---
title: 'How Steven Khanna Built a £500k/Month Link Building Agency'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=ytZoxJG-OSs'
video_id: 'ytZoxJG-OSs'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 1585
---

# How Steven Khanna Built a £500k/Month Link Building Agency

> Source: [How Steven Khanna Built a £500k/Month Link Building Agency](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ytZoxJG-OSs)

## Summary

In this interview, Steven Khanna shares how he transitioned from the hospitality industry to growing WhitePress's English market to nearly £500k monthly revenue. He emphasizes the importance of face-to-face networking, deep client understanding, and adapting to Google updates by focusing on niche edits.

### Key Points

- **Background in Hospitality** [00:02] — Previously ran Michelin star restaurants and worked with Gordon Ramsay.
- **Sales Philosophy** [00:15] — Prefers active, direct sales outreach over passive waiting to avoid offending.
- **WhitePress Overview** [01:04] — Link building platform with 100% transparency, operating in 30 countries with 200+ employees.
- **Transition to SEO** [03:42] — Met WhitePress boss at a language exchange; took six months to understand link building.
- **Applying Restaurant Philosophy** [05:42] — Uses the same client-first approach from hospitality to build trust and referrals.
- **Lead Generation Shift** [07:57] — Dropped cold calls and focused entirely on conferences and referrals for lead generation.
- **Active Sales Approach** [09:22] — Rather have a client reject you directly than wait passively—sees this as lazy salesmanship.
- **KPI for Sales Team** [11:51] — Each business development manager must have 15 quality phone conversations daily.
- **Shift to Niche Edits** [13:05] — After Google updates, demand shifted from guest posts to niche edits; WhitePress prepared ahead.
- **Link Building Still Works** [18:30] — Despite talks of link building being dead, WhitePress does almost £500k revenue monthly.
- **Operational Excellence** [19:18] — Boasts 88.9% order completion rate and 72 working hours turnaround time for links.
- **Using Case Studies** [22:59] — Uses Kyle and Chris Pantelli's nofollow case study to convince clients of link value.

### Conclusion

Steven's success stems from combining hospitality-driven sales principles with a proactive, conference-centric lead generation strategy, while continuously adapting to industry changes like niche edits.

