Using LinkAssistant

Working with Reports

Table of Contents

• Generating Reports
• Managing Report Templates
• Creating a New Report Template
• Editing Report Templates
• Removing Report Templates
• Quicksaving Reports to Your Hard Drive
• Publishing Your Report
• Creating a New Publishing Profile
• Saving Reports Locally on Your Hard Drive
• Sending Reports via E–mail
• Uploading Reports onto a Website via FTP
• Editing Publishing Profiles

Generating Reports

LinkAssistant has advanced reporting tools that let you quickly create customizable link building reports. Generating a report is easy. Simply click the Report tab and LinkAssistant will automatically create a link building report based on the project data.

Generating a Report

Note: If you haven't filled out the company profile you'll be offered to do it before generating the report. Although this is optional, it is recommended to fill out your Company Profile because this info is used in the report.

The structure and design of the report as well as the data it contains are determined by the active Report Template. There are a number of ready–made report templates you can select from the dropdown in the upper right–hand corner.

Selecting Report Template

You have the following predefined report templates at your disposal:

• Link Building Report
  
  This report template lets you analyze the progress of your link building campaign over time: you get the data on the number of your links you acquired and the link value they pass; you get to know who your best link partners are and, what's even more important, you can see the changes in the PR, Alexa and other ranking factors of your own website.
  
  
• Backlink Anchors Report
  
  If you choose this template you'll get a report on the anchor texts and URLs your link partners use when linking to you. You can see how many partners link to you with each anchor text, and from what pages, get to know to which pages on your website they link, as well as learn how many partners link to you with the right anchor texts and URLs and how many of them use the wrong anchor parameters.
  
  
• Partner Management Report
  
  This is a report on your link partners. It gives you an overview of how many partners you have at the moment as well as gives you the dynamics of how many link partnerships you've managed to establish over the past week, month and year. The report shows the results of the last link verification check. You can see how many partners (in figures and percent) are linking back to you, how many partners you have for each partner status, as well as get the exact pages you link to and are linked back from.
  
  
• Link Directory Report
  
  This is a report on your link directory, i.e. who you link to. The report shows you the dynamics of your outgoing links (how many you have, how many you've put up last week, last month and so on). You can see what categories you have in your link directory and how many partners there are in each category as well the exact URLs you link to with their Google PR and Alexa rank.
  
  
• In–House Link Building Report/Backlink Anchors Report
  
  These two reports were designed for in–house use by SEO companies and for self reference, they are created with a no–comment approach and contain a laconic presentation of your link building stats.

Managing Report Templates

The reports are fully customizable. LinkAssistant allows you to configure the look and feel of the reports you generate as well as the data they contain. You can change the color scheme, add your company name and logo, specify your customer name and choose what sections to include into the report.

You can do this by managing the report templates in Preferences > Report Templates.

Manage Report Templates window

Note: You can use the Templates button for quick access to the Report Templates settings.

Templates Button

You instantly get to the Report Templates Preferences where you can edit the existing templates as well as create new ones. Use the Move Up/Down buttons to change the order in which the reports appear in the dropdown selection menu. Press Delete to remove the selected report template.

Creating a New Report Template

If you wish to create a new template from scratch, please go to Preferences > Report Templates press Add and the Wizard will guide you through the process of creating a template.

Step 1: Choose Report Type

You need to choose what type of report you want to create. You can find detailed description of each report type here.

Creating A New Report Template: Choose Report Type

Step 2: Choose Report Sections

In this step you select what sections you want to include into the report.

Creating A New Report Template: Choose Report Sections

Step 3: Color and Font Styles

Here you can pick the style and color scheme of the report to your liking. Preview is available.

Creating A New Report Template: Color and Font Styles

Step 5: Choose Report Template Name and Title

You can specify report template's title and name. The title you type in will be displayed in the title bar of the browser. As for the template name, we suggest you pick a descriptive one so that you can easily remember what this report template does and find it quickly, e.g. "In–House Partners Report (Green)". Press Finish and the program will get you back to the list of templates.

Creating A New Report Template: Choose Report Template Name and Title

The report template you created is now available in the dropdown menu in the Report tab.

Editing Report Templates

LinkAssistant allows editing of the HTML code of the report templates. To do this go to Preferences > Report Templates, select the template that you want to edit and press Edit. You'll get access to the HTML code of the template with preview available.

