Worked example
A content backlinks report for the end of the quarter
You shipped twenty pages and bought links for six. Here is how to report on that without claiming more than the data can show.
Start from the calendar, not from the links
A report that begins with link counts answers the wrong question. Start with pages. For each page that carried a placement, record the publish date, the order date and the live date.
Then add what Google Search Console shows: impressions, clicks and average position for the page, four weeks before and four weeks after the first placement. Keep the window the same for pages that had no links, so you have a control group of sorts.
It is not proof. It is a pattern, and you should say so on the slide.
Name the pages in the same order as your calendar, so the head of marketing can find them in the same place as the publish plan. Matching the structure saves ten minutes of explanation per meeting, and the calendar plan already gives you the row names.
Worked example: one quarter, invented numbers
| Page group | Pages | Placements | Clicks change, 4 weeks vs 4 weeks | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pillar guides | 3 | 9 | Up 22% in this example | $420 |
| Supporting posts | 9 | 6 | Up 8% in this example | $65 |
| No placements | 8 | 0 | Up 5% in this example | $0 |
How to read a table like that
Look at the third row first. If pages with no links also grew by 5%, part of the other growth is seasonality, a refresh, or a core update. Only the gap above 5% is even a candidate for the links.
Cost per placement in the example is $420 over 9 and $65 over 6, which is about $47 and $11. The averages hide that the pillar pages used higher-authority donors.
Keep the claim modest: the pages that received links grew faster in this sample. Nothing more.
The three-slide version
- 1
Slide one: what we published
Pages by group, with publish dates. Nothing about links yet.
- 2
Slide two: what we ordered
The orders list, cost, content mode, and live dates. Total spend against the budget you set in the quarterly plan.
- 3
Slide three: what moved, and what did not
The before and after table with the control group, one sentence on updates inside the window, and the recommendation for the next quarter.
Questions to expect in the room
Someone will ask why the numbers are modest. Answer plainly. Search takes time, a quarter is short, and one page's lift in a window is a weak signal.
Someone else will ask whether to buy more. Fair. That depends on whether the pillar group pulled ahead of the control group by more than noise, and on whether the budget exists. A single quarter rarely decides it either way; two or three quarters of the same table start to tell you something.
If a Google core update ran inside the window, such as the one in March 2024, say so on the slide and mark the affected weeks. Honest footnotes build more trust than a clean chart.
What goes in the appendix
- The orders list exported on the last working day
- Live URL, anchor and target for each placement
- Content mode used (automatic, prompt, own article)
- Any core or spam update inside the window, with its month
- Pages deliberately left without links, and why
Search Console cannot say which link moved which page. Third-party tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush show referring domains but index on their own schedule. Treat both as evidence, never as a verdict.