and make a profit.

You can use a link-building platform. There are several perks that this will get you aside from platforms finding and managing link placements for you. 

  • Platforms are widely used by potential customers who seek link placement, so your offer will get a lot of exposure
  • Platforms offer sophisticated matching mechanisms for a referring domain (you) and a linked site, so you can be sure your backlinks aren’t toxic. 
  • Everything can be done in bulk and can be scaled easily, so you don’t have to overextend your efforts.

Serpzilla – the Top Platform to Get Paid for Posting Links 

Serpzilla Webmasters Registration

Why choose Serpzilla?
Serpzilla offers one of the most intuitive and profitable platforms for webmasters. It provides automated systems for selling backlinks, transparent revenue analytics, and advanced webmaster-friendly tools. 

We literally do everything for you – for just a small commission. We also watch over your stats so that your balance between incoming and outgoing backlinks always remains safe for your SEO.

Key Features:

  • Automatic placement of purchased links, which reduces webmaster effort.
  • Flexible payment methods and quick payouts – you won’t have to wait for months to get your money.
  • Complete control over pricing and placements – you decide how much you want to charge for your placements.
  • High earnings potential, thanks to Serpzilla’s vast client base and popularity.
  • User-friendly dashboard for link management and tracking earnings.

Serpzilla has become a trusted solution, enabling thousands of webmasters to earn a sustainable monthly income.

How to Maximize Your Earnings from Link Posting with Serpzilla

Although Serpzilla is intuitively simple, it can be so flexibly tuned that it may take you a little time to figure out which setting combinations work best for you. But don’t worry, the learning curve is not steep at all.

Here are a few things that you can do on your side to maximize your earning potential with Serpzilla:

  1. Optimize Your Website Profile:
    • Clearly state your niche, DA, monthly traffic, and content type to attract targeted link buyers. The more concise, open and complete the information you provide to our users is, the better chance you have of them selecting you. Once enough people select you, you will start appearing in preset collections and recommended lists.
  2. Flexible Pricing Strategy:
    • Analyze your competitors’ pricing. If you offer something that differs considerably to market prices, it will seem suspicious to users, no matter if you’re too cheap or too expensive.
    • Set attractive initial prices and increase gradually based on demand.
  3. Diversify Link Types:
    • Offer both dofollow (high SEO value, higher price) and nofollow (safer, still valuable for brand visibility) links. The more variety you offer to our users, the better target audience coverage you will have.
  4. Monitor Competitor Prices Regularly:
    • Serpzilla gives you analytical tools and market insights regarding price optimization. Don’t hesitate to use them and get a sneak peek at what your competitors are doing well.

Real-life Case Examples (Serpzilla):

Serpzilla is not just just a platform for finding potential referring domains and renting or buying link placements from them. If you are a webmaster or an agency, you can list your websites with us and find customers who are willing to buy or rent backlinks from you.

We offer an intuitive webmaster dashboard and an adaptive promotion algorithm. The more you sell, the more visible you become to our users who search for link placements in their niche. The registration is simple and quick. Your profit from traffic monetization with Serpzilla is only a few clicks away.   

Avoiding Google Penalties

One of the most important aspects of earning via selling links is maintaining a balance. You should always keep an eye on the ratio of your incoming and outbound links. A serious skew will easily get you unwanted attention from Google. 

To safely sell links without risking Google’s penalties:

  • Limit link volume:
    Avoid selling excessive amounts of backlinks. Stick to quality over quantity – sell fewer links for higher prices.
  • Balance Dofollow and Nofollow links:
    Include both types. Nofollow links reduce penalty risks and diversify your backlink profile naturally. Don’t worry that they don’t show up in SERP results for your customers. They drive traffic, which is still excellent for SEO and promotion.
  • Relevant content:
    Ensure links are contextually relevant to your content. Working with a trusted platform like Serpzilla will help you make sure that the match between your site and a site you link to is safe.
  • Regular audits:
    Periodically audit outbound links, removing outdated or suspicious ones.
  • Work on your own link building

The more links you sell, the more links should point to your site to keep the balance. One of the ways to get backlinks once you start selling links is to promote your resource as a link-building opportunity. 

  • Transparency and honesty:
    Clearly mark sponsored content as such. It builds trust with readers and reduces search engine risks.

Why Sell Both Dofollow and Nofollow Links?

Dofollow links have direct SEO benefits and command higher prices. Nofollow links don’t affect SEO directly but add brand visibility, referral traffic, and diversification of link profiles.

While there’s actually no recommended ratio of dofollows and nofollows (and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise), most experts agree that you should use both types – no matter if you’re using them to promote your own site or to earn from selling links.

Real Examples of Websites Selling Links and Their Pricing

Let’s take a look at actual sites and their pricing so that you can get an idea of pricing. Keep in mind that key factors forming the price are Domain Authority (DA), website traffic and niche relevance, link placement (homepage, article, sidebar, footer), and dofollow vs. nofollow links. 

  • Forbes (DA 94): Sponsored content ranges from $5,000 to $10,000 per placement.
  • Business Insider (DA 93): Paid posts or sponsored links range from $4,000–$8,000 per placement.
  • Niche blogs (Travel/Tech DA 40–60): Typically from $200–$1000 per post.

Ready for some more examples?

WebsiteDomain Authority (DA)NicheAverage Link PriceLink Type
Hackernoon.com66Finance / Tech$150 – $400Sponsored Post (Dofollow)
Hackernoon.com82Tech$500 – $1000Sponsored Post (Dofollow)
Hackernoon.com79Tech / Startup$250 – $600Guest Post / Sponsored
YourStory.com80Business / Startup$400 – $800Sponsored Content
JPost.com (The Jerusalem Post)91News$700 – $1500Sponsored Article
TheFrisky.com63Lifestyle$100 – $300Guest Post / Paid Link

Conclusion:

Selling links is one of the most successful and fool-proof ways of monetizing your website’s traffic. Platforms like Serpzilla streamline the process, providing a reliable and lucrative revenue source. If you want your website to work for you, selling backlinks can become a stable and rewarding business model provided that you follow the recommendations from this article.

Ready to start monetizing your website with links?


  • Sergey Pankov

    Sergey is a seasoned SEO expert with 20+ years of experience, global link building opinion leader, he is a regular speaker at various SEO conferences and webinars dedicated to website optimization. As a CEO at Serpzilla.com, Sergey is responsible for strategic & operational management of business areas, business scaling, building first-class customer service, innovation & technology management, hiring & management of teams of talents. Sergey's Linkedin