Link building

A link building strategy answers three questions before anyone sends a pitch: which pages need links, where competitors got theirs, and which tactics get the most links for the hours the team has. It hands back a 90-day plan, not a prospect list. Every tactic it picks ends the same way: a short list of sites, a person at each, and an address that works, by the shared outreach rules.

Connector check

This skill runs on the manifold MCP server. Before the first step, confirm that its tools are available: look for seo_get_referring_domains and seo_get_backlink_summary (hosts often add a prefix, for example mcp__manifold__seo_get_referring_domains).

• If no manifold tool is there, stop and tell the user: "This needs the Manifold connector. If you installed the Manifold plugin, connect Manifold on the plugin's Connectors tab (Customize > Plugins in Claude), run /mcp in Claude Code, or run codex mcp login manifold in Codex. Otherwise add the remote MCP server https://mcp.manifoldmcp.com/mcp and sign in: in Claude or ChatGPT as a custom connector, in Claude Code with claude mcp add --transport http manifold https://mcp.manifoldmcp.com/mcp and then /mcp. Other clients: https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/clients." Do not answer from memory instead.
• If the seo_* tools are there but the leads_* tools are not, the leads tool group is switched off on the app's Tools page (https://www.manifoldmcp.com/docs/authentication#turn-tool-groups-off). The plan needs no contacts; say so when a chosen tactic will.

Product context

Before the first question, look for the product marketing context file: .agents/product-marketing.md (in older setups .claude/product-marketing.md or product-marketing-context.md). If it exists, read it and take every input it answers (the site, the competitors and their domains, the ICP, the pages that need links, the team and the budget) from it; ask only for what it lacks. If it does not exist and the job needs more than two answers about the business, offer manifold-get-started first.

Inputs to settle first

Ask for these in one message. For anything the user does not answer, use the default and say that you assumed it.

• Goal: the pages that should rank (default: the pages from step 3 that rank 4 to 20) and what success means (default: more referring domains above the floor, and those pages on page one).
• Stage: a new site with almost no links, or an established one. seo_get_domain_overview in step 2 answers it if the user does not know.
• ICP: who buys, so the prospects are sites those people read.
• Budget: credits for the research (this skill costs about 140) and outreach hours per week. Default: 1,000 credits and 3 hours a week.
• Team: who writes and sends the pitches, and who can produce an asset worth linking to (a study, a free tool, a guide). Default: one founder, no designer.
• Competitors: two or three. Default: the top three from seo_get_serp_competitors that are real businesses, not publishers.
• Horizon: default 90 days.

Steps

1. Intake. Settle the inputs above and restate them in one short list, marking the defaults.
2. Baseline. Say the cost first: about 55 credits for the site and three competitors. Call seo_get_domain_overview on the site (5 credits) for domain rank, traffic and top pages; seo_get_backlink_summary on the site and on each competitor (10 credits each) for referring domains, dofollow share and broken backlinks; and seo_get_serp_competitors on the site (10 credits) only if the user named no competitors.
3. Gaps. About 85 credits more.
   • Link intersect: seo_get_referring_domains with limit: 300 on each competitor and on the site (15 credits each). Count the domains that link to at least two competitors and not to the site, and how many of them clear the floors.
   • What earns links: seo_get_backlinks with limit: 300 on the strongest competitor (15 credits). Group the rows by url_to and name the three pages that earn most links and what they are (a tool, a study, a list, the homepage).
   • Pages that need links: seo_get_ranked_keywords on the site (10 credits). Keep the pages ranking 4 to 20 for keywords with volume and commercial or transactional intent; links move those first.
   • Lost ground: broken_backlinks above zero in the baseline, or lost rows in the site's referring domains.
4. Tactics. Choose two or three, in this order of cost per link, and say why each fits the numbers:
   • reclaim-lost-links when the site has broken backlinks or lost referring domains: the cheapest links there are.
   • find-unlinked-mentions when the brand has press, reviews or guest appearances: the writer already chose to name it, so the ask is one line.
   • find-backlink-targets when the intersect has 30 or more domains above the floors.
   • find-best-of-lists when the category has "best X" or "X alternatives" keywords with listicles on page one.
   • find-affiliate-partners when competitor backlinks carry affiliate parameters or review sites rank for competitor names.
   • find-journalists for a media list and create-digital-pr-plan for a PR plan, when competitors' best links come from media and the team can produce a story.
5. Plan. A 30-60-90 day plan with an owner and a KPI per period, and three first actions for this week.
   • KPIs the tools can measure again later: referring domains and dofollow share (seo_get_backlink_summary), new referring domains above the floor (seo_get_referring_domains with lost), links to the target pages (seo_get_backlinks on each page), and the position of the target pages for their keywords (seo_get_position, 6 credits each).
   • Deliver one document: the inputs with defaults marked, a baseline table (site against each competitor: domain rank, referring domains, dofollow share, broken backlinks), the gaps in three lines each, the chosen tactics with the linked skill and why, the 30-60-90 table, and the three first actions.

Judgment

• Links move rankings over months, not weeks. The 30-day KPI is activity and links won; rank moves belong to the 90-day KPI.
• Set outreach volume from the hours the team has, not from the size of the prospect list. A short list of well-matched sites beats a long generic one.
• A competitor with far more referring domains but a similar domain rank has many weak links. Match the strong ones, not the count.
• A new site with a domain rank near zero passes the "above the site's own rank" test everywhere. Use the floor and relevance instead.
• If the strongest competitor pages are assets (a free tool, a data study), say that the plan needs one asset of that kind; outreach alone will not match them.
• Backlink data comes from an index that lags the live web by weeks. Say so when a KPI is re-measured within a month.
• The credits and handoff rules in outreach apply to every tactic: never send, post or buy links; the deliverable is a table.

Related skills

• Mentions and citations in AI answers (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews): build-ai-citations, which uses the same contact steps; the plan for them: create-ai-search-plan.
• Keywords, content and comparison pages: create-seo-plan and plan-comparison-pages. Crawls, traffic drops and migrations: audit-technical-seo, diagnose-traffic-drop, create-migration-plan.
• Who the real competitors are: find-competitors.
• People by job title at target companies, for sales rather than links: build-lead-list.
• Press for a launch: create-launch-plan. Creators to sponsor rather than pitch: find-creators. Podcasts to guest on: find-podcasts.