Our outreach and placement process
Five steps from audit to monthly refinement. Manual outreach, verified placements, and reporting your leadership can read without a glossary.
Request a proposalWhy process matters in off-page SEO
Off-page work fails quietly when steps blur together: outreach starts before targets are agreed, weak links count as wins, and reporting arrives too late to fix a bad month. Our outreach and placement process separates audit, planning, outreach, verification, and refinement so you always know what stage a campaign is in and what we need from you next.
The flow is the same for in-house teams and agency partners. Delivery details change—white label templates, multi-client pods, leadership summaries—but quality gates do not. Every live URL passes the same checklist before it appears in a report.
Below we walk through all five steps with timelines, client inputs, approval rules, and a sample report outline so you can map the process to your own procurement or onboarding checklist.
Five steps in detail
Each step has a clear output and a defined client role.
Step 1
Audit the current profile
We map referring domains, anchor text, toxic risk, unlinked mentions and where competitors already appear in listicles, press and AI answers. The audit sets a clean baseline so new work does not fight old problems. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We.
Your part: Share Search Console access and any prior disavow files.
Step 2
Plan targets and surfaces
Together we pick money pages, topical clusters and the offsite surfaces that matter for your buyers. Quality rules, volume ranges and a realistic timeline become the working brief for outreach. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in.
Your part: Approve target themes, voice notes and publishers to avoid.
Step 3
Run manual outreach
Writers and editors get tailored pitches, not templates blasted at scale. Digital PR angles, listicle updates, mention reclaim notes and asset outreach each follow a different conversation. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and.
Your part: Respond quickly when a journalist asks for product details.
Step 4
Land and verify placements
Every live URL is checked for context, anchor text, indexation and lasting fit before it counts as delivered. Weak placements do not count as wins just because a link exists. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in.
Your part: Review sample live links and flag edge cases early.
Step 5
Report and refine
Monthly reporting covers links, mentions, AI citation notes and what to change next. The plan adjusts as Domain Rating, competitive gaps and seasonal stories shift. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain for leadership. We keep quality rules visible in every handoff and reporting plain.
Your part: Join a short monthly review or send written feedback.
Step 1: Audit the current profile
The audit maps where you stand before new outreach adds noise. We pull referring domains, anchor distribution, toxic patterns, unlinked mentions, competitor placements in listicles and press, and obvious gaps where rivals appear and you do not. If you have a recent disavow file or third-party audit, we incorporate it instead of repeating work.
Output is a short memo your SEO lead can sanity-check: risk flags, quick wins (often reclaims), and lanes that need cleanup before scale. Leadership gets a one-paragraph summary if they want it; detail stays in the appendix.
Step 2: Plan targets and surfaces
Planning turns audit insights into an approved brief. Money pages, supporting content, anchor guidance, DR floors, publisher categories to pursue or avoid, and digital PR themes all live in one document. You sign off once per cycle unless strategy shifts mid-quarter.
Surface mix matters. A SaaS team might weight listicles and comparison pages; ecommerce might weight review platforms and seasonal gift guides. The brief states volume ranges and realistic timelines per lane so finance and marketing agree on expectations before outreach spend begins.
Step 3: Run manual outreach
Outreach is written by humans who read the target publication first. Templates are starting points, not mail-merge blasts. Digital PR, listicle updates, guest columns, mention reclaims, and resource link requests each follow different conversation rules.
Pipeline updates land on your cadence—weekly for high-volume accounts, biweekly for smaller retainers. You see publishers contacted, responses waiting on your input, and passes with reasons. When a journalist asks for product proof, we route through your named contact with a draft reply you can edit quickly.
Step 4: Land and verify placements
A live URL is not a win until it passes QA. We check surrounding context, anchor text, indexation, redirect chains, and whether the page fits the approved publisher profile. Screenshots and archive links go into the internal workbook for your QA team.
Weak placements—wrong anchor, sponsored slot labeled editorial, noindex surprises—do not count as delivered. We fix, replace, or document a pass according to your contract. That discipline is what makes the placement network table defensible in procurement reviews.
Step 5: Report and refine
Monthly reporting closes the loop. Executive summary for leadership, URL table for SEO, pipeline notes for planning next month. We flag audit issues resurfacing, competitive moves worth copying, and capacity adjustments when your roadmap adds new landing pages.
