You know that link building is necessary to achieve the results you want, but how do you sell the C-suite and secure budget? Columnist Andrew Dennis shares his advice.
I’ve found this to be especially true when it comes to link building. SEO, although technical in nature, can be explained in real-world measures to upper management. There’s data, traffic levels, technical configurations and on-site elements directly in your control to measure and report.
With link building, upper management often approaches metrics in a single, dogged mindset: price per link. The easiest way to quantify the value of a link is through cost — particularly to the budgetary gatekeeper.
Measuring link-building campaigns by cost is fair, but it creates the wrong mindset. It’s the difference between price and value.
Today, I want to explain how SEOs can and should sell the value of link building upstream, instead of the price.
Three critical stages to communicate value
As an in-house SEO, you’ve reached the point where you need links to achieve your goals. So how do you request additional budget?
It starts with communicating value.
There are three key stages at which you will need to sell the value of link building upstream to obtain buy-in from upper management:
- Securing budget. Emphasize the role of links in SEO.
- Start of the project. Strategy and execution.
- Six-month review. Showing results and forecasting growth.
Keep in mind that you’ll need to consistently communicate value throughout the entire project — these are just the most crucial junctures.
1. Securing budget: Emphasize the role of links in SEO
You’ve done the hard work of technical and on-page SEO. You’ve seen solid improvements and gains, but you’ve hit a roadblock: you need links to remain competitive and drive rankings.
You don’t have time to build all the links your business needs yourself. You’ll need additional budget to dedicate serious resources to link acquisition. Now it’s time to convince your boss to invest.
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