Editing Report Templates

Removing Report Templates

To remove a report template, go to Preferences > Report Templates, select the template that you want to remove and press Remove.

Quick–Saving Reports to Your Local Hard Drive (Enterprise version only)

The Quick Save button saves your report to the local hard drive with two saving options available: as an HTML or as a PDF document. Choose HTML if you want to be able to view your report in a web browser, or PDF if you want it to be available for print–out.

Quick–Saving Reports

Specify the destination folder and press Save.

Publishing Your Report (Enterprise version only)

After your report has been generated, you may wish to e–mail it to a customer, save it or publish it online so that it becomes available outside LinkAssistant. The generated report can be converted into an HTML or a PDF document. You can save it to your local hard drive, send via e–mail, or upload it to a website via FTP. In the software all these actions are referred to as publishing.

Click Publish to start the publishing process.

Publishing a Report

First of all you'll need to create a publishing profile. A Publishing Profile is a set of configurable parameters that stores all your publishing settings. Once you've configured the publishing profile(s) you can use it to quickly save, email or upload reports with your preferred settings.

When publishing a report for the first time, LinkAssistant will offer you to create a publishing profile automatically.

Creating a New Publishing Profile

Publishing profiles are managed in Preferences –>Publishing Profiles.

You can create new profiles using the Add button. Upon completion of all steps, the profile you configured will be saved so that you can use it to publish any report later on.

Upon pressing Add, you will see a Wizard that will guide you through the process of creating a new profile.

Creating A New Publishing Profile

Note: When publishing a report for the first time the wizard starts automatically.

Step 1: Enter Your Company Information

If you haven't filled in your company profile yet, the wizard will offer you to do this. The information about your company you specify here will be displayed in all reports generated within that project.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Enter Your Company Information

Note: If your company profile is already filled, the wizard will start with the second step.

Step 2: Choose Preferred Report Format

Here you can choose to generate the report in the HTML format which can be later published on the web, or you can opt for the Adobe PDF format if you plan to print out or email the report.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Preferred Report Format

Step 3: Choose Preferred Report Delivery Option

There are three options of report delivery: it can be saved to your hard drive, sent via e–mail or uploaded to a website. Select the option you need and click Next.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Preferred Report Delivery Option

Depending on what report delivery option you choose the Wizard will take you in the corresponding direction:

Below are help guidelines for each delivery option. Click [expand] next to the option you are interested in.

• Save report locally on my hard drive [expand][click to hide]

If you check this option the Wizard will suggest you to do the following.

Step 4: Choose Report Destination

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Report Destination

Create a separate folder for each customer
This option allows you to save reports to separate folders named with your customers' names (the name can be edited in the Customer Profile)

Create a separate folder for each of your customer's websites
This option allows you to save reports to separate folders named with the names of your customers' websites.

Create a separate folder using the current date
If checked, this option will create folder names based on the current date.

Press Next to continue.

Step 5: Choose Your Report File Name

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Your Report File Name

Add prefix
We suggest that you type a prefix that is descriptive and helps you easily find your project. For instance, Link management report.

Append customer's name
This option will append your customer's name to the filename of your report (the customer name can be edited in the Customer Profile).

Append customer's website address
Check this box if you want to append the name of the customer's website to the filename of the report.

Append current date
If checked, this option will append current date to your report's name.

Zip the report
If checked, this option will compress the report using ZIP compression.

Press Next to proceed to the next step.

Step 5: Choose Publishing Profile Name

Choose a name for the publishing profile. Use a descriptive name so that you can easily remember what this profile does, e.g. "Profile for creating PDFs". You'll be able to see this profile name in the list of profiles at Preferences > Publishing profiles.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Publishing Profile Name

Whenever you publish your reports in future you can quickly choose from the list of available publishing profiles so that you don't have to go through this set–up process every time. You can also edit this profile later on to change the destination folder for instance.

Press finish and the report will be saved.

• Send report via e–mail [expand][click to hide]

If you check this option the Wizard will suggest you to do the following.

Step 4: Configure Mail Settings

In this step you need to enter your e–mail and password so that LinkAssistant can access your email box.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Configure Mail Settings

Note: Check the box Configure advanced settings if you want to configure SMTP settings manually or leave the box unchecked if you want LinkAssistant to attempt configuring it automatically.

