Link Programme Run Against Named Target URLs, Reviewed Quarterly

We contract against a named list of target URLs, usually between eight and fifteen, and we review at the close of every quarter on Search Console position data for those URLs and nothing else. If they have not moved by the second review we say so in writing and one of us should end the engagement. Programmes that report link counts never have to hold that conversation, which is the entire reason link counts get reported. What runs inside the programme: Three workstreams, weighted to your situation rather than run as a fixed mix. First, original data: a study drawn from something you already hold, such as payment failure rates by issuer, build times across your customer base, or incident duration by cause. Journalists in this sector want a number nobody else has, and you are usually sitting on one. Second, reactive commentary, worked through Qwoted, Featured and ResponseSource plus direct relationships, with your expert briefed to answer inside four hours because that is the window. Third, product-led assets that get cited because they are useful: an open dataset, a public benchmark, a compatibility matrix. The vendor you already have: Most companies at this budget already pay someone for links. We will read their reporting and their placements and tell you whether to brief them properly or stop paying them. We do not resell their inventory, take a margin on their invoices, or quietly absorb their output into our reporting. The part clients dislike: We will refuse to point a programme at a page that cannot rank on its own. If the target URL is a 400-word feature page with no depth behind it, we pause that target and tell you who should rebuild it, in what order, before we resume. This has ended two engagements at the kickoff stage and we would do it again, because the alternative is billing you for twelve months against a page that was never going to move. Governance: A monthly working session with your channel lead, not a status deck. A shared board holding every campaign at its current stage, visible to you continuously rather than at month end. A written quarterly review that states what failed and what we would stop doing. Not included: Content production for your own blog. Technical SEO remediation, though we will tell you when it is the binding constraint and it often is. Paid amplification budget. Translation or localisation of campaign assets. Agency-of-record media relations, which is a different practice with different people. Who this is not for: Companies without a named internal owner who can get a data pull approved. Teams that need coverage this quarter to support a fundraise, where the timeline belongs to your CFO rather than to editors. Anyone who wants a link quota written into the contract, which we will not sign at any price because it converts every judgement in the programme into a volume problem. What you will be able to show your board: Position change on the named targets, referring page traffic rather than referring domain counts, the share of coverage that came from data you own, and an honest list of what we tried that produced nothing. The last of those is the section most agencies delete, and it is the one that tells you whether the next quarter is worth funding.