Link Building Planner

---
name: link-building-planner
description: Use when someone wants backlinks or third-party mentions that lift rankings and AI citations. Triggers on "link building", "backlinks", "link gap", "competitor backlinks", "unlinked mentions", "broken link building", "guest posting", "get into best-of lists", "referring domains", "anchor text", or "is this link vendor safe".
---

# Link Building Planner

Every placement gets judged on two outcomes. Does it pass authority to a page that needs it to rank? And is it on a page AI engines cite for the category prompts? A mention on a cited page helps even without a link, because assistants build their shortlists from what third-party pages say.

## Gather first

1. **Target pages.** Links go to pages. A homepage link rarely moves a commercial page.
2. **Target queries and prompts.** The keywords those pages compete on, and the AI prompts where the user wants to appear.
3. **Current position.** Rankings for those queries, and the URLs that outrank them.
4. **Assets.** Data, tools, templates, integrations, a founder with expertise, customers, partners.
5. **Resources.** Hours per week, budget, whether someone can run outreach.
6. **Tools.** Ahrefs, Semrush, DataForSEO, Moz, or nothing beyond Search Console.
7. **History.** Past link vendors, paid placements, link swaps, any manual action in Search Console.

## 1. Prove links are the bottleneck

Check the page before anything off-site: indexed, matching the intent of the query, covering what the top results cover. If it fails, the work is on the page.

Then run a page-level gap. Compare referring domains to the target page against the three to five pages above it. Domain-against-domain comparisons hide the real gap, since a strong domain with an unlinked page still loses.

| What the gap shows | What it means | Next move |
|---|---|---|
| Competing pages have several times your referring domains, from relevant sites | Authority gap | Link building on that page |
| Similar link counts, they still win | Content, intent or freshness gap | Fix the page first |
| They rank with few links | Low-competition query | Better content and internal links |
| Your domain has few links anywhere | Foundation gap | Directories, partners and reclamation before outreach |

Point internal links from the strongest pages on the site at the target page before chasing external ones. It costs nothing and often closes half the gap.

## 2. Have something worth linking to

Outreach for a page with nothing to cite converts poorly and attracts offers to pay. In rough order of how often they earn links on their own: statistics roundups and original data, free tools and calculators, glossary and definition pages, templates and checklists, integration and partner pages.

Place the asset near the target page and link across. Links to a data study do nothing for a pricing page unless internal links carry the authority over.

## 3. Choose three or four tactics

Start at the top. The first three need no new content and are the highest-yield work for most sites.

| Tactic | Effort | How to find targets |
|---|---|---|
| Unlinked mention reclamation | Low | Search the brand, product, founder and study titles in quotes, minus your own domain; filter mention reports to pages without a link |
| Partner, integration, customer and vendor pages | Low | Integration marketplaces, "built with" pages, agency partner lists, sponsor and speaker pages of events you attend |
| Moved and broken links you already earned | Low | Export backlinks, filter to targets returning 404 or redirect chains, 301 each to the closest live page |
| "Best X" list inclusion | Medium | Search "best X", "X alternatives", "X vs Y" and use-case variants; record which articles assistants cite; prioritise lists naming two competitors but not you |
| Resource and tools pages | Medium | Queries like "[topic]" inurl:resources, intitle:tools, and awesome-[topic] lists on GitHub; pitch a free asset, never the homepage |
| Broken link replacement | Medium | Dead resources in the niche with many linking pages; check the Wayback Machine for what the page held, and only pitch a replacement that covers it |
| Expert contributions and guest articles | Medium to high | Editorial sites where an editor reviews submissions; skip any "write for us" page that accepts every topic |

Digital PR, podcasts, directories, review platforms and community threads all produce links and citations too, but each is its own discipline. Count their results here and plan them elsewhere.

**For AI citations specifically,** the best target is a page an engine already cites for the category question. Run the prompts, list the third-party pages that appear, and put them at the top of the prospect list whether or not they would give a followed link. If engines in the category mostly cite company sites, owned content will do more than outreach.

## 4. Qualify before writing a word

| Check | Pass | Fail |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | Readers could plausibly need the product | Unrelated topic, whatever its domain rating |
| Legitimacy | Real organic traffic, named authors, editorial standards | Outbound links mostly unrelated commercial anchors, listed link prices |
| AI citation | Engines cite the page for a target prompt | Not cited (lowers the score, does not disqualify) |
| Value | The link would reach a page that needs authority | It would only link the homepage |
| Reachability | A named person owns the page | Only a generic contact form |

Drop anything that fails relevance or legitimacy. Domain rating is a third-party estimate; sort by it, never qualify on it.

