We’ve answered the 5 most common questions people ask a Digital PR agency and busted some of the myths about how Digital PR fits into your brand’s marketing strategy.
We did this with the help and expertise of Jodie Harris, our Head of Digital PR, and hope you find these definitions and tips helpful!
1. What is Digital PR?
Digital PR is a tactic used by brands to increase their online presence through building relationships with key content writers and online journalists to gain ‘press hits’, or citations, and high quality backlinks. Digital PR, when done properly, increases a brand’s reach and visibility and in turn has a positive effect on search engine visibility through effective onsite SEO, driving increased referral traffic.
Digital PR increases trust and credibility, conversion rates and ROI and brand equity, a concept that’s explained nicely in this PR Metrics infographic.
2. How to measure the success of Digital PR?
Effective Digital PR can be measured by annotating the PR hits in Google Analytics and measuring how much referral traffic has been gained from those Digital PR hits. By analysing and tracking how well the site’s landing pages rank for targeted keywords also assists in determining the success of a brand’s Digital PR strategy.
- Annotate your PR hits in Google Analytics to measure the spikes in referral traffic metric generated by PR hits. Also take note of increases in organic search traffic, as the keywords included in your PR pieces are likely to unlock even more traffic and conversions.
- Use the Google URL Builder to tag your PR campaign links. This allows you to get a view on bounce rate, conversion data and all other standard Google Analytics data and metrics.
- Use Open Site Explorer or similar tools (Majestic SEO) to monitor your website’s backlink profile. Effective Digital PR should result in your site gaining additional backlinks.
- Use SharedCount to track URL shares, likes, tweets and more, of your press hits to gauge the success of your hits and content on social media.
View The Power of Digital PR for SEO & Search Visibility for more information.
3. What makes a good PR hit?
A good PR hit is a hit within a site that has a high domain authority and that includes a natural link to the brand’s site with relevant brand anchor text included. The key to a great PR hit is to make sure that the reader is directed to something he/ she is expecting to see. How you pitch your content to online journalists is the key to getting your message conveyed in the way that you intend it to be received.
For a more in-depth analysis on what makes a high quality PR hit, refer to our blog: What Makes A Great PR Hit?
4. What is the difference between Digital PR and Traditional PR?
Traditional PR uses high circulation, readership, and viewer ratings to determine who to approach when selling in content to media houses and publishers. Even traditional PR’s who claim to ‘do digital’ still use this this method.
Digital PR doesn’t exclusively focus on the number of followers on social media sites and readers before approaching them. It also focuses on evaluating domain authority and non-paid opportunities for link citations. The success of Digital PR is, as a result, more measurable than Traditional PR.
5. How does Digital PR fit into my marketing strategy?
Digital PR should follow closely with your SEO and digital marketing strategies for maximum effect. However, Digital PR can strengthen weaker landing pages and increase the site traffic of slower moving stock – even if it does not directly follow your overall marketing objective. When used with SEO, Digital PR can take advantage of key search term trends and maximise coverage on what people are already searching for on the Internet.
