I have certainly noticed a lot of poor SEO/link building work over, even after the Penguin update! Which leads to the complete opposite of making money from your business online, as you pointed out.

Regards,

Barrie

Hi there Barrie,

Thanks for the comment.

“Wow, if somebody is outsourcing their link building and don’t know what their link builders are doing, I have to ask how they got in this position!” I totally agree but this is easy for us to say when we are in the industry. There are many business owners and marketing managers that don’t know the consequences of outdated SEO. This post was aimed more at them.

“I’m interested to know why your suggested reports didn’t include conversion (sales) data from Analytics (or any other method), Wayne?? To me, that is the most important part!” I couldnt agree more and we provide those reports. This post was more about giving business owners and idea about the activites that were happening around any link building for their site. It wasnt meant to be a definitive breakdown of what to inlcude in an online marketing report – which would include a lot more detail.

I think a full report breakdown would be another (or multiple) posts 🙂

With regards to your last point: sales, conversions, leads or whatever any campaign is judged on is going to be the most important metric. What I was trying to get at in this post is that being oblivious to the tactics involved in getting there is something business owners have to take an interest in for the sake of longevity in modern SEO.

Sales or your bottom line are crucial but what if the company you have hired to help you are using tactics that could land you in hot water? If you rely on Google traffic and that suddenly disappears then so do your sales.

No business wants to be in that position but a lot have faced it in recent years because they have invested in superficial or SEO that isnt sustainable.

I agree on your points. Maybe I didnt make it clear that the post wasnt meant to be a blueprint for reporting on an online marketing strategy.

Thanks for the comment Mark,

I think it has been important for some time now. Whether you fall on the side of thinking is spreading FUD with links or not it is incredibly important that business owners invest time in knowing exactly what it is that they are buying.

Wow, if somebody is outsourcing their link building and don’t know what their link builders are doing, I have to ask how they got in this position!

Monthly reports, weekly (maybe monthly) phone calls are the bare minimum that should be happening between the link builder/account manager and the client. A monthly meeting too.

I’m interested to know why your suggested reports didn’t include conversion (sales) data from Analytics (or any other method), Wayne?? To me, that is the most important part!

I work for a marketing agency and a lot of our link building clients don’t even discuss the links we’ve built when we’re in conversation – the most important thing to them is that sales are going up (which is done by increasing traffic and branding when you’re link building).

Regards,

Barrie

I think this has all become way more important in light of Matt Cutts recent statements regarding guest blogging for links.

This will make it even more difficult for clients to know whether they are receiving the right advice / service.