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Today’s note comes straight from the trenches of client management… it’s a product of my 14 years of client-SEO experience.
It’s not so much about getting backlinks, it’s about convincing your client to invest in them (a tall order at times)!
Because if you’ve ever had a client ask “will the backlinks you build work?”
You need a way to reframe the value, set realistic expectations, and still close the deal.
I’m sharing the exact analogy, messaging, and proof points I use when pitching link campaigns to skeptical clients.
(Works great in calls, decks, or reports.)
Answering this with tact will help you gain the client’s confidence while also setting expectations that help you manage the client as the backlinks begin to work.
This is my stock answer:
I tell the client that backlinks will definitely help propel our rankings forward, but we shouldn’t expect an immediate boost. Google intentionally delays the visible benefits of new links because they don’t want SEOs to see a direct cause-and-effect — if rankings jumped the next day, it would encourage manipulative link building. Instead, links need time to get crawled, indexed, and slowly factored into rankings.