Plan your link building techniques/activity over the next few months

Now that you have prioritized your link building techniques, you need to plan the time to

actually implement them. This is particularly relevant for those of you who operate in an

agency where your time may be split among a number of different campaigns, so planning is

very important.

From another point of view, it is important because you need to set the right expectations with

your client or boss about how long it may be before they can see some results. If you’ve sold a

contract where the client is only paying you for a day of time a month, you may struggle to put

together a big piece of interactive link bait without going over budget.

I can’t explain the importance of having a plan. It not only helps you, but clients love to see

plans. It helps make them feel reassured that you know what you’re doing, even if the plan

changes.

When it comes to planning, I try and keep it as simple as possible. A simple Excel spreadsheet

that looks like this can do the job:

Day	January	February	March
Day 1	Kick off meeting and USP research	Link bait launch	Guest blogging research
Day 2	Link bait research & design	Outreach	Guest blogging
Day 3	Link target research	Outreach + follow up	Broken link building

Simple can work fine. You can break each of these down into more concrete steps and actions,
but, broadly, this can work fine and make sure you stay on track.
If you want to get a bit more advanced, I have found that Trello is a great little tool for
managing projects. It is great because you can share it among team members and even share
it directly with the client, who can see progress at a glance.