Reporting For Link Building: What You Need To Know

Reporting hogs up a lot of time SEO agencies could spend on actual link-building work.

But the sale doesn’t end after you close a new SEO client. Keeping clients satisfied involves showing off the fruits of their link-building investment with reporting.

Not just any data will work when reporting on your link-building efforts. You must focus on the metrics that matter most to the client’s long-term SEO. Then you have to frame your reporting so the client can understand and appreciate the data and its impacts.

In this article, we'll dive into our reporting methods and explain why they’re essential for other SEO agencies building backlinks.

After reading this article, you’ll be able to “wow” your clients into sticking with you for the long term.

Here’s why you need to include reporting in your link-building process.

At the end of the day, your clients care most about their money. They will only continue investing in your services if you grow their revenues, cut their costs elsewhere, or both.

After all, most clients won’t peek under the SEO hood. That’s why they hired you in the first place.

They might not notice that some revenue is directly or indirectly attributable to link-building in general or specific links you acquired for them. To them, it simply appears as more sales.

Showing the client improvements in stats and tying those to client priorities—like growing revenue—keeps them on board with your services.

SEO is a long-term game. Clients may get restless with a lack of immediate results. Results may happen gradually enough so that the client psychologically “adjusts” to the improved SEO and its results, and fails to see the real scale of improvement.

If your client starts to doubt whether SEO services are still worth it, you can show them historical reports detailing the strides they have made since working with you.

Similarly, you can use reports to impress your clients if you nabbed big-time links for them. For instance, if you obtained a few backlinks from a leading niche blog in your client’s industry via a guest post, and you’re able to remind them of that, they will be better able to see the value.

Good link-building reports don’t just “resell” your clients on your services. They guide future decision-making.

Whether that’s tweaking anchor text tactics, identifying new backlinks to go after, or shifting your focus to different pages on the website, reporting highlights which decisions could offer the most link-building ROI.

There’s still a sales angle here. Showing clients the hard data and offering projections backed by that data helps you sell that client on your next SEO efforts. Getting client buy-in reassures them about your SEO services.

Now that we’ve seen why reporting for link building is essential, let’s take a look at the nitty gritty of what your report should include.

Clients won’t often be interested in the fine details, nor will they have the time or knowledge to read through and interpret all of them. The summary section helps you show them your progress in a snapshot.

Start by setting specific and achievable monthly goals, then review those goals in each report. Goals could include certain high-quality or big-name links, SEO traffic numbers, keyword rankings, and website authority.

From there, touch on how many links were acquired overall. This provides the client with tangible evidence that your strategy is scoring more links and illustrates progress toward long-term goals.

Finally, point out the pages you’re targeting with link-building campaigns. Explain why you’re targeting these pages and any benefits your client could see. Briefly summarize any progress made in rankings.