## Transcript

years ago I ran multi-million pound Michelin star restaurants back in the UK did a a short stint with Gordon Ramy as well you [ __ ] donut I'd rather have a client telling you to f off rather than you thinking oh I've emailed him today I
two weeks I don't want to offend him that for me is lazy salesmanship simply picking up phones or running Le gen campaigns wasn't giving us the ROI I wanted we were all at the mercy of Google link building is dead links don't
had any value blah blah blah people are still investing hundreds and thousands of pounds we're still doing almost half a million pounds of Revenue every a million pounds of Revenue every [Music]
channel and welcome back to another episode where I'll be interviewing SE the world in today's episode I've got a very special gu gu for you today who has taken a fairly little known kind of Link
building agency to new heights within the industry growing them to multiple millions of dollars in annual revenue per year please welcome to the show Charles yeah thank you very much for the
appreciate you coming on do want to give people a bit of a background into who you are and who white press is yeah sure uh I look after the English Markets uh in white press white press primarily uh we do link building that's our bread and
butter uh We've obviously bought the messy world of or we've tried to simplify the messy world of Link building through our uh fantastic tool which is an online platform people go in they have 100% transparency as to you
rather than just buying link packages and hoping to get lucky and then half of it turns out to be spam we've been doing that for 11 years it was a Polish that for 11 years it was a Polish startup uh currently we any where
between a startup and a fantastic Copo uh we operate in what 30 countries now uh largest database on the planet and increasing over 200 people working for increasing over 200 people working for us uh 12 physical offices uh just
of them because we keep opening offices every year uh but yeah you know guest posting Niche edits uh SEO optimized content creation all done through you know a couple of clicks on our platform um yeah been being successful um I've
been in white press for a couple of years enjoyed my time an absolute newbie but but loving loving every every minute of it well it sounds like you've had a a pretty awesome Journey so far I know that that Journey kind of began with you
working in kind of hospitality and luxury restaurants how did you move into SEO I know I know mate everyone asks me that question I'm still pining myself two years into white press that bloody hell from opening wine bottles and
selling you know 100,000 uh pounds worth of bottles to now actually doing SEO which sounded black magic to me two years ago um it's it's it's quite of a strange one because I moved to Poland nine years ago from the
UK my m is Polish and then obviously with a lingo barrier here not much we could do here so I go into teaching then go back into restaurants Sumer with some of the local business here in Poland got sucked back into uh selling wines for a
local polish company and then weirdly enough we've got a little language exchange group here in in that little town where I'm based and my boss Tom uh the head of international growth there he happened to run into me uh we started
tonics he's like you're going to come and work for vipress but it took me six months and probably eight meetings in the office to try and understand what is link building you know what are we talking about indexing what is do follow
what is no follow to be honest gave myself three months I actually didn't have High Hopes I said right fine I'll do something different hopefully I might do something different hopefully I might get lucky but I loved it so much that uh
the the growth has been phenomenal uh you know my market being uh the bottom you know my market being uh the bottom of the ladder to then within nine months uh we started being number one my closest second competitor within white
press which is the Eastern European market they bring in about 1501 160,000 market they bring in about 1501 160,000 a month and I'm beating them by you know uh double double the margin so loving it yeah wow it sounds like you've been able
to kind of jump in head first and a lot of people get started in SEO kind of jumping in from other career paths or kind of randomly be thrown into it and then kind of just get that passion and thirst to just continually dedicate
their lives and I know how much time you spend on your phone and on your laptop and things with this compan oh trust me trust me trust me um but I think a lot trust me trust me um but I think a lot of that comes from uh the long hours
spent in the hospitality industry you know I ran multi-million pound Michelin star restaurants back in the UK did a a short stint with Gordon Ramsey as well this was when I was a spring chicken this is 1998 when he had this only one
restaurant in hospital Road in Chelsea you know me fresh at the uni busing trays standing right next to him before the blog became a huge celebrity so I think uh it was proper bapt baptism with
fire when it came to you know how to understand people's profiles to get what you really want without being deceptive of course you know uh and I think I've of course you know uh and I think I've put in all of that philosophy into SEO
because for me doing SEO or doing link building is just selling another product really as long as you understand the basics you know how basics you know how to foresee what might be an issue uh two
months from now three months from now you know being honest with your clients re recommending at the right time uh and that's exactly what we did in restaurants as well and that's the biggest difference I've seen why I think
biggest difference I've seen why I think I've been successful is those is is me understanding my client 100% even asking them questions when they actually haven't thought of it you know wowing them with every simple conversation I'm
