A link building plan is a written document that names the pages to support, the methods to use, the monthly link volume, the anchor mix and the review dates. This page gives the seven steps to build one, a formula for the monthly target, and a plan template you can copy into a spreadsheet.
What is a link building plan?
A link building plan is a written schedule that assigns each target page a method, a monthly link count, an anchor type and an owner. It turns link building from a series of one-off purchases into a measured program.
The plan answers five questions in advance: which pages receive links, which methods produce them, how many arrive each month, what anchor text each carries, and how success is read. Without those answers, every new link repeats the same decisions and the profile drifts toward whatever was cheapest that week.
How do you build a link building plan?
Build a link building plan in seven steps: choose target pages, audit your current links, benchmark competitors, select methods, set monthly volume, assign budget, and schedule reviews. Complete the steps in order; each one feeds the next.
- Choose the target pages. List the pages that earn revenue or leads, and rank them by commercial value.
- Audit your current links. Export referring domains and anchors from Search Console and one third-party index.
- Benchmark three competitors. Record how many referring domains each ranking competitor holds for the same query.
- Select methods. Match each target page to one or two methods from the acquisition guide.
- Set the monthly volume with the formula below, then pace it against the site’s age.
- Assign budget per method, using real placement costs rather than averages.
- Schedule a review every 30 days that compares planned links to live, indexed links.
Which pages does a link plan target?
A link plan targets pages that convert, plus the informational pages that feed them. Money pages receive direct links; supporting guides receive links that pass context through internal links. The page list comes first, because every later choice depends on it.
Commercial pages such as service pages, category pages and product pages carry the goal. Informational pages attract links more readily because editors cite references, not sales pages, and an internal link then moves that context to the commercial page. Online stores add a third category, the product collections that hold inventory; the guide to link building for ecommerce covers how to prioritize those.
How many links does a plan schedule per month?
The monthly link target equals the referring-domain gap to your competitors divided by the number of months in the plan. The formula keeps the target tied to a measured gap, not a round number, and it resets each time the competitor data is refreshed.
monthly target = (competitor median referring domains - your referring domains) / months in plan
A site with 40 referring domains facing a competitor median of 100, planned over 12 months, schedules 5 links a month. The figure is a working heuristic, not a Google threshold. Pace matters as much as volume: the guide to Link Velocity and Safe Build Rates explains why a steady monthly cadence reads as a natural profile. Teams that want the cadence run for them can review the Monthly SEO Retainer.
How do you find link targets for the plan?
Find link targets by listing sites that already link to competitors, sites that cover your topic, and sites that cite resources like yours. Then qualify each one on relevance, indexation and traffic before any outreach. Competitor link lists give the shortest route to a first list.
Qualification checks three attributes: organic traffic, topic match and indexation of the page that carries the link. The process for qualifying link targets turns those checks into a pass-or-fail list. Resources worth citing come from the other side of the plan: linkable assets such as original data, calculators and reference guides give editors a reason to link without an exchange.
What does a link building plan template contain?
A link building plan template contains seven columns: target page, method, anchor type, monthly links, owner, status and review date. One row covers one page and one method, so the plan reads as single decisions that each have an owner and a review date.
| Target page | Method | Anchor type | Monthly links | Owner | Status | Review date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /services/example-service/ | Guest post | Partial match | 3 | Outreach lead | Active | 30 days out |
| /guides/example-guide/ | Linkable asset outreach | Branded | 2 | Content lead | Planned | 60 days out |
| /category/example/ | Niche edit | Generic | 2 | Outreach lead | Planned | 60 days out |
The rows above are placeholders. Copy the header row into a spreadsheet, replace the examples with your own pages, and export the sheet as a CSV for the team.
How do you measure a link building plan?
Measure a link plan by the links it delivers and their quality: referring domains gained, share of linking pages indexed, and clicks to the target pages from Search Console. Rankings fluctuate for reasons outside the plan, so they are not the unit of success.
Report three counts each month: planned links, live links and indexed links. The gap between planned and live shows production problems; the gap between live and indexed shows host-quality problems. Pages that serve several countries add a fourth line for cross-market links, because a link from a local-language host supports that market’s version of the page.
Where does a link plan start?
A link plan starts from the definition of the work it organizes: link building, the practice of earning or placing links that point at your site. A plan built on a vague definition schedules the wrong work.
Readers new to the discipline can begin with what link building is and return here once the vocabulary is familiar.
Related: done-for-you competitor link rebuilds, link building for software companies, how tiered support links work, and local business link planning.