Launch week
The link building checklist for launch week, in the order we would run it
Twelve checks, grouped by the day you can finish them. None of them costs money until the last group.
The rule behind the list
Nothing outside the site until the inside is tidy
Links point visitors at a URL. If that URL loads slowly or hides the price, you pay for traffic that bounces. So the first items are free and happen on your own domain.
- Days 1 and 2: the pages
- Day 3: tracking
- Days 4 and 5: free asks
- Day 6: a small paid test
Days 1 and 2: the pages that will receive links
- Name the three URLs that deserve links: home, pricing and one comparison or use-case page.
- Give each URL one job and one keyword. If you cannot say it in a sentence, the page is not ready.
- Load each page on a mid-range phone over mobile data. Anything slower than three seconds gets fixed first.
- Put the price on the pricing page, even if it is only a range. Visitors who sense a trick leave.
Day 3: set up the numbers you will read later
| Tool | Question it answers | How often you look |
|---|---|---|
| Search Console | Which queries show your pages, and at what position | Weekly |
| Your analytics | Do visitors from a new link sign up or leave | Weekly |
| A plain spreadsheet | Which link went to which URL, on what date, for how much | Every order |
A sample Monday to Saturday (hypothetical)
Picture a founder shipping a scheduling tool on a Monday. A small one. Monday and Tuesday go to the pricing page and a comparison with one bigger rival. Wednesday is for connecting Search Console and writing the first spreadsheet row.
Thursday and Friday belong to free asks: two integration partners and one launch platform. Saturday is a quiet day for the paid test, if at all. The calendar is invented. The order is the point.
Skipping ahead is the usual mistake, and it costs real money.
Days 4 and 5: the free asks
Free first. Write to the founders of two or three tools you integrate with and ask whether they list integrations. Submit the product to the launch platforms your buyers actually read, and see the directory guide for which ones deserve an afternoon.
Expect little here. Rankings are not the point. Many directory links carry a nofollow attribute, and a few of them are crawled slowly or not at all. Still, they confirm your name exists on the web, and a few send real visitors the week you launch.
One honest point about timing: Google needs days or weeks to crawl and weigh a new link, so judging on day six tells you nothing. Log the date and move on.
Day 6: a small paid test, if the earlier items are done
- 1
Cap the budget
Pick a number you can lose without pausing hosting or a hire. Many founders choose less than the price of a month of one SaaS tool.
- 2
Choose one target URL
Usually the comparison page. Our teardown of comparison pages shows what to fix first.
- 3
Add two or three rows to the basket
Look for relevant niche, readable traffic and a price well under your cap. Read how the first order runs.
- 4
Write the review date in the spreadsheet
Six weeks out, not sooner.
Skip bulk submissions to hundreds of directories, skip any package that promises a number of links by Friday, and skip rewriting the home page for the third time. Each feels like progress. None of them moves a visitor closer to paying. Google's March 2024 core update and its spam policies went after mass-produced pages, so volume for its own sake is a poor habit to start with.