How to integrate backlinks into your PR strategy

In measuring the success of PR campaigns, our industry should take new thought. We should use data to prove our importance.

PR pros must show how our ideas and tenacity generate awareness, but also unify and augment the work of marketing, sales and product development.

I have a background in search engine marketing, so I’ve been expected to use data to optimize campaigns throughout my career.

By digging deep into the huge link data, I’ve found many use cases for PR pros.

Here’s why communicators should consider links a vital metric when they report on their campaigns:

1. Links are a form of citation.

When I started talking about link data as a metric a couple of years ago, one PR exec said, “All my client wants is a mention in The Wall Street Journal.” A brand mention is great, but what if a journalist decides to link to your company site but doesn’t mention your brand name? Isn’t linking to the business from an authoritative site a mention? I suggest it is.

1. Links help track the halo effect.

The vast majority of coverage reports from in-house PR teams talk about mentions. In the reports, the publications where mentions occur are ranked in order of the amount visitors they say they get. We’ve shown that the power link data have to tell a more complete story about the success of PR is to run link reports on those articles to see how many other publications ran stories on that breaking news.

If The New York Times runs an article mentioning your company, understanding what sites subsequently link to it is a metric that shows how your campaign is permeating the web. Even if the subsequent stories don’t mention your brand, they will still send traffic to the NYT story where your brand does appear!

1. Links increase your discoverability.

It’s easy to forget that the World Wide Web weaves billions of links. Links are important in PR campaigns because they spur traffic but they also boost authority and trust in search engines like Google and Bing.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vitally important to brands wanting to be more discoverable, shareable and memorable. Websites appear in search results ranked by relevant keywords. One of the most important ranking factors for any keyword is the number of quality links the site gets. The more links to quality websites, the more likely search engines will treat that page or site with the respect it deserves.

More and more traditional PR agencies are getting into digital. They need to up their game in reporting and metrics. Smart reporting of backlink data is a way of telling the complete story about a campaign and a crucial part of proving worth and return on investment.

Mel Carson is the founder of Delightful Communications , a Seattle marketing, social-media, PR and personal-branding consulting agency. He’s a keynote speaker and author of Introduction to Personal Branding . Follow him on Twitter: @MelCarson and LinkedIn.

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