## 5. Write outreach people answer

Name their page and what you noticed on it. If nothing specific comes to mind, the prospect is not qualified yet. Make one ask: a link, an update, or an evaluation. Give the exact URL, and for a fix, the exact spot on their page. Offer something real when there is one (a data point, a fixed broken link, a quote, a free account), never money for a followed link. Stay under 100 words. Follow up once, about a week later, then stop.

For a "best X" list, offer what the writer needs to judge the product fairly: a short summary, who the product suits, pricing, a free account and screenshots. Do not ask to be ranked first.

Draft everything for the user to approve. Nothing is sent without explicit approval of both the list and the copy. Rewrite each draft for its page; a template sent unchanged reads as a template.

Track every prospect in one sheet (domain and page, tactic, target page, AI-cited or not, contact, status, dates, result as followed, nofollow, sponsored, mention only or none) so nobody gets pitched twice.

## 6. Stay inside the rules

Google Search Central defines link spam as creating links "primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings". Its named examples include buying or selling links for ranking purposes, excessive link exchanges and partner pages built only to cross-link, and automated programs that create links. Buying placements as advertising is allowed when the links are qualified with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Separately, the site reputation policy covers third-party content published on a strong host mainly to borrow its ranking signals.

| Placement | Allowed | Condition |
|---|---|---|
| Sponsored listing in a directory or "best X" list | Yes | Sponsored or nofollow link, visible disclosure |
| Newsletter or podcast sponsorship | Yes | Disclosed as sponsored |
| Free product sent for review | Yes | The reviewer qualifies the link and discloses (FTC endorsement rules apply in the US) |
| Paid guest post with a followed link | No | Link spam |
| Paid insertion into an existing article | No | Link spam |
| Private blog network links | No | Link spam |

A sponsored placement can still be worth buying for referral traffic and AI visibility, since engines read the page regardless of the link attribute. Never promise an SEO lift from one.

**Vetting a vendor.** Five questions. Do they price do-follow links per link or by domain rating? That is selling ranking credit. Can they show real placements on sites with their own audience and named authors? Do the sites publish anything for a fee, with outbound links to unrelated casinos, loans or supplements? Do they let you choose exact-match anchors on guest posts? Do they report only link counts and domain rating, with no rankings or traffic? Legitimate agencies sell the work and cannot guarantee the placement.

**If the profile already has problems.** For a manual action, remove or qualify the links you control, document what you could not remove, and file a reconsideration request explaining what changed. Use the disavow tool only for a manual action, or a large volume of paid or spammy links you created that are likely to cause one. A tool labelling links "toxic" is not a reason to disavow, and disavowing good links can hurt.

## 7. Anchors and pace

Let the linking site choose the anchor text; natural profiles are mostly branded, URL and generic anchors. Do not plan a link velocity: earned links have no safe or unsafe monthly number, and a spike of weak links is a symptom of buying them. Spread links across the pages that need them, because every link landing on one commercial page with matching anchors is the pattern spam reviews look for.

## 8. Measure by target page

| Metric | Source | Cadence |
|---|---|---|
| New referring domains to each target page | Ahrefs, Semrush, DataForSEO, or the Search Console Links report | Monthly |
| Rankings for target queries | Rank tracker or Search Console average position | Monthly, expecting a lag of weeks to months |
| Mentions on AI-cited pages, linked or not | Manual count against the prospect list | Monthly |
| AI mention and recommendation rate | Prompt tracking for the target prompts | Monthly |
| Outreach funnel: qualified, contacted, replied, placed | The tracking sheet | Weekly |

A total link count hides where the links went. Ten new links to the blog do nothing for a pricing page that is losing.

## Deliverable

A diagnosis per target page with the page-level gap; the assets that exist and what to build first if none do; the three or four tactics chosen and why; a qualified prospect list with page, contact, angle and AI-citation status; one outreach draft per tactic, marked for approval; risk notes on the current profile or any proposed vendor; and targets for referring domains, rankings and AI mentions at 30 and 90 days.

The plan holds when every target page has a reason links will help it, every prospect passed relevance and legitimacy, every paid line carries its attribute and disclosure, and no message goes out that the user has not approved.