Refinement is explicit: what we stop doing, what we double, and what we need from you before the next batch ships. The process repeats with a lighter audit touch unless your profile changed materially.
Typical timelines
| Step | When | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Audit | Week 1 | Baseline profile and risk notes |
| Plan | Week 1–2 | Approved brief and target list |
| Outreach | Week 2+ | Pipeline updates and responses |
| Placement | Week 3–8+ | Verified live URLs |
| Report | Monthly | Client and internal reports |
Timelines shift by niche. Competitive SaaS categories with active digital PR may see press hits in weeks three to four. Narrow B2B verticals with long editor cycles may need eight to ten weeks before the first editorial link lands. We set expectations in the planning step so QBR dates are not set against fantasy numbers.
Outreach never stops while reporting runs. Month two outreach continues while month one placements are verified and written into the first report. That parallel work is why capacity planning matters—especially for agencies running multiple retainers.
What you provide
- Search Console read access and analytics context when available
- Money pages, competitor list, and anchor guidance
- Brand voice examples or editorial guidelines
- Named approver for themes, publishers and live URLs
- Product or data contacts for journalist follow-ups
Approval rules
- Themes and publisher categories approved before first pitch
- Digital PR angles approved before journalist contact
- Live URLs verified for context, anchor and indexation
- Placements outside the brief do not count until fixed
- Publisher blocklist updates honored immediately
Sample monthly report walkthrough
Reports open with an executive summary: placements live this cycle, mention wins, listicle movement, and AI citation notes when tracked. Each bullet ties to a page or theme from the approved brief so readers see strategy, not a raw dump of URLs.
Section two lists live links in a table: target page, referring URL, anchor text, referring domain rating, indexation status, and surface type (editorial, listicle, digital PR, reclaim). Screenshots or archive links sit in an appendix for QA.
Section three covers pipeline health: publishers contacted, positive responses awaiting your input, passes with reasons, and planned angles for next month. Agency partners get an internal workbook with extra outreach detail; in-house teams get leadership-ready slides plus the technical appendix for the SEO lead.
Section four is forward-looking: retarget priorities, seasonal PR hooks, audit flags, and capacity notes. The report ends with open questions that need your answer before the next outreach batch ships.
Approval rules in practice
Approval is async by default. Your named lead receives a shared doc or ticket batch with target themes, sample publishers, and draft PR angles. Silence beyond the agreed window is treated as a schedule slip—we ping once, then pause outreach rather than guess.
Live link batches include context screenshots and highlight any anchor outside the brief. You approve, reject, or request edit per row. Rejected rows re-enter outreach or replacement workflow; they never appear as delivered in billing or client-facing decks.
Publisher blocklists update immediately. If legal adds a domain category mid-month, we stop contact there even if pitches were drafted. For agencies, each client brief carries its own blocklist so accounts never cross-contaminate.
What slows the process down
Slow approvers, missing product facts, and unclear anchor rules are the usual bottlenecks. We document them in monthly reports so process improvement is data-backed, not anecdotal. Adding a backup approver and pre-cleared claim snippets removes most delays within one cycle.
Niches with long journalist cycles—enterprise software, regulated finance—need timeline expectations set in step two. Pretending every account will land press in thirty days breaks trust; the process accounts for that with parallel lanes (reclaims, listicles) while slower editorial pitches mature.
Process at a glance
Process questions
How long does each step take?
Audit and planning usually take one to two weeks. Outreach runs ongoing; first live placements often appear in weeks three to six depending on niche and PR cadence.
What access do you need to start?
Search Console read access, your target page list, any prior disavow files, and brand or legal guidelines when pitches need pre-clearance.
Can we skip the audit?
Only when a recent third-party audit exists and you share it. We still sanity-check toxic risk before scaling outreach.
Who approves live links?
Your named lead approves batches async. Links outside the brief do not count as delivered until corrected or replaced.
What if a placement drops?
We monitor live URLs. If a link drops without cause within the agreed window, we pursue replacement or credit per contract.
Want a process you can explain in one slide?
Tell us about your team, approval paths and reporting audience. We reply within one business day.
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