These guides are for owners who want to understand referral partnerships well enough to run them, whether or not they ever hire us. Each one is long, specific and built around worked examples you can redo with your own numbers. They reflect our position as a marketing and consulting service: we explain the business side, link the public guidance, and leave legal questions to lawyers and regulators.
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Partner links and Google: why referrals aren't an SEO tactic
Don't trade website links with referral partners to improve rankings. Google's spam policies treat link exchanges and links bought or traded for ranking as link spam. Link to a partner only when it genuinely helps a customer, and send referred customers to you through tracking numbers and referral pages instead.
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What a referral partner is actually worth
A partner's value comes down to four numbers: referred enquiries a year, close rate, average job value and gross margin. Multiply them, compare the result with what paid enquiries cost, and you'll know how much time and money the relationship deserves.
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Putting referral terms in writing
A one-page referral agreement settles who refers what, how fast each side responds, what changes hands and how the customer is told. Write it in plain language, disclose any connection prominently, keep reviews and links out of it, and have a lawyer review it.
1. What a referral partner is actually worth
Most owners either overvalue a partner who sends lots of small jobs or undervalue one who sends a few large ones. This guide shows how to calculate a partner's annual value from four numbers, how to compare referred work with paid enquiries, and how to decide what you can sensibly offer in return, if anything. It includes a worksheet you can fill in from your job records in under an hour.
What you'll learn:
- the four figures that decide a partner's value
- why close rate matters more than enquiry count
- how to set a ceiling on any thank-you or fee
- when a partnership is costing you more than it brings
2. Putting referral terms in writing
Handshake arrangements are fragile, and customers deserve to know when there's something behind a recommendation. This guide walks through the clauses a plain-language referral agreement usually covers, how to write a disclosure customers actually notice, and what Canada's Competition Bureau has said about connections between promoters and businesses. It ends with templates and a checklist to take to your lawyer.
What you'll learn:
- the eight things a one-page agreement should settle
- how to word a disclosure in one plain sentence
- why reviews should never be part of a referral deal
- the questions to ask if you're in a regulated profession
3. Partner links and Google
The moment two businesses agree to refer each other, someone suggests swapping website links "for SEO". This guide explains why that's a bad idea under Google's spam policies, what a legitimate partner link looks like, and how to give partners a way to send customers to you that has nothing to do with rankings. It's the guide to share with a partner who asks for a link.
What you'll learn:
- what Google classes as link spam, in plain words
- the difference between a helpful link and a traded one
- when a sponsored or nofollow marker is needed
- better ways to send referred customers to your site
How to use the guides with your team
Referral partnerships often rest on one person, usually the owner. If someone else answers your phone or prepares quotes, ask them to read the second guide. The disclosure line and the intake question about who recommended you only work if everyone uses them.
A practical sequence:
- Pull the last six months of jobs and run the numbers from guide one.
- List the partners who matter and draft terms using guide two.
- Before publishing any partner page, check it against guide three.
What the guides deliberately leave out
You won't find advice here on referral-fee rules for specific professions, because those change and differ by regulator. You also won't find tactics for collecting reviews from partners, building link networks, or joining paid lead-sharing schemes. We think each of those undermines the trust that makes a referral worth having. Where a guide touches on law or public policy, it links the official source and dates the summary, so you can check whether anything has changed since.
Where the guides connect to our services
Each guide stands on its own. If you'd like help putting one into practice, the matching services are program design, written referral terms, and referral landing pages. The FAQ answers shorter questions, and the contact page explains how to reach us by call, text or email.
Frequently asked questions
Who are these guides written for?
Owners and managers of trades, home-service firms and small professional practices in Metro Vancouver. You don't need any marketing background to use them.
Are the guides legal advice?
No. They explain business practice and summarise public guidance, with links to the sources. For anything involving a contract or professional rules, speak to a lawyer or your regulator.
Which guide should I read first?
Start with the guide on what a referral partner is worth. If the numbers suggest partnerships matter for you, the other two show how to set them up properly.