Link development wasn't planned for, but it's something that will have to be done, since the client isn't and going by past experience in consulting situations it will be faster and easier to just do it myself than to check their choices out by email before adding outbounds or pursuing links.

This is an older "budget" client I'm working with again - the webmaster has done a nice job to begin with, I've worked with the site before and solved some problems for them in the past but I'm working with them on a monthly retainer now to work on getting rankings for their more competitive core keywords.

Yahoo will be a snap since it's a good site with a solid foundation, but for Google it's critical that some good inbounds and recips be developed. The question is, for a two hour a month consulting gig, which normally would not include any link work except to pull bad ones off, how much should be included, either numerically or time-wise? Or should the link work be tacked onto the two hours as an add-on instead?

Link development wasn't planned for, but it's something that will have to be done, since the client isn't and going by past experience in consulting situations it will be faster and easier to just do it myself than to check their choices out by email before adding outbounds or pursuing links.

This is an older "budget" client I'm working with again - the webmaster has done a nice job to begin with, I've worked with the site before and solved some problems for them in the past but I'm working with them on a monthly retainer now to work on getting rankings for their more competitive core keywords.

Yahoo will be a snap since it's a good site with a solid foundation, but for Google it's critical that some good inbounds and recips be developed. The question is, for a two hour a month consulting gig, which normally would not include any link work except to pull bad ones off, how much should be included, either numerically or time-wise? Or should the link work be tacked onto the two hours as an add-on instead?

The difference here is accountablity for quality assurance which means if it gets by them - 'it will not get by you'... assuring this means that for every 'link' is about 3 - 5 minutes of consulting work. Honestly, I doubt 2 hours per month would truly serve them unless the person dedicated to links isn't too dedicated over the month which truly means the strategy isn't likely to have an impact until some time in the distance future.

The best general strategy here [if time is at a premium] use that reoccurring budget for text link brokers at a level they can afford and slowly build over time... tacting your fee on as a percentage of the link fee.

The greatest value here is the fact that the broker 'is' the quality assurance party. e.g. no needed to review coding practices, robots.txt, cloaked pages etc. the broker does all this... the fact that the link broker is advertising the link means the quality is assured.

If the budget itself isn't a continuous budget - PPI [one time fees/yearly] is next best... either or with recip directories.

If you truly wish to consult - be the private link broker yourself requesting links from complementing websites for a fee -- as you are brokering the deal tact your fees on to this.