uh I've had and what's happened that is that's how it's driven my business where people have of course stayed with me uh for over a year two years is but then they're very happily referring me uh to to to other big Brands as well and
that's exactly how it used to happen in restaurants as well you know you I'm sure you you you eat out a law and a lot of times people don't go back just for the food they go back for that amazing manager or that amazing wine SAR or that
let's go back to that restaurant because stepen looked after me so well and now exactly this is how it is when people do the referrals for me they don't say white press first they say go to Steven
he works for white press he look after you you know that's the same philosophy we had in restaurants as well and that kind of follows really well into my next question which is I know that white press sponsors events they run events
I'm working with you guys on a couple of them um you have Affiliates you do webinars you do a bit of paid media you do SEO you do video you do social media so how are you generating most of your leads for your clients you you said as
generating most of these leads especially for the the English Markets at least you know maybe not so much for the the other markets yeah I figured SEO and white press
that again going back to that messy World link building where trust is such an important factor no one trusts anyone you know it I still get hello dear high quality links all of that crap emails coming through so for us to then simply
picking up phones or running Legion campaigns wasn't giving us the ROI I wanted so literally in month three I said I'm going to drop everything save all that money we're just going to go to conferences and bright Neo being our
first one why because I had to be face Toof face with all our potential clients were offering in terms of the transparency the turnaround times the largest Database The Amazing customer service I wanted people to see and feel
that passion and for people to see and feel that you got to be in touch with them you know we we we we we human beings we all have an emotional pull to everything we do no matter how ruthless or cold we might come across in the
world of business but if you're saying the right things and you're doing the right things you know people remember you people like you and My Philosophy is quite simple they first should like you if they like you they'll trust you if
they trust you they'll give you their business so what we did was whatever marketing budget I had I ped all into into attending conferences sponsoring them but most importantly having a booth there and then on top of that just
sponsoring and having a booth is not going to do the trick you need certain like-minded people on the booth where they're actually actively going out and talking to people and I've told my some of my uh bis Dev managers I said I'd
rather have a client telling you to f off and leave them alone rather than you thinking oh I've emailed him today I think I might have to wait for another two weeks I don't want to offend him that for me is lazy salesmanship that is
a lazy approach you just fall in uh you fall into a long line of businesses which are not performing um you know I've been in the world of business uh 23
25 years now you know I'm 48 so i' I'd like to think I know a little bit about how to convince people and and and S sell stuff considering you know if you if if you got a fantastic product which we have it's how you then uh relay that
information so kind of to answer that question which you were asking in a more summarized manner majority of it has always been conferences for the last year and because of those conferences I got all those leads which were then
converted and closed people have been really happy and now it's just referrals affiliate program in white press anyways but people won't refer you if they you're doing because clearly their reputation on the line when they refer
you me personally uh I haven't made a single cold call in the last eight months because referrals just come to me obviously we do a bit more when it come when we entering the newest markets like
the Irish market we've literally started we've hired a new amazing bis def manager but we we we applying the same logic and the same approach where in June we'll be doing our first ever SEO wibes event in Dublin uh it came out
wibes event in Dublin uh it came out that uh SEO is severely underdeveloped uh in Ireland link building tools platforms really do not exist so it's been a breath of fresh air when they find out that oh brilliant that I love
this platform it saves so much of time and currently we having amazing conversations with some of the biggest uh Tech Brands there based in Ireland some of the biggest agencies who all want to jump on the bandwagon I even got
a question asked yesterday you know what I'll launch you in Ireland I want exclusivity of white press which was like what I've never heard of that ever like what I've never heard of that ever so um but it all comes down to active
talking actively you know uh using Apollo sales uh uh Navigator having those constructive conversations putting short-term goals in front of you my business managers they've got simple kpis they need to have quality
conversations on a phone 15 of them every day there's simple as that otherwise you know how it is the sales funnel the more you put in the more the more it kind of comes out so uh but
conferences help us a lot and we'll continue to do that I'm sure people see white press uh popping up everywhere pretty much in every conference uh you know um that repetitive brand exposure kind of from Blitz scaling effectively
reinvent the wheel if something's working for you keep doing it maximize that yeah 100% it it it's it seems to be working so I are clients buying more been the previous years it's a difficult one because the
starting of the year is always a bit slower for us um you know January after holiday period people are still kind of wrapping up last year still putting in the approaches and the strategies in place so January's been slightly weaker
