digital-pr
9 Ways to Measure Digital PR
Published: 18/08/21 - Updated: 25/04/24
MEASURING DPR IMPACT
Digital PR has many benefits for businesses, including; increasing brand awareness, helping boost ranking on SERPs and providing interesting, insightful information for current and potential customers. As a result, it can be challenging to create KPI’s and measure the impact of your Digital PR efforts.
Below I’ve detailed nine key areas that will help explore the tangible impact Digital PR has on your brand and website, including measuring authority, relevance and social shares.
So, why is it important to measure campaign performance and impact?
It means that you can actually see – in numbers – the impact of Digital PR. However, it’s essential to keep in mind your primary goal. A proficient PR agency will be KPI’d by this and reports on these KPIs, alongside the other aspects and benefits they provide.
Here at Kaizen, we built a monitoring and reporting tool called Klipr. By inputting our client’s Google Analytics, we can show the number of links – follow, no-follow and syndicated – as well as the number of social shares each piece receives and the number of sessions a particular campaign has driven.
These are nine key areas that can be measured and KPI’d when it comes to Digital PR:
1. Follow links
Currently, there’s a big debate within the Digital PR industry when it comes to this topic. Follow links are often seen as the “holy grail” and are one of the best ways to help improve SEO rankings. However, some people suggest that being KPI’d solely on Follow Links is outdated (more about this later!), although it’s still important for them to be monitored and reported on.
2. No-Follow Links
It’s important not to forget about the impact a no-follow link can have. Our Head of Creative, Sarah Fleming, conducted an experiment where a site with just no-follow links out-ranked a near-identical site with only follow links. Find out more about the experiment and results here.
3. Brand Mentions
Brand mentions may not have a large impact on SEO rankings, but Google still sees these as a hint towards your brand and site. They’re also a great way of getting potential customers to read and see your brand. A Harvard Professor suggests 95% of purchasing decisions are subconscious, meaning the more customers read, see and hear about your brand, the more likely they are to use it.
4. Publications
Everyone will have dream publications you’d love to see your brand in. Make sure you tell your Digital PR team this, and they’ll be able to curate content specifically targeted for these outlets. Content ideas will need to be adapted depending on the market and topic of these publications. For example, a great idea focussed on business is unlikely to land coverage in your dream lifestyle publications.
5. Authority
The higher the domain rating of a linking website, the more impact it will have on yours. However, getting links from sites with a high domain rating (DR) can be challenging. You also need to be careful that you’re not relying on lower-tiered websites to get your links. Each agency and client will treat this slightly differently, so it’s vital to ensure your goals are the same.
6. Traffic
If you are an eCommerce site, the ultimate aim of any type of marketing is to drive traffic and potential sales. By using Google Analytics, you will be able to analyse and see the amount of traffic each piece of coverage, and link, has brought you.
7. Topical Trust Flow Score
Google is wanting to ensure that links going back to sites and pages are as relevant as possible. The more relevant the link, the more impact it will have on your site and its ranking. If you are a finance company, having links from super relevant publications, such as The Financial Times, will ensure Google recognises your site for what it is.
8. Target Keyword Rankings
If you engage in Digital PR to help improve the rankings of specific keywords, this KPI speaks for itself. However, it’s important not to expect to say, “we want to be ranking first for these keywords”. SEO is a slow-burn activity, and your rankings will naturally improve over time, so there’s no quick fix. So long as rankings improve, it means that your Digital PR has a positive impact on your site and that your goal will become achievable over time.
9. Social Shares
If you want your content to go viral, as Susan did for our client Directly Apply, social shares are a great way to measure this. It means that you’ve got your target audience talking, and the content is relatable – what’s not to love!
Do you have any questions about how we measure our impact on clients? Get in touch!
Charlotte Crowther
Charlotte is our Digital PR Manager and works on some of our largest accounts. With 4+ years of experience working in both traditional and Digital PR, Charlotte has heaps of knowledge and is always eager to share at conferences and training days.