Digital PR is one of the most effective ways to earn backlinks and boost brand authority.
However, many are treating digital PR as just another SEO commodity, which puts its true potential at risk.
This article highlights why focusing only on cost-per-link damages digital PR.
We’ll explore how you can leverage digital PR more effectively, going beyond link acquisition to provide genuine value for your brand.
Cost per link is hurting the market
Digital PR has evolved into an essential SEO strategy that builds brand authority, boosts organic traffic and improves search rankings.
With a strong digital PR campaign, you get quality backlinks, brand mentions and improved trust, visibility and growth.
However, focusing on “cost per link” has damaged the market.
Agencies selling fixed link packages have become popular as they offer predictable, low-cost results.
While fixed link packages promise predictability, they come with significant downsides.
It reduces digital PR to a numbers game, sacrificing creativity, scale and, ultimately, higher rankings.
Why hunting link ROI is awful for SEO
ROI is an awful word. The issue isn’t with tracking numbers itself. The problem is that it means different things to different people.
You need to be clear about its definition and context to avoid misunderstandings.
ROI is an efficiency metric, not an effectiveness one.
When SEOs focus on cost per link, they believe they are increasing the value they gain from digital PR.
In reality, they are reducing the value they gain from digital PR, causing the industry to race to the bottom.
Let me explain.
As an SEO, you want more links and brand mentions. We can all agree on this.
Digital PR offers this. It’s a service that generates brand publicity and backlinks, often based on data, creativity, expert commentary and stories.
So, naturally, bigger brands with larger budgets were the first to enter the digital PR world.
As the success stories emerged, others wanted digital PR for their brands, and the industry grew.
However, for many SEOs, the cost of digital PR was too high, and the retainer contracts were too long.
Additionally, many SEOs still live under the page rank ideology of follow/no-follow link values.
Naturally, it was only a matter of time before lower-priced digital PR emerged and today, fixed-price link packages are becoming the norm.
Buy 10 links for “X” fee.
The problem with this approach is that it places the efficiency of digital PR before the effectiveness.
Dig deeper: How SEO and digital PR can drive maximum brand visibility
Obsession with do-follow links hurts creativity
Efficient digital PR competes with effective digital PR.
If digital PR aims to generate as many links and brand mentions as possible within a given time frame, focusing on cost per link will naturally mean that agencies reduce their waste and risk.
Think about this logically.
A focus on low cost per link is you asking for more links at a lower price.
You get more links from the same budget and the digital pr agency agreeing to this before they do any work.
And it’s here that digital PR finds itself: on a path of commoditization and a race to the bottom.
But does this make any sense? Not really.
Backlinks are important. No one is saying otherwise. But arguably, brand mentions are even more critical.
As a byproduct of digital PR, you usually gain a brand mention with every link.
You also gain brand mentions without links. Yet, cost per link never discusses this.
This is a key mistake by SEOs.
It’s long been known that Google can parse every sentence on the web, ignore the waffle and see where brands are being cited.
Equally, we know that most “guest posts” use keyword-focused anchor text, not brand mentions.
It doesn’t take a Google engineer to see how powerful a brand citation can be in a relevant and high-authority article, link or not.
This flies in the face of cost per link.
If you’re going to judge digital PR, we need to focus on the effectiveness of digital PR as a whole, not a single part.
Digital PR effectiveness vs. efficiency
Digital PR should be based on effectiveness first, followed by efficiency.
As we know, digital PR aims to increase the volume of high-quality links and brand mentions.
We should judge digital PR contracts based on their effectiveness in this task.
Efficiency is a secondary metric when looking at digital PR success.
This creates a massive issue for SEO and digital PR. When you focus on efficiency first, you set the digital PR market to reduce what you want.
More links and brand mentions.
You’re telling the digital PR market to minimize risk and not to focus on reach.
Because, like it or not, links and brand mention volume come from creative thinking. And that takes time and skill.
Efficiency turns digital PR into a product rather than a service.
Agencies are already “on the hook” for more links and can’t afford to waste outreach on ideas that might lead to massive results.
But as an SEO, you’re trying to get value for money.
You want to reduce the risks to your budget and career.
However, the secret lies in measuring digital PR differently.
Dig deeper: How to use digital PR to drive backlinks and business growth