Cynthia Flash of Bellevue, Wash. writes this question in the Help This Hound section of the July 14, 2009 issue of “Craigslist: A Valuable Publicity Tool.”:
“I’m looking for a way to put a dollar value on web hits I get for my PR clients.
“For example, if a client is mentioned in a blog, is that worth anything in terms of dollar equivalents (like having an article appear in a newspaper)? If an online-only newspaper does a story about the client, how much is that worth? Certainly increased sales to the client is a great way to tell, but it’s difficult to know if that’s directly a result of the web publicity.
“Are PR people putting dollar values on web placements or is that only something reserved for traditional media? Thanks for the continued discussion.”
(If you need help with your own publicity problem or another issue related to publicity, email it to me, and it may appear at this blog, where my readers can help you.)
nclude a specific tracking code within that link and your clients should be able to know exactly If you do an excellent job (the proverbial extra mile traversed) the results will come to you manyfold.
Unless there’s a time limit or special order code, it’s difficult to tie in the web article to sales. However, it’s essential that PR experts quantify the value of their work for clients. Research web views for websites to determine if these sites are worth pursuing for clients. Religiously do this as much as you would check out circulation for hard copy media outlets, and make sure the demographics (target audience) match with the client’s needs.
Think of the service you provide to your clients rather than the benefit you could obtain from them. If you do an excellent job (the proverbial extra mile traversed) the results will come to you manyfold.
The best way to track and quantify results from online promotions is to make sure the blog owners or online newspaper publishers place a link to the client’s site within the story they are publishing. Include a specific tracking code within that link and your clients should be able to know exactly how much traffic those metions are receiving and what the visitors are doing on their sites such as browsing or converting to sales.
If they’re not putting a dollar amount on links now, they will be in the future. To ignore the power of a well positioned link is ignorance, and without a doubt will control the future of online business.
I don’t think you can put a dollar amount on a link. I think the more links you have, the better you will rank in search engines, and how do you quantify the value of that?
I personally believe that you should be tracking all links as the internet is one of the very few mediums that you can actually track your online promotional efforts right down to the cent!
The classic quote is “…50% of your advertising budget is wasted but no-one knows which 50%!”
I think Grant hit the nail on the head. It should be easier to quantify your online promotional efforts compared to most offline media.
Links are great but I just being doing some research for a client and the No.1 ranked site for their target keyword has only 2 backlinks to their 1 page domain!!
I can only figure is its because they have the keyword in their domain name!!
Just as a further note to my last comment about the keyword in the URL, you should theoretically still be able to compete by say having a blog post with keyword which should then show up in the URL. Then all things being equal if your site is a more authoritative site with more quality backlinks you should do better!