but then the first 10 days of February we suddenly saw that uplift again however we've seen a biggest uh the the percentage change or the pivot we've seen uh which I expected to be honest after four Google updates uh last year
is people are getting a lot into Niche edits now where you know a page is already ranking you know uh it's a no-brainer you you get the best value out of it rather than shooting in the dark and going for a guest post and
that's what we've also been trying to do um because I knew this is going to happen so our uh ground workor started November last year where we went back to all our Publishers and convinced them to start
doing Niche edits as well and then to get more Publishers on board uh so that we ready when that demand comes in which is happening now so yeah we if if people want to do Niche edits 5,000 of them every every month not that I recommend
that because it's a bit too much uh we we we we can look after the uh the workload and now for a quick message from our sponsor search intelligence if you're looking for digital PR campaigns what you're about to see should impress
you high tier backlinks in Publications such as Daily Post MSN buring a mail and many more let me show you how we've done it the campaign was pretty simple we looked at the number of Instagram followers for each contestant in the
dancing on ice show that aired in January we sorted the contestants by the most popular ones now we've had the most influential dancing on ice contestant earnings calculator to calculate how
much every contestant could make from one post on Instagram based on the number of their followers and engagement rate then we put these findings in a nice press release and an email and we found the relevant journalists with a
tool called Rox Hill where we looked at journalists who covered the show in the past 30 days and send the findings and the Press LS to these journalists and then the links started Landing like this and this and this and many more I hope
build links with simple and basic and you and you already kind of stated it there you're shooting the without guest posts because they could go live and give you no traffic no signals and
there's all sorts of things around like orphan guest posts and things like that of worked the best in terms of efficacy for clients as well then yes yes uh we also we've started doing monthly reports
for all our clients and in terms of moving the needle since January this year or probably I would say even December last year we've seen that Niche edits do the magic what people want uh and once they see it does uh work um
they happily then you know investing more money into it to climb up the rankings even quicker because with guest post as I was saying you're shooting the dark sometimes and with more Google updates happening when the progress
slows down so does their budget as well but with nich edits yeah it all comes down to thei what you in investing how much you getting out of it so I'm very Google that all those updates happen because for us it doesn't matter whether
people are spending on guest posting digital PR content creation or Niche digital PR content creation or Niche edits you know so yeah it all kind of funnels back to the pipeline anyway right um have you have you seen an a
updates have clients just kind of cut off budget overnight because they've that wary of them especially with these bigger Brands yeah they they are obviously be Doc to to some of the biggest brands agencies in the world one
of them being Tik Tok and I can easily take their name here um all of them uh have always apart from the SE minimum traffic uh of I don't know 3,000 on HRS
coming from USA UK or minimum Dr or da of 30 they they've always been concerned about traffic uh trend for the last two years of every website and since the update you know a lot of websites crashed downward traffic Trend and for
to touch it at all um has that made our life a little bit difficult for sure because a lot of the inventory then gets a bit useless uh
but again we we did foresee all of that happening and very recently we we we did our custom Outreach service that launched literally a month and a half two months ago so we've got a dedicated team where we reaching out now actively
to SAS websites who've not been affected and they do not do guest postings generally anyways with uh fantastic quality content uh and with that because
people are scared of not linking to standard guest posting websites straight away the value of our links or those websites doubles you know and which is
true because you got you a you got to convince more the publisher because they're also scared those SAS websites after the Google update that [ __ ] should after the Google update that [ __ ] should I be connecting to this link or not so
obviously there's a lot more negotiations push back happening but then because the uh websites we now offer are extremely unique where no other supplier has it uh and I'm not saying we're going to charge stupid
money here but at least you know the profitability certainly increases because people are happy investing that money because for them uh they still want to do link building no matter what the your community or anyone says link
building is dead links don't add any value blah blah blah seeing is believing investing hundreds and thousands of pounds we're still doing what almost half a million uh pounds of Revenue every month we'll continue to do that um
but yes it's been uh forcing things pivoting doing the groundwork earlier so that we're not of the and that's what I have focused at least
for my English Markets since I've been here I just don't want to be yet another link building agency or yet another link building platform because everyone says the same thing the largest inventory on the planet we do this we do that but
then you know truth's always in the middle is when you start running delivering stuff you know order completion percentages some of our competitors are know if someone orders I don't know 50 links a month they come
back with 60% completion rate whereas we are Market leaders 88.9% is our order completion rate but that does not happen without Blood Sweat and Tears the amount of times I've got to go back and beg my publisher you know
