Most link building engagements fail at the brief rather than the execution. The client asks for "link building", receives a proposal for link building, and discovers at month five that the two parties meant different things.
Nine points. Copy the structure, fill it in, send it to everyone on your shortlist at once.
1. The exact URL and the term
One URL, or at most three, with the term each should own. Not the domain, not "our blog", not "brand awareness".
If you cannot name the page, stop and find out which pages actually generate pipeline. That exercise frequently changes the answer, and it is not something a supplier can do for you.
2. The gap, if you know it
Pull the referring domain count for the four URLs currently outranking you, and for your own page. One line:
"Target page has 19 referring domains. The four above us average 78."
This single sentence reframes every proposal you receive, because it converts a vague ambition into a countable number. Any supplier who then quotes a monthly volume without referencing it is quoting from capacity.
3. What has already been tried
Previous agencies, freelancers, marketplace purchases, in-house attempts. Be specific and include the parts you would rather not mention — a profile containing three years of network inventory determines whether quarter one is acquisition or cleanup, and nobody discovers that from a sales call.
4. Your budget, stated
The instinct to withhold is understandable and counterproductive. Link building has a hard cost floor: nobody can prospect, score, pitch, write a publishable draft and compensate an editor below roughly $150 per placement. Publishing your budget lets a supplier tell you what it genuinely buys.
| Monthly budget | Realistic output |
|---|---|
| $1,500–$3,000 | 4–9 placements, or one asset per quarter instead |
| $3,000–$6,000 | 8–18 placements plus round-up work |
| $6,000–$15,000 | 16–40 placements plus digital PR |
5. Your approval capacity
Name the person who will read and sign off drafts, and state how fast they can do it. Three working days is the threshold at which a programme runs at full speed.
This is the most underestimated line in the brief. A slow approver turns eight placements a month into five, and no supplier can fix it from their side.
6. Your exclusions
- Publications you refuse to appear on.
- Competitors you will not be listed beside.
- Claims legal will not allow.
- Whether paid inclusions are acceptable, and whether they must be disclosed.
Writing this down early prevents a genuinely awkward conversation in month three.
7. Reporting you need, and who reads it
A report for a growth lead and a report for a CFO are different documents. Specify the columns you want per placement — our recommendation is live URL, anchor, surrounding paragraph, rel attribute, referring-page traffic, index date — and the format.
State a preference rather than accepting whatever arrives. A live sheet you can check on any Tuesday is a different product from a monthly PDF.
8. Timeline, and what happens if it slips
Three to six months for ranking movement on mid-competition terms; nine to twelve on a contested head term. If you have a board meeting in ninety days that needs a number, say so — an honest supplier will tell you link building is the wrong instrument for that deadline.
9. Commercial terms you expect
State these up front rather than negotiating them after you have chosen:
- Three-month minimum, then 30 days' notice.
- Billable only when live, indexed and verified.
- Twelve-month replacement warranty with defined triggers.
- Ownership transfer of gap analysis, target list and content on payment.
- Category exclusivity, if you want it, defined narrowly.
The template, condensed
TARGET: [URL] — [primary keyword]
GAP: we have [n] RD, top four average [n]
HISTORY: [previous suppliers, what was delivered]
BUDGET: $[n]/month
APPROVER: [name], can sign off within [n] working days
EXCLUSIONS: [publications, competitors, claims]
REPORTING: live sheet, per-placement, columns: URL / anchor / paragraph / rel / page traffic / index date
TIMELINE: reviewing at month [n] against [metric]
TERMS: 3-month min, billable on live+indexed, 12-month warranty, IP transfers
Nine lines. Send it to five suppliers and the replies become directly comparable, which they otherwise never are.
What a good response looks like
Not enthusiasm. You are looking for a proposal that engages with your numbers — references your gap, your budget, your timeline — and that contains at least one thing you did not ask for and did not want to hear.
A proposal that agrees with everything in your brief is a proposal written by someone who did not read it carefully. Somewhere in a good response there is a paragraph beginning "we'd push back on point two".
Common and legitimate pushbacks: your target keyword has little commercial volume; your gap is too large for your budget; your page will not convert the traffic even if it ranks; your profile needs cleaning before anything is added. All four are worth more than a compliment.
What the brief cannot do
It cannot tell you whether the work will be done well. For that you need to audit live placements from the supplier's last quarter — twenty URLs, checked for traffic, author identity, contextual placement and indexation. That is a separate ninety minutes and it is the highest-return diligence available.
The brief gets you comparable proposals. The audit tells you which of them to believe.