Reporting on acquired links showcases the actions and accomplishments of a link building campaign. We all know how much blood, sweat, and tears (so many tears) goes into earning links — show it off all you can! Whenever new links are acquired, provide commentary on what worked in the campaign process and how those lessons can help in the future.
Additionally, you'll want to highlight the value of specific links over the raw numbers. With no context given, it's easy for recipients to believe fifty random links are better than five. But if it's explained that those five links are topically relevant, high-quality industry publications, then they are likely going to hold more value than fifty unrelated links from lesser-known sites that don't hold a lot of authority.
Anchor text relevance
Links from reputable, well-known sites that correspond with the client’s industry or niche helps give search engines a clue as to what the site is about and which industry they serve. Anchor text can offer further indication as to a site's or page's topics. According to Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s original Stanford paper on Google, anchor text provided search engines with more insight into what the linked page was about. While it’s not a strong ranking factor (and can be considered spam if over-optimized or used incorrectly), having good anchor text for your backlinks is important. When possible, include the backlink anchor text in reports. The wording used also helps you uncover clues about link relevance and value to assist in explaining relevance (and therefore importance/value) to the client.
ROI
It can be difficult to determine the strict ROI of links, especially when there are benefits that go beyond a single conversion, things like brand awareness, quality traffic, and ongoing referral traffic. And if you're practicing white-hat SEO — as you should be! — there's no straightforward cost-benefit analysis; the "price" of an earned link is the price of your time, expertise, and effort. Make sure your clients know that it's against Google's guidelines to purchase links — this is one of the easiest ways to earn a penalty and ruin all your hard work. When reporting on link building ROI, focus on what goes into earning links. Track any direct and tangential costs and make connections as to how they drive revenue.
When considering link value in terms of ROI, consider not only the link itself and the Domain Authority of the URL, but also any adjacent benefits. For instance, an earned link can equate to more earned referral traffic from the linking site that could turn into conversions, especially if the site is contextually relevant. It’s also important to explain the difference between nofollow/follow links and how a nofollow isn’t useless, which is a common misconception. Lots of large publications use nofollow attributes, but the exposure from their traffic can correlate to more sales and revenue.
Reporting on your link building efforts gives valuable insight into the performance of other related metrics. Oftentimes, we will see a correlation between an increase in backlinks and higher traffic or conversions. Keeping track of earned and lost links throughout the year can help you draw conclusions as to which links are the most valuable for your client and adjust your strategy accordingly.