to go back and beg my publisher you know uh tell them stories uh where uh or or change content whatever needs to be done uh uh yet we still have to be within our turnaround times of 72 working hours that's another thing people love about
us is our turnaround times for links going live is best on the planet 72 working hours and it's not just one or two links it's pretty much everything able to get that process working for you properly there you you mentioned kind of
something about um the the reality there people increasing time for your like negotiations and things like that that is in my opinion more of reactive to paranoia about the Argon updates than it is reactive to actual reality about the
about the ARG updates right so would you say it's more so in kind of client's heads than actually in the Cs and in reality yeah yeah it surprises me Charlie there there's uh there's a lot in that question you've asked and I keep
saying I'm literally these are my baby steps into the world of SEO uh and Link building up is link building part of SEO yeah yes it is but you know for me SEO yeah yes it is but you know for me SEO is what you do what Kyle does or what
think I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to the world of SEO but it's shocks me my jaw falls to the floor every time I'm having conversations with some big brands for link building these big director of seos and all and they
got bloody no idea how the link building industry works and they just literally Pawn off everything that Steve you've been doing it for 11 years is mate you're the experts we've never done link building get on with it and make sure
building get on with it and make sure you know the uh uh the needle moves you know the uh uh the needle moves um it that's why uh they of course in order to keep them updated they obviously listen and read a lot of stuff
they go to webinars YouTube channels are there uh and SEO has always been there uh and SEO has always been um an industry where it depends you know a standard answer you know sometimes my my family ask so so what do you really
do SEO and I try and explain it to them and they don't get it so me and Andy one of my colleagues at work we now say we sell dreams uh and they're like what does that mean we sell you a dream that you're going to start ranking very soon
can any SEO on the planet maybe apart from you Charlie because you're a Genus from you Charlie because you're a Genus uh guarantee that uh what you want to get done within the world of SEO you know ranking uh or a landing page
whatever can you guarantee it's going to happen of course not you know we're all at the mercy of Google however we people should use that as an opportunity which we do is again how do you convince that how do you get rid of
their fears you know you provide case studies you provide codes from people like yourselves the big SEO Legends and he's you know a lot of people didn't he's you know a lot of people didn't want to do no follow at all and until I
saw you Kyle Chris pantelli you know doing that case study where hang on if you're linking to Quality websites no follow what pass link choose and then that's and that's what I keep doing sometimes to close my clients uh or to
upsell when they're very scared going ahead but this is the truth because you guys have done that case study so I'm simply taking that reality and amplifying it to a broader Spectrum here within white press in order to get rid
of their fears but yes it has been the case it'll probably continue to be the case till the time SEO is alive and Link building is is going on but I think us building is is going on but I think us as experts it's our job to convince
people you know to to pacify them and say uh you know a mixture of approaches say uh you know a mixture of approaches you know uh being sure way to uh uh H
how to kind of go ahead and make sure the landing p P starts ranking it's it's it's our job it's exactly like you not being sure in a restaurant do you want to go between uh Lobster Thermidor uh versus a fetui with
Thermidor uh versus a fetui with whatever Source you know uh and it's the waiter's job then to convince uh the person uh by asking the right questions if you ask the right questions and I've noticed this a lot of times when people
are scared when I ask them a a question somewhere in their subconscious they actually don't even answer back they you asking me this questions actually answered my own fear you know what tell
me where to sign let me move ahead well I appreciate you coming on the show I think a lot of people will get a lot out of that in terms of how to because I know a lot of people in SEO really struggle when it comes to sales
things like that so is there anywhere where people can find you online yes so uh obviously on LinkedIn uh Stephen K uh where they could find me or just go on to the white press website as well uh we obviously have our white press uh
YouTube channel as well and you'll probably see my ugly face there across a probably see my ugly face there across a number of videos uh but if not then guys you'll probably see me in millions of conferences this year and next year as
well so so yeah we'll be happy to have a chat and uh have a coffee or a g&t uh chat and uh have a coffee or a g&t uh and lastly if people uh still haven't booked for the top top conferences of 2024 we holding one next week in Dubai
uh Charlie you're going to be there as well uh AI SEO luxury meets education uh you know apart from the standard knowledge nuggets people will be taken away and the Fantastic networking we've spoiled people there's
a pre-event yacht party there's an Afterparty on the beach it's happening at the best hotel in Dubai on the Palm which is the five so literally this is which is the five so literally this is SEO um magic this is top of the tree uh
doing it but this is something where people would be talking about SEO wipes to buy in the years to come I think we'll be setting standards next next happen I'm looking forward to it I'll see you guys the next episode
see you guys the next episode Peace