Step 5: Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Settings (if not configured automatically)

Give your mail server settings (if you're unsure how to do this, contact your system administrator or turn for help to our support desk)

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Settings

Step 6: Create Mail Message

Here you can edit the body of the e–mail that will be sent. You can switch between the Code and Preview tabs to edit the HTML code of the message and see what it will look like in the email.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Create Mail Message

Note: To change the 'To' field go to Preferences –> Customer Profile

Step 7: Choose Your Report File Name

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Your Report File Name

Add prefix
We suggest that you type a prefix that would be descriptive and will help you easily find your report later, for example, Link Building Report.

Append customer's name
This option will append your customer's name to the filename of your report (the name can be edited in the Customer Profile).

Append customer's website address
Check this box if you want to append the name of the customer's website to the filename of the report.

Append current date
If checked, this option will append current date to your report's name.

Zip the report
If checked, this option will compress the report using ZIP compression.

Press Next to proceed to the next step.

Step 7: Choose Publishing Profile Name

Choose a name for the publishing profile. Use a descriptive name so that you can easily remember what this profile does, e.g. "Profile for sending emails". You'll be able to see this profile name in the list of profiles at Preferences > Publishing profiles.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Publishing Profile Name

From now on as you publish your reports you'll be able to quickly pick a publishing profile so that you don't have to go through the set–up process every time. You can also edit this profile later on.

Press Finish to create the publishing profile.

• Upload report onto a website via FTP [expand][click to hide]

If you check this option the Wizard will suggest you to do the following.

Step 4: Configure FTP Settings

Enter your FTP server address. Example of an FTP server is ftp.your-domain.com

Enter Username (the login name you use to connect to your FTP server).

Enter the Password you use to connect to your FTP server.

If unsure contact your webmaster or site admin.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Configure FTP Settings

If you choose to Configure advanced settings, you will be guided to enter FTP Server Settings

Next Step (optional): FTP Server Settings

Please specify your FTP settings, so that LinkAssistant can upload reports and make them available online.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: FTP Server Settings

Generally, FTP (standard File Transfer Protocol) is used. Default server port is 21. Try these standard settings. If they do not apply to your server you should consult your system administrator.

Choose to Use passive FTP if you are behind a firewall.

Press Next to continue.

Step 5: Choose A Directory for Your Report

Choose a directory for LinkAssistant to upload reports to.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose A Directory for Your Report

First make sure the right folder is marked as the web root (the name of the folder is bolded). Web root is the folder on your web server which is accessed as the homepage online, in other words this is the folder where all your web pages that are publicly available online are stored.

Then select the folder you want to upload the report to.

Once you specify the directory, below you will see the Web address at which the published files will appear.

Press Next to go ahead.

Step 6: Choose Your Report File Name

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Your Report File Name

Add prefix
We suggest that you type a prefix that would be descriptive and will help you easily find your project later. For instance, Backlink_Report.

Append customer's name
This option will append your customer's name to the filename of your report (the name can be edited in the Customer Profile).

Append customer's website address
Check this box if you want to append the name of the customer's website to the filename of the report.

Append current date
If checked, this option will append current date to your report's name.

Zip the report
If checked, this option will compress the report using ZIP compression.

Press Next to proceed to the next step.

Step 6: Choose Publishing Profile Name

Choose a name for the publishing profile. Use a descriptive name so that you can easily remember what this profile does, e.g. "Profile for uploading via FTP". You'll be able to see this profile name in the list of profiles at Preferences > Publishing profiles.

Creating A New Publishing Profile: Choose Publishing Profile Name

You've created a publishing profile. From now on every time you publish your reports you'll be able to quickly choose from the list of available publishing profiles so that you don't have to go through the set–up process. You can also edit this profile later on.

Press Finish to save the publishing profile.

Next Step: Choose Publishing Profile

In this step you select the publishing profile you need and click Next. LinkAssistant will automatically save, send or publish your report according to the settings you configured in the profile.

Publishing Report: Choose Publishing Profile

Note: You can select several profiles at a time, for instance to send, save and publish your report.

Editing Publishing Profiles

You can edit the existing publishing profiles any time in Preferences > Publishing Profiles. Simply select the profile you need with your mouse and click Edit.

Editing Publishing Profiles

Use the menu in the upper left hand corner to change the profile's Name, Report Type, Delivery Option and Report File Settings. Press Ok to save or Cancel to discard the changes.

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